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Ibn Zūlāq, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Ibrāhīm al-Laythī (306–86/919–96), was an Egyptian historian and the author of a number of biographical, historical, and topographical works on Egypt in the time of the Ikhshīdids (323–58/935–69) and early Fāṭimids (297–567/909–1171). These works, though almost entirely lost, underlie a good deal of subsequent historiography relating to this period. His continuation of Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Kindī’s (d. 350/961) Umarāʾ Miṣr (“The book of Egyptian governors”) ends in the year 302/915 and his additions to the same author’s Akhbār quḍāt Miṣr (“The …

Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Malik Ibn ʿAṭṭāsh (d. 500/1107) was the son of the former Ismāʿīlī dāʿī in Isfahan. He ostensibly apostatised from the doctrine of his father and missionised secretly under the cover of a linen seller. He became a teacher and steward of the young male and female palace slaves in the castle of Shāhdiz, which the Saljūq sultan Malikshāh I (r. 465–85/1073–92) had built about eight kilometres south of Iṣfahān. During the conflict between Malikshāh’s sons Barkyāruq (r. 487–98/1094–1105) and Muḥamma…

Abū Saʿīd al-Ḥasan b. Bahrām al-Jannābī (d. 300/913) founded the Ismāʿīlī Qarmaṭian communities on the Persian Gulf. He was of Persian origin, from the port of Jannāba (present-day Ganāva), on the Iranian coast. In the sawād (rural district) of Kufa, he married into a family that had been converted to the Ismāʿīlī daʿwa (mission), which was then headed by Ḥamdān Qarmaṭ and his brother-in-law Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdān (murdered 286/899). Abū Saʿīd was eventually won over to the daʿwa. Becoming a dāʿī (missionary) himself, he was initially active in his home region—Jannāba, Sīnīz, …

ʿAbdallāh b. Aḥmad Ibn al-Sulaym al-Aswānī (fl. fourth/tenth century) was an Egyptian traveller. When Egypt was occupied by the Fāṭimid general Jawhar (d. 382/992) in 358/969, al-Aswānī was sent to establish contact with the Christian Nubian kingdoms south of the First Cataract of the Nile and to renew the bakṭ (from Latin pactum) of the year 31/652, by which Arabs and Nubians had agreed upon a peaceful exchange of goods. After his return, he composed a report for the Fāṭimid caliph al-ʿAzīz (365–86/975–96), of which al-Maqrīzī has preserved seve…

ʿAbd al-Malik Ibn ʿAṭṭāsh (fl. fifth/eleventh century) was an Ismāʿīlī missionary (dāʿī) and mentor of Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ (r. 483–518/1090–1124 in Alamūt). Originally an adherent of Twelver Shīʿism, he converted later to Ismāʿīlī Shīʿism. He is said to have been arrested during the reign in Iran of Sulṭān Ṭūghril Beg (431–55/1040–63) but to have been released after feigning contrition. In Rayy, he became the son-in-law of the dāʿī Abū ʿAlī al-Naysābūrī. Ibn ʿAṭṭāsh acted as dāʿī in Iraq and later in Iṣfahān, where he held “wisdom sessions” (majālis al-ḥikma) in a “house of the mission” (dār …

Abū Ṭāhir Sulaymān b. Abī Saʿīd al-Jannābī (d. 332/944) was the son and successor of Abū Saʿīd al-Jannābī, the founder of the Qarmaṭian community in al-Baḥrayn. Born in Ramaḍān 294/June–July 906, he was still a minor when his father was murdered in 300/913, and, with his five brothers, he remained under the tutelage of his uncle, the dāʿī (missionary) al-Ḥasan b. Sanbar. When he reached his majority, in Ramaḍān 310/December 922–January 923, he took over the leadership and soon terrorised the population of southern Iraq. Every year from 310 to 314/923 …

Ḥamdān Qarmaṭ b. al-Ashʿath was the leader of the Qarmatian movement in the sawād (rural district) of Kufa. Al-Ṭabarī (3:2125) has Karmītah, which is supposed to mean “red-eyed.” The diminutive form Qarmāṭūya is used by al-Nawbakhtī and Niẓām al-Mulk. Originally a carrier (who transported goods on oxen) from the village of al-Dūr in the ṭassūj (subdistrict) of Furāt Bādaqlā (east of Kufa), he was converted to the early Ismāʿīlī movement by the dāʿī (propagandist) al-Ḥusayn al-Ahwāzī. The date 264/878 given for his conversion by a much later report may be approximate…

“People of (the absolute) Truth,” a sect found in western Persia and some regions of northeastern Iraq; the name has also been adopted by other Islamic sects (Noṣayrīs, Ḥorūfīs) and appears to be rooted in the tradition of the extremist Shiʿites ( ḡolāt).A version of this article is available in printVolume I, Fascicle 6, pp. 635-637i. AHL-E ḤAQQ“People of (the absolute) Truth,” a sect found in western Persia and some regions of northeastern Iraq; the name has also been adopted by other Islamic sects (Noṣayrīs, Ḥorūfīs) and appears to be rooted in the tradition of the extremist Shiʿites ( ḡol…