festation being al-Hakim. Finding no response for this new creed among Egyptians, al-Darazi migrated to a district at the foot of Mount Hermon in Lebanon, where the hardy freedom-loving mountaineers, evidently already impregnated with ultra-Shiite ideas, were ready to give him a hearing. Here he fell in battle in 1019 and was succeeded by his rival Hamzah ibn-Ali, also a Persian.
When al-Hakim was assassinated two years later, prob- ably as a result of a conspiracy by his own household, Hamzah denied his death and proclaimed that he had gone into a state of temporary occultation, whence his triumphal return should be expected. Al-Muqtana, Hamzah's right hand in the propagation of the new cult, at first addressed epistles to potential converts from Constantinople to India, with particular attention to Christians, but later enunciated a new policy, that during the 'absence' of al-Hakim no part of the religion should be divulged or promulgated — a policy doubtless dictated by the desire for safety on the part of a small heterodox minority struggling for existence. Since then 'the door has been closed'; no one could be allowed entrance or exit. The hidden imam idea had been elaborately worked out, prior to the rise of Druzism, by a number of ultra-Shiite groups.
Hamzah on behalf of al-Hakim absolved his followers of the cardinal obligations of Islam, including fasting and pilgrimage, and substituted precepts enjoining veracity of speech, mutual aid among the brethren in faith, renuncia- tion of all forms of false belief and absolute submission to the divine will. The last precept, involving the concept of predestination, has continued to be a potent factor in Druzism, as in orthodox Islam. Another feature of this cult is the belief in the transmigration of souls. The idea came originally to Islam from India and received an incre- ment of Platonic elements. The operation of the second precept, enjoining mutual aid, has made of the Druzes an unusually compact self-conscious community presenting
