from among the people of al-Bahrayn—the clan of ʿUbayd Allah ibn Maymūn al-Qaddaḥ. Likewise, it is well known that the Nuṣayrīs have a body of clandestine teaching that they divulge only to their own adherents, even though most people have no idea what those teachings actually contain.

All the more inconceivable, then, would such a secret be among those who first believed in him, praised him, and followed him—the earliest Emigrants. They believed in him both inwardly and outwardly; for his sake they abandoned their homelands, their families, and their possessions, and they bore every variety of hardship and persecution: a large contingent even set out for Abyssinia,