the Black Stone, which remained in their possession for a time.

The ʿUbaydid Fatimids, by contrast, made a show of Islam and claimed to be Shiʿites. Outwardly they displayed Rafidism, yet inwardly they were steeped in outright heresy and unbelief. Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī states in his work al-Mustazhiri: “Their exterior is Rafidism, but their interior is sheer unbelief.” What al-Ghazālī said about them is unanimously accepted by the Muslim scholars. They would instruct their common followers to perform the acts of worship, while arranging them in successive ranks: each time a disciple rose one level, they would reinterpret the Sharīʿah for him; when he reached the highest rank, they dropped the Law from him altogether.

Ibn Ṣabbāḥ—Ḥasan ibn Ṣabbāḥ—was one of their adherents. I mean during the time of al-Mustanṣir, in whose reign the rebellion of al-Basāsīrī took place. He was the one who introduced the dagger-assassination, and the men of Alamut were among his partisans; likewise those operating in Syria, such as Sinān and others of his ilk, were followers of the same line. Their inner doctrine was a composite of Magianism and the teachings of the philosophers: from the Magians they adopted the two principles of Light and Darkness, and from the philosophers they borrowed Intellect and Soul, which they themselves renamed “the Preceder and the Follower.”