may God bless and save him!—and follow the religion of the Sabians mentioned in the Koran.[1] (These are not the Sabians who are found in Ḥarân and Wasit.[2]) But Yezîd associated himself with the people of the Book who recognized the Chosen One as a prophet, even though they did not accept his (Mohammed's) religion. And he said that the followers of the ordinances are among those who agree with him; but that others are hiding the truth and give companions to God, and that every sin, small or great, is idolatry.[3]
The statement of Aš-Šahrasânî is so clear that it can bear no other interpretation than that the Yezidis were the followers of Yezîd bn Unaisa. He calls them his ’asḥâb, that is, his followers, a term by which he designates the relation between a sect and its founder.[4] The statement comes from the pen of one who is considered of the highest authority among the Arab scholars on questions relating to philosophical and religious sects.[5] This precise definition of the position of Yezîd bn Unaisa in the sectarian conflicts of the first century of Islam seems to show that he had exact information about him.
The prediction about the Persian prophet is quoted, almost in the same words, by another great Mohammedan authority on religious sects, Ibn Ḥazm, who lived a century before Aš-Šahrasânî. (The Egyptian edition of Ibn Hazm, Vol. IV, p. 188, reads Zaid bn Abi Ubaisa; but that Unaisa should be restored is evident from the fact that Ibn Ḥazm is at pains to distinguish the author of this unorthodox prediction from
