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Ninth Grade. In this grade the disciple was taught the doctrines of the philosophers and what they have stated about the heavens, the stars, the soul, the intelligence, and other like things: in all he was made grades which were a later addition were more definitely based on the teachings of the Greek philosophers which had been popularised in the Muslim world. At the same time the disciple learned that Abraham, Moses, and the other prophets were only founders of legal and social systems; they had received their learning from Plato, and the other philosophers who consequently are more important than the prophets commonly revered. He was especially taught to abhor the Arabs because they had been responsible for slaying Husayn, for which crime they were deprived of all rights to the Khalifate and Imamate, which were transferred to the Persians.

Maqrizi says that the members of ʿAbdullah sect who attained to the highest grade became muʿattil and ibahi (Maq. i. 348). Strictly speaking the former term denotes one who denies that the universe has a creator, and therefore implies that the initiated held the doctrine common to most of the Arabic “philosophers” of the eternity of matter. This teaching was one of the leading charges brought by the orthodox Muslims against Aristotle. The second term seems to mean “one who admits as (or makes) allowable,” and implies what would be described as antinomianism. Maqrizi continues that the initiated “did not any longer recognize any moral law, nor expect either punishment or future reward” (id.). The historian Nuwayri gives the same account of the Qarmatian branch of the Ismaʿilian sect. Such antinomianism is not at all unknown amongst Muslim devotees: thus Maqrizi (ii. 432) in another passage refers to the Qalandariya darwishes as a type of Sufis who disregard fasting and prayer, and have no reluctance to use any form of self-indulgence, saying that it is sufficient that their hearts are at peace with God. These darwishes were of Persian origin and appeared in Syria in the 7th cent. A.H., but their order had its beginning in the 5th cent. Antinomian ideas appear with the later Murjiʿites of the 2nd cent., and are represented in the doctrines of Jahm b. Safwan, who was put to death about 131, and was, characteristically enough, a Persian convert in rebellion against the Arab Khalif. Amongst these Murjiʿites we find the doctrine to assume the system of those who believed in the eternity of matter. Thus it will be seen the two highest taqiya or “concealment,” which afterwards became common amongst the Shiʿites, the doctrine, namely, that profession of faith means only the confession of the soul to God, it being allowable that the true believer outwardly conforms to any religion.