- Karen Armstrong
ecutor, and Ali had been Muhammad's. As the faithful strug-
gled to put their teachings into practice, they would prepare
the world for the final reign of justice, which would be inau-
gurated by the seventh prophet, the Mahdi.
It was an attractive movement. Where the Sunni protest
against court had made Sunnis suspicious of the arts and sci-
ences, Ismailism offered the more intellectual Muslims a
chance to study the new philosophy in a religious way. Their
spiritual exegesis was a process of tawil (carrying back), which
directed the attention of the worshipper beyond the literal
meaning of scripture to the hidden, divine reality that was its
original source. The Quran insists that God communicates
with the faithful by means of "symbols" (ayat), since the di-
vine can never be expressed in wholly rational or logical dis-
course. Ismailis always alluded to God in the phrase, "He
Whom the boldness of thought cannot contain." They also
believed that no one revelation or theological system could
ever be definitive, since God was always greater than human
thought. Ismailis agreed that Muhammad had been the last
and most important of the six major prophets, but also in-
sisted that the full significance of the revelation that he had
brought to the Arabs would become clear only when the
Mahdi arrived. They were, therefore, open to the possibility
of new truth, which was alarming to the more conservative of
the ulama. But the Ismailis were not simply a contemplative
sect. Like all true Muslims, they were concerned about the
fate of the ummah, and believed that faith was worthless unless
it was combined with political activism. By working for a just
and decent society, they would pave the way for the arrival of
the Mahdi. The Ismailis' success in establishing an enduring
caliphate showed that their ideal had political potential, but it
could never appeal to the majority. The Ismaili vision was too
hierarchical and elitist to appeal to more than a small number
of intellectual Muslims.