ʿAbdān (d. 286/899), one of the most celebrated early Ismaili dāʿīs (summoner), author, and the chief assistant of Ḥamdān b. al-Ashʿath, known as Qarmaṭ, who led the Ismaili daʿwa (mission) in Iraq and southern parts of Persia.

In some sources (Ibn Ḥawqal, 258), ʿAbdān is referred to by the laqab ‘al-Kātib’ (the scribe), and he is known to have been Ḥamdān Qarmaṭ's brother-in-law (see Ibn Ḥawqal, 258; Ibn al-Nadīm, 239; Ibn al-Dawādārī, 6/46). Nothing is known of ʿAbdān's life, nor of how or when he formally entered the Ismaili daʿwa. In his Zubdat al-tawārīkh (p. 19) Abū al-Qāsim Kāshā…