attend the meetings unless they were fully trusted. Abu Sufyan Mahbub b. al-Rahil said, "We heard one night that a meeting was held in the house of Hajib, the Shaikhs did not allow us to attend their meetings during the night; I told one of the Omanis, 'Let us go to Hajib's house, for they may allow us in.' We went to the house and were permitted to enter. We found there al-Mukhtar b. 'Awf, and two or three Shaikhs, Hijab ordered us to inform Balj b. 'Uqbah about their place; so we told him. After we prayed 'Isha' they started speaking, each one stood and spoke for some time, then he sat down and another stood, and so on, until the light of the morning. Al-Malih said, "Shu'aib b. 'Amr, brother-in-law of Hajib, and one of the best Ibadhi youths, came to Hajib's house that night; the distance between his residence and the house of Hajib was about three miles, but Hajib refused to let him in." 32

ii) The second type of Majalis is majalis for all members to which they come to hear addresses from the Shaikhs on religious subjects in general. There was no special programme for such majalis; it depends on the persons who were in charge of them and their abilities and inclination. "If a person was seen with the impression of submissiveness on his face, that would mean that he had attended the majalis of Abu Sufyan Qunbur recently, for his majalis were for invocation of God, recital of the Qur'an, and frightening people of the Hell and the chastisement of God." 33 Some time the organiser of the majalis would ask the speakers to stress on a certain subject to bring the attention of certain members to it. 34 A large number of these majalis were formed in Basrah during this period. Ibadhi historians mentioned the majalis of Abu al-Hurr 'Ali b. al-Hussain which used to be on Monday and Thursday, 35 majalis of Abu Sufyan Qunbur, and the majalis of 'Abd al-Malik al-Tawil. 36 Women have special rooms in these majalis and were allowed to attend this type of majalis. 37 Some women offered their houses to be used for the majalis. 38

iii) The third kind of the majalis are those which were held for regular students who wanted to study Ibadhi doctrine, or to be trained for missionary work. It is reported that Abu 'Ubaidah Muslim b. Abi Karimah used to teach his students in a secret cave with someone on guard outside to inform them if he saw a stranger coming, by moving an iron chain so Abu 'Ubaidah would stop his lecture and carry on with making baskets; his covering work, from which he took the title al-qaffaf (basket maker).39 Only members of the movement were allowed to join these majalis but if they showed any sort of deviation they were to be expelled from the majalis.40 During the period of Jabir and Abu 'Ubaidah, members were very careful in their activities, on some occasions they attended their meetings wearing women's dresses or disguised as merchants and workers so no-one of their enemies would take notice of them.41 In the time of Ziyad and his son the houses which were used for holding majalis were attacked on many occasions and members were arrested,