This bears out the words of the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—in a hadith recorded by both al-Bukhārī and Muslim:

“You will surely tread the ways of those who came before you, as closely as one arrow-feather matches another, so much so that, if they entered a lizard’s burrow, you would enter it too.”

They asked, “O Messenger of Allah, do you mean the Jews and the Christians?”

He replied, “Who else?” (1)

And in another hadith recorded by both al-Bukhārī and Muslim:

“My community will surely follow the course taken by the nations before it, span by span and cubit by cubit.”

They asked, “O Messenger of Allah, do you mean the Persians and the Romans?”

He replied, “Who else among mankind could it be?” (2)

This is precisely what happened among those who professed Shiism. The Ismailis adopted various doctrines from the Persians, including their belief in the two principles of Light and Darkness, among other things. They also adopted various doctrines from the Romans: Christianity; the Greek philosophy that the Romans had followed before Christianity; the doctrine of the Soul and the Intellect; and other matters. They blended the two together and, in their own terminology, called them al-Sābiq (the Preceding Principle) and al-Tālī (the Following Principle). They identified them with the Pen and the Tablet, holding that the Pen is the Intellect, which they claim was the first of created things. They invoked as evidence a hadith attributed to the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—in which he is reported to have said:

“The first thing Allah created was the Intellect. He said to it, ‘Come forward,’ and it came forward. Then He said to it, ‘Turn back,’ and it turned back. Then He said, ‘By My might, I have created no creature more honored in My sight than you. Through you I take, through you I give, through you comes reward, and through you comes punishment.’”

This hadith was narrated by some of those who wrote works on the virtues of the intellect, such as Dāwūd ibn