HUDUD, AL-

( (Arabic: the boundaries), ) singular Al-hadd, in the Druze religion, five cosmic principles that are emanations from God, the One. Al-Hakim, the 11th-century Fatimid caliph of Egypt deified by the Druzes, stands at the centre of the universe as the embodiment of the One. Hamzah ibn 'Ali, a contemporary of al-Hakim, systematized the Druze religion and presented himself as the direct human link to the One; he then established a hierarchy of universal principles, or al-hudud, that would span the distance between the One and the mass of Druze believers. Each principle had a human counterpart from among al-Hakim's contemporaries. Hamzah himself became the first principle, or hadd, Universal Intelligence (al-'Aql); al-'Aql generated the Universal Soul (an-Nafs), embodied in Isma'il ibn Muhammad at-Tamimi. The Word (al-Kalimah) emanates from an-Nafs and is manifest in the person of Muhammad ibn Wahb al-Qurashi. The fourth successive principle is the Preceder (as-Sabiq, or Right Wing [al-Janah al-Ayman]), embodied in Salamah ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab as-Samirri; and the fifth is the Succeeder (at-Tali, or Left Wing [al-Janah al-Aysar]), personified by al-Muqtana Baha' ad-Din. Each of these principles, the true hudud, also had false counterparts, in turn embodied by various contemporaries of al-Hakim. The tension between the two sets of hudud represented the conflict of good and evil in the world, to be resolved by al-Hakim's eventual support of the true hudud. See also Hakim, al-.