ʿAbd al-Malik Ibn ʿAṭṭāsh (fl. fifth/eleventh century) was an Ismāʿīlī missionary (dāʿī) and mentor of Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ (r. 483–518/1090–1124 in Alamūt). Originally an adherent of Twelver Shīʿism, he converted later to Ismāʿīlī Shīʿism. He is said to have been arrested during the …
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Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Malik Ibn ʿAṭṭāsh (d. 500/1107) was the son of the former Ismāʿīlī dāʿī in Isfahan. He ostensibly apostatised from the doctrine of his father and missionised secretly under the cover of a linen seller. He became a teacher and steward of the young male and female…
ʿAbdallāh b. Aḥmad Ibn al-Sulaym al-Aswānī (fl. fourth/tenth century) was an Egyptian traveller. When Egypt was occupied by the Fāṭimid general Jawhar (d. 382/992) in 358/969, al-Aswānī was sent to establish contact with the Christian Nubian kingdoms south of the First Cataract …
The Fāṭimids were an Islamic dynasty of Ismāʿīlī confession that ruled in North Africa (from 297/909) and Egypt (from 358/969) until 567/1171. The alleged descent of the dynasty from ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and Muḥammad’s daughter Fāṭima has been called into question by contemporaries…
The Dār al-Ḥikma (“House of Wisdom,” called also Dār al-ʿIlm, “House of Knowledge”), was an institution of learning in Cairo, founded in 395/1005 by the Fāṭimid caliph al-Ḥākim (r. 386–411/996–1021). It was located north of the Western (or Little) Palace, facing the still extant…
Anūshtakīn al-Bukhārī al-Darzī , called also Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl , was one of the first three propagandists of the doctrine of the Druze sect (al-Darziyya, al-Durūz, sing. Durzī), which is named for him. His name indicates that he was a Turk from Central Asia and a tailor (Pers.…
The Baqliyya was an extremist Shīʿī, probably Carmathian (Qarmaṭī), sect mentioned in Iraq in early ʿAbbāsid times. The Kitāb al-aghānī of Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī (d. 356/967) mentions a figure from the time of the caliph al-Manṣūr (r. 136–58/754–75), a boon companion of the her…
Abū Saʿīd al-Ḥasan b. Bahrām al-Jannābī (d. 300/913) founded the Ismāʿīlī Qarmaṭian communities on the Persian Gulf. He was of Persian origin, from the port of Jannāba (present-day Ganāva), on the Iranian coast. In the sawād (rural district) of Kufa, he married into a family tha…