e-thinking
doctor in Southern Persia, brought up in the doctrines of Gnostic
Dualism and profoundly versed in all religions, was in reality, like his
father, a pure materialist. By professing adherence to the creed of
orthodox Shi-ism, and proclaiming a knowledge of the mystic doctrines
which the Ismailis believed to have descended through Ismail to his son
Mohammed, Abdullah succeeded in placing himself at the head of the
Ismailis.

His advocacy of Ismail was thus merely a mask, his real aim being
materialism, which he now proceeded to make into a system by founding a
sect known as the Batinis with seven degrees of initiation. Dozy has
given the following description of this amazing project:

To link together into one body the vanquished and the conquerors;
to unite in the form of a vast secret society with many degrees of
initiation free-thinkers--who regarded religion only as a curb for
the people--and bigots of all sects; to make tools of believers in
order to give power to sceptics; to induce conquerors to overturn
the empires they had founded; to build up a party, numerous,
compact, and disciplined, which in due time would give the throne,
if not to himself, at least to his descendants, such was Abdullah
ibn Maymun's general aim--an extraordinary conception which he
worked out with marvellous tact, incomparable skill, and a profound
knowledge of the human heart. The means which he adopted were
devised with diabolical cunning....

It was ... not among the Shi-ites that he sought his true
supporters, but among the Ghebers, the Manicheans, the pagans of
Harran, and the students of Greek philosophy; on the last alone
could he rely, to them alone could he gradually unfold the final
mystery, and reveal that Imams, religions, and morality were
nothing but an imposture and an absurdity. The rest of mankind--the
"asses," as Abdullah called them--were incapable of understanding
such doctrines. But to gain his end he by no means disdained their
aid; on the contrary, he solicited it, but he took care to initiate
devout and lowly souls only in the first grades of the sect. His
missionaries, who were inculcated with the idea that their first
duty was to conceal their true sentiments and adapt themselves to
the views of their auditors, appeared in many guises, and spoke, as
it were, in a different