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Such was the teaching of the seven grades which formed the original constitution of the sect. Later on two higher grades were added which, for the sake of completeness, we may consider here although they were no part of the original scheme.

Eighth Grade. In this the disciple learned that there are two Principles, the original and primary Cause, without name or attribute, the pre-existent (as-sabiq) who seems to be very much the same as “the first God” of Plotinus, and a Second proceeding from this First Cause, due to a thought in the pre-existent, i.e., as an emanation, just as the spoken word proceeds from the thought in the mind of the speaker. Of the pre-existent nothing can be stated but what is negative. The “Second” seems to be very similar to the Reason or Active Intelligence as defined by the philosophers on the basis of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ explanation of the teaching in Aristotle’s de Anima; not, as in the Zoroastrian system, a rival power, but an emanation which is an intermediary between the unknowable God and man. The true prophet, the daʿi declared, is shown, not by working miracles which impress the vulgar, but by the establishment of political institutions which equip a stable and well disposed government, and by the teaching of spiritual doctrines which give an explanation of the phenomena of nature. Then, as Nuwairi and Maqrizi state, the Qurʾan, the resurrection, the end of the world, the last judgment, and such like doctrines of Islam are explained away as having allegorical meanings: according to the batinite doctrine, all these things signify only the revolutions of the planets and of the universe in regular rotation, or the production and destruction of things according to the arrangement and combination of elements, as explained in the teachings of the philosophers.