The fate of the Karmathites, like that of the followers of Babek, was a bloody lesson to those initiated into the secret doctrines of Abdallah, the son of Maimun-Kaddah, not to propagate them otherwise than covertly until they should be masters of the throne itself. At length, one of their most zealous and active partisans, the Dai Abdollah, a pretended descendant of Mohammed, the son of Ismail, succeeded in escaping from the dungeons of Sejelmessa, in which he had been confined by order of the Khalif Motadhad, and seated himself on the throne in Africa, under the name of Obeidollah Mehdi.[28] This adventurer was the founder of the dynasty of the Egyptian khalifs, who tracing their descent to Ismail, son of Jafer Sadik, and from him to Fatima, the prophet’s daughter, are known by the name of the Fatimites, or eastern Ismailites. Thus the name, which hitherto had designated a sect, was applied to a race. Ismailitism, which governed as a ready tool the founder of the dynasty it had placed on the throne, was, in Africa, in every sense, the predominant doctrine; and the khalif throne of Mahadia, the first residence of these princes, soon threatened that of Bagdad. It was from that ancient metropolis of the khalifat that proceeded the allegations against the purity of Obeidollah’s extraction. According to them, he was anything but a descendant of Mohammed, the son of Ismail; but was the half-brother, by a Jewess, of Hossein and Abushelalaa, the two sons of Ahmed, the son of Abdollah, the son of Maimun-Kaddah. His name was affirmed to be originally Said, but that after he had been set at liberty by Abdollah, it was changed to Obeidollah; and in fact, if it is considered that the doctrine of Abdollah, the son of Maimun, so utterly subversive of that of Islamism, became, on the establishment of the Fatimite sovereignty, the prevalent one in the court and the government, and that it was first publicly taught at Mahadia, and, after the conquest of Egypt under the fourth khalif of this dynasty, at Cairo; that its chief, under the title of Daial-doat, supreme missionary of the crown, was, as Kadhiol Kodhat, or supreme judge, invested with one of the first dignities of the empire, both offices being frequently united in the same person; the supposition that the chiefs of this sect, to whom nothing was sacred and all was permitted, had placed one of their own number on the throne, acquires very great probability, notwithstanding the assertions of Macrisi and Ibn Khaledun to the contrary. The accounts which the former of these two great historians has preserved, concerning the promulgation of this doctrine, and the degrees of initiation, which were now increased from seven to nine, form a very precious and the most ancient document on the history of the secret societies of the east, in whose steps those of the west afterwards trod. Their immediate connexion with the doctrine of the eastern Ismailites, or Assassins,