He and the members of his household were counted among the esoteric unbelievers—the Bāṭinite followers of al-Ḥākim and the other Ismāʿīlī ʿUbaydids. Those people applied hidden, allegorical interpretations to every aspect of the Sacred Law, both doctrinal and practical, until they reinterpreted even the five daily prayers, the fast of Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to the House. Nevertheless, they ordered their lay adherents to observe the outward prescriptions of the Sharīʿah, for they maintained a public façade of Shiʿism.

The Twelver Rāfiḍīs claim that the Imamate after Jaʿfar passed to his son Mūsā ibn Jaʿfar. These Bāṭinites, however, asserted that it resided in his son Ismāʿīl ibn Jaʿfar and then in Ismāʿīl’s son Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl. They went on to allege that Maymūn al-Qaddāḥ was the son of this Muḥammad, referring to that Muḥammad as the “Hidden Imām.” In fact, Maymūn was known only for claiming descent from the tribe of Bāhila. More than one informed authority has reported that he was originally a Jew and a descendant of the Magians, as Qāḍī Abū Bakr ibn al-Ṭayyib relates in his book Unveiling Their Secrets and Tearing Away Their Veils, along with other Muslim scholars.

As for the Qarmaṭians of Bahrain—Abū Saʿīd al-Jannābī and his followers—they openly professed unalloyed disbelief; hence they murdered the pilgrims, hurled their bodies into the well of Zamzam, and carried off the Black Stone.