Preservative ignorance is better than destructive erudition, and darkness itself is to be preferred to the lurid glare of a conflagration. Hassan, the son of Mohammed, determined, at whatever cost, to be an expositor, and to favour the impunity of vice, not merely by example, but also to preach from his own mouth the irreprehensibility of crime. In Ramadan, of the 559th year of the Hegira,[162] the inhabitants of the province of Rudbar were collected, by his orders, at the castle of Alamut. On the place Mossella (_the place of prayers_, situated at the foot of the castle, like the suburbs of Shiras, celebrated by Hafez),[163] a pulpit was placed, looking towards Kibla (_i. e._ the country of Mecca), to which the Moslemim turn in praying, and in the four corners, four different coloured flags were planted—a white, a red, a yellow, and a green. Oh the seventeenth of Ramadan,[164] the people were assembled on this place: Hassan ascended the pulpit, and commenced by involving his hearers in error and confusion, by dark and puzzling expressions. He made them believe that an envoy of the imam (the phantom of a khalif still tottering on the Egyptian throne) had come to him, and brought an epistle, addressed to all Ismailites, by which the fundamental maxims of the sect were renovated and fortified. He declared that, according to this letter, the gates of mercy and grace were open to all who would follow and obey him; that those were the peculiarly elect; that they should be freed from all obligations of the law; released from the burthen of all commands and prohibitions; that he had brought them now to the day of the resurrection (_i. e._ the manifestation of the imam). Upon this, he began to recite, in Arabic, the khutbe, or prayer, which he pretended to have just received from the imam. An interpreter, standing at the foot of the pulpit, translated to the audience in the following words:—“Hassan, the son of Mohammed, the son of Busurgomid, is our khalif, dai, and hudshet (our successor, missionary, and proof), to whom all who profess our doctrine are to yield obedience in spiritual, as well as temporal, affairs; executing his commands, and considering his words as inspired, and must not transgress his prohibitions, but observe his behests as our own. Know all, that our Lord has mercy on them, and has led them to the most high God.” He then descended from the pulpit, caused tables to be covered, and commanded the people to break the fast, and to give themselves up to all kinds of pleasure, to music, and play, as on feast days; “for to-day,” said he, “is the day of the resurrection” (_i. e._ the revelation of the imam).