Page:The Descent of Bolshevism.djvu/55

 immunity from all laws and his assassins with a foretaste of Paradise, he succeeded in founding the dynasty that spread its red terror in many lands for more than two centuries. He invoked in his aid the Ismailite doctrine of hidden and revealed imams only to strike out one of its main supports. There was to be no more concealed imams; the last of them died before Hasan. Thenceforth, in his political scheme, the imam had to appear or lose his throne by default.

Every one of his successors, therefore, had it proclaimed that he was the promised imam, promised by his predecessor or by Hasan himself. And to preserve and strengthen the new dynasty, each one was to remove certain prohibitions, or rather to extend the immunity from laws and creeds to a greater number of his subjects. One of the rulers won so many adherents because he drank wine openly and freely and indulged in other forbidden practices. They saw in these lawless habits a clear sign of the coming imam who was to do away with all prohibitions. And there was