Rawendis or Rwendi, a Persian sect that took its name from a town near Isfahan. Its origin is unknown, but they held Shi'ite doctrines. Under the year 158 (AD 775) Tabari says that a man of the Rwendis, called al-Ablaq (because he was leprous), asserted that the spirit that was in Jesus was in Ali, then in the imams one after the other to Muhammad "al-Imām" and then finally to Ibrahim "al-Imām" ibn Muhammad; and that thus these were gods. Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri, then governor of Khorasan, put many of them to death. Under the year 135 (AD 752–3) the historian again mentions a rising of the Rwendis of Talaqan, and its suppression. Under 141 (AD 758–9) he gives a fuller account of them. They believed in metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls, and asserted that the spirit of Ada