Like his father, he lived primarily in Salamiyah, and Abd Allah ibn Maymun al-Qaddah, the chief missionary (da'i), continued to serve as the hijab (lit.
[1][4][5] During this time, the living Imam's identity was hidden for protection and the community continued to operate under the authority of Muhammad ibn Isma'il.
[7][8] Among the later Isma'ili historians, Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Naysaburi, the author of Istitār al-Imām, compiled under the Fatimid Imam–Caliph al-Aziz Billah (r. 975–995) seems first to have mentioned the names of the three 'hidden' Imams.
[8] Modern historian of the Fatimid period, Shainool Jiwa, explains that during dawr al-satr (765–909 CE) Isma'ili doctrine had spread as far as from Yemen to Ifriqiya (modern-day Tunisia and eastern Algeria), with its most prominent adherents being the Kutama Berbers of North Africa.
[11][12] His hujjat was Abd Allah ibn Maymun al-Qaddah, the chief missionary (da'i), continued to serve as the hijab (lit.
[10][17][16] It suspected the Syrian governor, who communicated its report to the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun (r. 813–833), who issued order to arrest al-Taqi, but the latter had quitted Salamiyah in advance for few years.
[11][20][19] The anti-Isma'ili writer Akhu Muhsin (d. 965) claimed that al-Taqi directed the da'i Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i to the Maghreb in 279/892–93 and thus laid the foundation for later Fatimid power there.
[11] Sectarian literature attributes to him the publication of the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity (Rasā'il Ikhwān al-ṣafā'), on account of which he is known as Ṣāḥib al-Rasāʿil (lit.
[25] The publication of the Rasā'il served to stir up agitation against the Isma'iliyya; al-Taqi, therefore, took the precaution to move about, always in the dress of a merchant, between Daylam, Kufa and Askar Mukram, his father's home.