The lodge of Cairo, whose political aim was, as we have already seen, to overthrow the khalifat of the family of Abbas, in favour of the Fatimites, spread its secret doctrine, by its Dais (_i. e._ political and religious missionaries). To these were subordinate the ordinary partisans, Refik, or fellows, who, initiated into one or several grades of the mysteries, were, nevertheless, neither to teach them, nor to collect the suffrages for any dynasty; this being the peculiar privilege of the Dais, whose chief, the Dail-doat, or grand-master, resided at Cairo, in the House of Sciences. This institution remained unchanged, from its foundation by Hakem,[32] to the time of the khalif, Emr-Biahkam-illah,[33] when the Emir-ol-juyush, or commander-in-chief of the army Efdhal, on the occasion of an insurrection fomented by the members of the lodge,[34] caused it to be shut up, and, as it appears, to be destroyed. When, after his death in the following year, the society strongly urged their re-opening, the vizier, Maimun, refused to open the academy on the same spot, but permitted them to erect, in a different situation, another building, dedicated to the same purpose, which was Darolilm-jedide (_i. e._ the new House of Sciences); where public courses of instruction and secret meetings, as before, continued, till the downfall of the Fatimite dynasty. The effects of their doctrine soon appeared in the increasing power of the Fatimites, and the feebleness into which the khalifat of the family of Abbas gradually sank.[35] The Emir Bessassiri, one of the most zealous partisans and defenders of the former, took possession,[36] for a whole year, at Bagdad, of the two royal prerogatives of Islamism, the mint and the pulpit, in the name of the Egyptian khalif, Mostanssur, who would have retained them, had not Bessassiri fallen in the following year, by the sword of Togrul, who had hastened to the assistance of the Abbassides. In the meanwhile, the fellows, Refik, and the masters, Dai, inundated the whole of Asia; and one of the latter, Hassan-ben-Sabah Homairi, was the founder of a new branch of the sect, namely, the eastern Ismailites, or Assassins, before whose cradle we now stand.