Читать книгу A Short History of the Fatimid Khalifate онлайн

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Not long after Abu Muslim we hear of a pseudo-prophet named Bih-afaridh, a Zoroastrian who had travelled in the far East, and afterwards accepted Islam at the hands of two duʿat who were preaching the cult of Abu Muslim. Very little is known of his teaching, but he certainly maintained the doctrine that the Imam is an incarnation of the Deity, and seems to have attached a particularly sacred signification to the numeral seven. This superstitious reverence for particular numbers was a common feature in the pre-Islamic religions of Mesopotamia, and we shall meet it again in the doctrines of the Ismaʿilians.

Another sect, of similarly pre-Islamic origin, was that known as the Rawandiyya from its origin at Rawand near Isfahan. Its members were king-worshippers in the old Persian sense, and a body of them travelled to Hashimiyya, where the Khalifs then had their residence, and tried to acclaim the Khalif al-Mansur as a god. He not only rejected the proffered adoration, but cast the leaders into prison. This was followed by an attempt to attack the palace, the Rawandis considering that, as the prince had disclaimed deity, he could be no valid ruler. For some centuries the sect, strongly disaffected towards the Khalifate, lingered on in Persia and had many sympathisers.