Hakim Ben Allah

or Ben Hashem , surnamed Mokanna ( i. e . the Veiled or the One-Eyed); the founder of a religious sect in Khor as san, Persia, in the 8th century; he pretended to be God incarnate, and wore over his face a veil to shroud, as his followers believed, the dazzling radiance of his countenance, but in reality to hide the lo of an eye, incurred in earlier years when he had served as a common soldier; the sect was after fierce fighting suppre ed by the Caliph, and Hakim is said to have flung himself into a ve el of powerfully corrosive acid in the hope that, his body being destroyed, a belief in his translation to heaven might spread among his followers; the story of Hakim is told in Moore's "Lalla Rookh."