Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

The B P^swiod of Concealment as-Safa
HBy the end of the time of Imam Jafar Sadiq a society of inte!10 ecTriuLials arose who called themselves the Brothers of Purity, i.e., Ikhw^ an ^is-Safa. They began writing on all the known sciences of the time ii i’1 a i popi’lar way in the form of story-telling. They combined all their • es : ssays in a work called the Essays of Ikhwan as-Safa. All the ideas - off- the Greek and Indian philosophies were incorporated into a
well & an amged system of thought by them. This work was almost like
that cP°f tEhe Muatazilities. But, in fact, they belonged to an Ismaili were aiming at preparing an intellectual background to iing revolt. These authors wrote their work secretly and X)pies of it in many mosques of the empire, suddenly at one itthout announcing who they were. It is supposed that these essay’”’5 ”^vwere finally compiled under the guidance of Jafar Sadiq’s great--gr- aindson, Imam Ahmad. b) Inrnar-m i Ismail
J; afar Sadiq died in 148 A.H. It is said that his son Ismail, for whorm nrnsany Dais .vere working had died in 145 A.H., during the, of his father. The Ithna Asharis drew the conclusion from
The Fatvinds
753
(a)
grouper the c- o place«scl
time,
2 Ency- c’c> T pswdia of Brita-inica. Vol. IV. P 698
that the succession went to Imam Musa al-Kazim. Some Ismailis believed that Imam Ismail lived till 152 A.H. and died much after his father. All this controversy arises because of the secret conditions in which the Ismailis worked, concealing themselves from the Abbasids authority.
One of the main supporters of Ismail was Abdul Khattab, who is supposed to have insisted on the theory of the infallibility of the Imam. The second supporter was Mubarak who was mainly a political figure and his followers divided themselves into various groups, one was the most well-known of the three was called Maymun al-Qaddah. He was a Persian born in Ahwaz, attached to an Arab tribe and lived in Makkah. He became a Rawi (relator of tradition) of the Imams, Muhammad al- Baqir Jafar Sadiq and Ismail. He exercised such a hold on the Ismaili movement that later on it was supposed that the Fatimid Caliphs were descended from Maymun al-Qaddah. All the anti-Fatimid books of later times have spread this scandal about the non-Alid origin of the Fatimids.
c) Imam Muhammad bin Ismail
He was born in 131 A.H. and lived during the time of the Abbasid Caliphs Mahdi. Had! and Harun al-Rashid. After the death of his father he adopted Syria as his home, and kept on travelling to Persia, Khurassan, all right up to the border of India, both in order to avoid arrest and also to spread his mission. In his later life he made friends with a Persian Dai, Hussain al-Ahwazi, and returned with him to a place called Salamiya in Syria which became the headquarters of the Fatimid under ground movement. His chief supporter was Abdullah bin-Maimun al- Qaddah. This great Dai lived a very long life and became the protector of the three descendants of Muhammad, who also remained in hiding in Salamiya. Shortly after Abdullah’s death the Fatimid Caliphate was established. Abdullah is the author of many works and exercised such an influence over the Fatimid movement that most of its principles and organization are attributed to him.