The Fatimid caliphs-imams developed the daʿwa into a highly organized system and disciplined school, in which the term dāʿī also referred to a specific rank in the Fatimid religious hierarchy. However, prior to the Fatimid caliphate, the term dāʿī was equally applicable to those who summoned people towards the Ismaili imams of the time. The ʿAbbāsids also used the term daʿwa and dāʿī during the Umayyad period, although they never developed a daʿwa system in the same way as the Fatimid imams-caliphs did …show more content…
For further details see Tamīm Bagdādī, Al-Farq bayn al-Firaq, 195-98 Maʿrūfī Balkhī’s poem gives evidence to Rūdakī’s Ismaili faith. The former narrates in one of his poems that, “I heard from Rūdakī, the Sulṭān of poets, saying that do not pledge your [loyalty] to anyone other than the Fatimids” (Awfī, 1903, Vol. 2:6). For a list of converted Samanid dignitaries, see Stern, 1960, The Early Ismā 'īlī Missionaries. See Anṣūrī Balkhi, 1984, Dīwān; Farrukhī Sīstānī, 1956, Dīwān, qaṣīdas no. 132, 263-265. Farrukhī Sīstānī, qaṣīda no. 5, retrieved from Ganjoor. For further details on Abū Yaʿqūb’s life and death, see, Walker “Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī”, in: Internet Encyclopedia of