The Ismā‘īlia movement then is one aspect of the persistent battle[57:1] which the intellectually independent Persian waged against the religious and political ideals of Islam. Originally a branch of the Shī‘ite religion, the Ismā‘īlia sect assumed quite a cosmopolitan character with ‘Abdulla ibn Maimūn--the probable progenitor of the Fātimid Caliphs of Egypt--who died about the same time when Al-As̱ẖ‘arī, the great opponent of Freethought, was born. This curious man imagined a vast scheme in which he weaved together innumerable threads of various hues, resulting in a cleverly constructed equivocation, charming to the Persian mind for its mysterious character and misty Pythagorean Philosophy. Like the Association of the Brethren of Purity, he made an attempt, under the pious cloak of the doctrine of Imāmat (Authority), to synthesise all the dominating ideas of the time. Greek Philosophy, Christianity, Rationalism, Sūfīism, Manichaeism, Persian heresies, and above all the idea of reincarnation, all came forward to contribute their respective shares to the boldly conceived Ismā‘īlian whole, the various aspects of which were to be gradually revealed to the initiated, by the "Leader"--the ever Incarnating Universal Reason--according to the intellectual development of the age in which he incarnated himself. In the Ismā‘īlian movement, Freethought, apprehending the collapse of its ever widening structure, seeks to rest upon a stable basis, and, by a strange irony of fate, is led to find it in the very idea which is revolting to its whole being. Barren authority, though still apt to reassert herself at times, adopts this unclaimed child, and thus permits herself to assimilate all knowledge past, present and future. [57:1] Ibn Ḥazm in his Kitāb al-Milal, looks upon the heretical sects of Persia as a continuous struggle against the Arab power which the cunning Persian attempted to shake off by these peaceful means. See Von Kremer's Geschichte der herrschenden Ideen des Islams, pp. 10, 11, where this learned Arab historian of Cordova is quoted at length.