“Does all this precise differentiation of ranks have any special meaning?” ibn Tahir asked.
“Very much so,” Suleiman replied. “At the moment of truth every Ismaili knows his place. Everyone knows exactly whom he commands and whom he obeys, so that any confusion or misunderstanding is made impossible at the outset. Does it make sense now?”
“Yes, it does,” ibn Tahir replied.
The sound of the gong called them to duty. Since it was too hot on the roof during the afternoon, their lesson was held in the dining room.
This time dai Abu Soraka explained the origins of Islam and the history of Ismailism. To help the newcomer catch up, he first asked the novices some questions about the material he had already covered. Then he proceeded with the day’s new material.
“By giving his only daughter Fatima as wife to Ali, the Prophet designated Ali as the successor to his throne. But after his death his cunning father-in-law Abu Bakr shamelessly tricked the proper heir and assumed the throne of leader of the faithful himself. On that day the Prophet’s magnificent edifice was split in two. On the left side are those who recognize the treacherous Abu Bakr as legitimate heir. Their flag is black and their book is the Sunna, an oral tradition that is a heap of miserable lies and false witness about the Prophet. Their capital is Baghdad, which is now ruled by false caliphs from the Abbasid dynasty. Abbas was the criminal uncle who used flattery and lies to persuade the Prophet to accept him as a believer only after it became unmistakably clear that he would be victorious. The patron of the Abbasids is the sultan, Malik Shah, a Seljuk Turkish dog whose vagabond clan came from the land of Gog and Magog to seize the Iranian throne.
“On the right are those of us who recognize Ali as the only legitimate first imam, just as the Prophet commanded. Our flag is white, and our capital is Cairo in Egypt, for the caliph who rules there is descended from Ali and Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter.
“The usurper Abu Bakr was followed by two more false imams, Omar and Othman. When Othman died, the people demanded that Ali finally become the Prophet’s representative. He was so elected, but he soon bled to death from the knife of a hired killer. His son Hasan succeeded him, but soon had to cede his place to Moawiya. In the meantime the people demanded that Husein, another of Ali and Fatima’s sons, assume the throne. But Husein died a martyr’s death in the valley of Karbala. From that time on, the pureblooded descendants of the Prophet have lived in the deserts and mountains, persecuted and killed by the false imams and their criminal shield bearers. Truly! The fate that Allah holds in his hands is not something we have read in books, but it is noble for us to mourn for the martyrs.
“We have said that the legitimate representatives of Ali and Fatima’s dynasty came to rule in Cairo. We recognize them—this is true—but with certain reservations. These reservations are our secret, which we plan to reveal to you over time. For today, suffice it for us to recite the succession of imams who followed Husein, the Prophet’s third legitimate representative. The fourth was Husein’s son, Ali Zain al-Abidin, whose son Mohammed al-Bakir was the fifth. Jafar as-Sadiq was the sixth. A dispute arose over the seventh, because Jafar as-Sadiq had two sons, Musa al-Kazim and Ismail. Those who recognize Musa al-Kazim as the seventh imam have another five successors, the last of whom is Mohammed, destined to return someday as al-Mahdi. Indeed, al-Mahdi will come, but from the line of Ismail, not that of Musa al-Kazim. We believe in this because we know the real facts. Thus, we recognize only the seven known imams, the last and greatest of whom was Ismail. It is true, one branch of his line attained conspicuous power in Egypt. But where is the other, larger and more important branch? For the moment we know only that the branch in Cairo is simply preparing the way to victory over the usurpers and heretics, for the ultimate leadership of all Islam. For it has been said that the six great prophets—Adam, Noah, Ibrahim, Moses, Christ and Mohammed—will be followed by a seventh and greatest, al-Mahdi, who will come from the line of Ismail. It is him we await and him that we fight for. Truly, I tell you there are great mysteries afoot in the fortress of Alamut!”
For the first time ibn Tahir was hearing the essence of the Ismaili doctrine. It seemed mysterious to him, and he was anxious to hear more revelations.
Abu Soraka left and was followed in the classroom by the Islamicized Greek Theodoros, whom they called al-Hakim, or the Doctor. He was a pudgy little man with a pointed beard and a thin, black mustache. He had pink, plump cheeks, but a nose so straight and long that it nearly reached the level of his full, red, almost feminine lips. His chin was soft and padded. He had round, laughing eyes, and when he spoke you couldn’t tell whether he was serious or kidding. The novices called him dai, even though he hadn’t been consecrated. They knew that the supreme commander had brought him back with him from Egypt. He was a trained physician and taught a variety of subjects, foremost among them the structure and functioning of the human body. He was considered a kind of sophos, or wise man, who had tried to reconcile the teachings of the Koran with Greek philosophy. During his lectures on diseases, poisons and varieties of death he would quote Greek thinkers, especially the skeptics, cynics and materialists. Listening to him, the novices would widen their eyes in amazement, and many of them thought his teachings were rather godless. For example, his explanation of the origin of man was part Koran, part Greek philosophy, and part his own creation.
“Allah created Adam from the four elements. First, he took hard material, but it was inelastic and fragile. He crumbled it into dust, and then he took another element—water. He mixed this with the dust and got clay, which he used to knead the form of man. But that form was soft and changed shape every time it was touched. Therefore, he created fire and used it to dry out the external surface of the human form. Now man had a skin which was elastic. But he was very heavy, so he removed some of the matter from his chest, and to keep the outer walls of the empty space that formed this way from collapsing, he filled the hollow with a fourth element, air. In this way the human body was completed, and to this day it consists of those four original elements—earth, water, fire and air.
“In order to bring man to life, Allah breathed a soul into him. Being of divine origin, the soul is exceptionally sensitive to the harmony of the elements in the human body. As soon as the equilibrium among them is disturbed, the soul departs the body and returns to its origin, which is Allah himself.
“Disturbances of the harmony among the elements can be of two kinds—natural or magical. Natural disturbances can result in one of four kinds of death. If, as the result of a wound, the body loses its blood, it is deprived of the element of water and the result is death. If we strangle someone by the throat or otherwise make breathing impossible, we’ve deprived him of the element of air, and he suffocates and dies. When a person freezes, he’s been deprived of the element of fire. And if a person is dashed against some object, his solid matter is shattered and death is inevitable.
“The magical causes of death, also referred to as medical, are far more intriguing. They are caused by the mysterious natural substances we call poisons. The object of natural science is to learn to recognize and also produce these substances. Every Ismaili can and should benefit from this knowledge…”