HAKIM BEN ALLAH, or BEN HASHEM, called Mokanna (the veiled), or Sagende Nah (moon-maker), the founder of an Arabic sect who first appeared in the 8th c., during the reign of Mahadi, the third Abassidian caliph, at Neksheb, or Meru in Khorassan. Hakim is said to have commenced his extraordinary career as a common soldier, but to have soon been promoted to a captaincy, and finally to have put himself at the head of a band of his own. In a fight, an arrow pierced one of his eyes, and in order to hide this deformity, he henceforth constantly wore a'veil, a habit attributed by other writers (Roudemir, etc.) to a desire to conceal his extraordinary ugliness—by his own followers, however, to the necessity of shrouding the dazzling rays which issued from his divine countenance from the eye of the beholder. Hakim set himself up as god. lie had first, be said, assumed the body of Adam, then that of Noah, and subsequently of many other wise and great men. The last human form he pretended to have adopted was that of Abu Moslem, a prince of Khorassan. Thabari sees in this idea of metempsychosis the Jewish notion of the Shekinah—the divinity resting on some one chosen person or place and concludes that Hakim may have been a Jew. He appears to have been well versed in the art of legerdemain and "natural magic," principally as regards producing start ling effects of light and color. Among other miracles, he for a whole week, to the great
delight and bewilderment of his soldiers, caused a moon or moons to issue from a deep well; and so brilliant was the appearance of these luminaries, that the real moon quite disappeared by their side. Hakim found many adherents; and his little band increased so rapidly, that ere long lie was able to seize upon several fortified places near the cities of Neksheb and Mesh. Sultan Mahadi marched against him. and after a long siege took the last stronghold in which he had fortified himself, together with the remnant of his army. Hakim, however, having first poisoned his soldiers with the wine of a banquet, threw himself into a vessel filled with a burning acid of such a nature that his body was entirely dissolved, and nothing remained but a few hairs, in order that the faithful might believe him to have ascended to heaven alive. Some remnants of his sect still exist, and their outward distinguishing badge is the white garb, which they wear in memory of the white garb worn by their divinity, as a standing token of opposition to the black color adopted by the Abassidian caliphs. Hakim has furnished the subject of many romances, of which the one contained in Moore's Lalla Rookh is the most brilliant and best known.