Shii communities in history.- The study of the Ismailis: phases and issues.- Ismaili history and literary traditions.- Idris Imad al-Din and medieval Ismaili historiography.- A major schism in the early Ismaili movement.- The Ismaili dawa under the Fatimids.- The concept of ujja in Ismaili thought.- Cyclical time and sacred history in medieval Ismaili thought.- Ali in classical Ismaili theology.- Al-qadi al-numan, Ismaili law and Imami shiism.- The Iranian school of philosophical Ismailism.- The medieval Ismailis of the Iranian lands.- The "order of the assassins": J. von Hammer and the Orientalist misrepresentations of the Nizari Ismailis.- Ismaili-Seljuq relations: conflict and stalemate.- Sinan and the Nizari Ismailis of Syria.- Hidden Imams and Mahdis in Ismaili history.- Religious identity, dissimulation and assimilation: the Ismaili experience