Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. New Series. October 1939

Phe Organization of the Fatimid Propaganda It seems quite obvious therefore that the supernatural success of the dd `is is nothing but illusion the same aberration of the vision as the rapid movement of the landscape seen from the window of a rapidly moving train: not that the da`is were seducing the masses but the masses were waiting for someone to organize the movement which already was widesp [...] `If God asks the Imam to account for the welfare of the comunity the Imam refers Him to the dal in charge who takes upon himself the whole responsibility for this.' The results of this policy we can see from history: decentralization coupled with the selection of the right type of men {Ire virtue of princes which the earlier Fatimids possessed especially the great statesmen like Malydi [...] This sort of pious fraud was apparently condoned by the public at the period of the gradual decline of Sufism but was impossible during its flourishing early phase.8 W. Ivanow the hierarchy-of the hvdndu'd-din had to be based on the same scheme as the physical universe and the world of the spirit. [...] But it seems that as early as the period immediately following the fall of the Fatimid empire no other works on the subject were known as may be Seen from the statement of the author of the Tillthau'l-quMb in the concluding passages of his work. [...] Ho deals with the story of how the administrative centre of the Mustalian branch of the Ismailis was after the assassination of al-Amir transferred to the Yaman.