writers, there seems to
be little evidence; and it is certain that the sacred books of the
religion contain moral teaching of a high order on the whole.

As a formulated creed, the Druse system is not a thousand years old. In
the year A.D. 996 (386 A.H.) Hakim Biamrillahi (i.e. he who judges by
the command of God), sixth of the Fatimite caliphs (third in Egypt),
began to reign; and during the next twenty-five years he indulged in a
tyranny at once so terrible and so fantastic that little doubt can be
entertained of his insanity. He believed that he held direct intercourse
with the deity, or even that he was an incarnation of the divine
intelligence; and in A.D. 1016 (407 A.H.) his claims were made known in
the mosque at Cairo, and supported by the testimony of Ismael Darazi.
The people showed such bitter hostility to the new gospel that Darazi
was compelled to seek safety in flight; but even in absence he was
faithful to his god, and succeeded in winning over certain ignorant
inhabitants of Lebanon. According to the Druses, this great conversion
took place in A.D. 1019 (410 A.H.). Meanwhile the endeavours of the
caliph to get his divinity acknowledged by the people of Cairo
continued. The advocacy of Hasan ibn Haidara Fergani was without avail;
but in 1017 (408 A.H.) the new religion found a more successful apostle
in the person of Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmed, a Persian mystic, felt-maker
by trade, who became Hakim's vizier, gave form and substance to his
creed, and by an ingenious adaptation of its various dogmas to the
prejudices of existing sects, finally enlisted an extensive body of
adherents. In 1020 (411 A.H.) the caliph was assassinated by contrivance
of his sister Sitt ul-Mulk; but it was given out by Hamza that he had
only withdrawn for a season, and his followers were encouraged to look
forward with confidence to his triumphant return. Darazi, who had acted
independently in his apostolate, was branded by Hamza as a heretic, and
thus, by a curious anomaly, he is actually held in detestation by the
very sect which perhaps bears his name. The propagation of the faith in
accordance with Hamza's initiation was undertaken by Ismael ibn Mahommed
Tamimi, Mahommed ibn Wahab, Abul-Khair Selama ibn Abd al-Wahal ibn
Samurri, and Moktana Baha ud-Din, the last of whom became known by his
writings from Constantinople to the borders of India. In two letters
addressed to the emperors Constantine VIII. and Michael the Paphlagonian