As a terrestrial reflection of the interpretive process, the organisational structure of the Fatimid movement vividly illustrates how the invocation of various moments of the pristine past helped to inaugurate, on earth, a utopian future. Fatimid organisational structures and the hermeneutics that supported them reflect the fusion of a sense of imminent eschatology to a sense of utopian expectation; a fusion that appears frequently in other apocalyptic contexts as well. Historians of religion and scholars of Biblical materials have in fact long ago observed the parallels between primordial time and the end of time – often utopian time – in apocalyptic myths and writings. These scholars have observed that apocalypticism frequently envisions a utopian future devoid of terrestrial corruption or decay, parallel to our primordial existence.

This chapter examines some of these social structures and their roles in helping to reconstitute society around the imminent advent of the mahdī. First, I address in detail the Fatimid oath of allegiance as expressed through a selection of early texts recounting such initiatory accounts and pay special attention to the ways in which pledging the oath enabled the initiate to enter into an elite and sacred lineage. The accounts of these oaths are supported by ample reference to Quranic descriptions of those on the right side of sacred history. Like any oath, the initiate's pledge is in actuality an obligation of exchange: here, a pledge to uphold walāya and to act in accordance with the tenets of true belief in exchange for spiritual enlightenment and protection through the unveiling of hidden knowledge. The promise of inclusion in a terrestrial and spiritual utopia under the guidance of the mahdī then becomes attainable only through an initiatory process that both locates the initiate in a sacred lineage and obligates the believer to work on the mahdī's behalf.

Recurring throughout early Fatimid materials is a central emphasis placed on believers’ pledging the oath of allegiance. Heinz Halm, in his study of these oaths, writes: