HIayyan,that is, from the corpus of writings which go under Jabir's name, and
which probably date from this period.5 The existence of sects called the
'Ayniyya and the Mimiyya, however, does not appear to be attested prior to
Shahrastani.6
Massignon, however, uses the terms 'Ayniyya, Mimiyya and Siniyya freely
to classify the various sects of the Shi'a according to their doctrinal positions.7
In his work on al-IHalldaj,
'mystic and martyr of Islam' at Baghdad in the early
tenth century, he uses them specifically to classify these sectarians as friends
'Al-Shahrastani, Kitdb al-Milal wa'l-nihal (Cairo, 1968), I, 175;