The Shiite doctrine of the return of the Imam was early combined with the common Moslem belief in the coming of the Mahdi (literally, "the one who is guided," scil. by God), which has an important place in orthodox eschatology. According to the common traditions, Mohammed foretold that in the last days a man of his own family, bearing the same name and the same patronymic as himself (Mohammed ibn Abdallah), should arise to establish on earth the reign of righteousness and peace.1 The Shiites appropriated the prophecy for their Imam; when the Concealed Imam is manifested on the stage of history, he will be the Mahdi.2

Some branches of the Shiites did not mean by the "Concealed Imam" one who had disappeared from among men, but only a descendant of Ali whose character and office were not publicly avowed, and who was consequently known as the Imam only by the small circle who were in the secret. Such unproclaimed Imams might succeed one another for generations, until at the right time one of them appeared as the Mahdi. Thus, the founder of the Fatimid dynasty in North Africa and Egypt professed to be the descendant in the seventh generation of Mohammed ibn Jafar, the last of the recognised Imams of one of the chief branches of the Shiites, himself the seventh in succession from Ali through Husein.

The partisans of the line of Ali repeatedly rose in insurrection in the cause of one or another of their Imams, and kept up at all times a secret propaganda which did much to undermine the Omayyads and bring about their fall. The fruits of the legitimist agitation were appropriated by the descendants of Mohammed's uncle, al-Abbas, the caliphs of Bagdad, who made large capital of their descent. Some of them were not averse to taking the rôle of Imam themselves, but the genuine Shiites saw in this only one presumptuous usurpation more. They were as irreconcilable under the

1 Some anti-Mahdist traditions identify this figure who inaugurates the golden age with Jesus: "There is no Mahdi but Jesus the son of Mary."

2 The idea of the Imam-Mahdi was at the bottom of the Babi insurrection; see below, pp. 512 f.

Abbasids as they had been under their predecessors, and continued their subterranean campaign with results to which there will be occasion to return in another chapter.

Of the innumerable divisions and subdivisions of the Shiites only three need be more particularly considered. The Zeidites are named after Zeid ibn Ali ibn Husein, whom they acknowledge as the Imam instead of Mohammed al-Bakir, the fifth Imam of the other sects. They differ from the rest in denying that Mohammed designated Ali as his successor by a written instrument; the companions who elected Abu Bekr and Omar did not, therefore, deliberately set aside the will of the Prophet, however much they erred in not choosing the best man for the place. Some of them held that Ali voluntarily yielded his right to Abu Bekr and Omar, so that they were legitimate caliphs. Consequently, they do not, like the rest of the Shiites, curse Abu Bekr and Omar as usurpers and infidels. The most tolerant even extended their charity to Othman; but they all agreed in rejecting Moawiya and his successors. A Zeidite dynasty established itself in Tabaristan in 864 A. D., and ruled that province for more than sixty years; in Dailan and Gilan they held on even longer. The Idrisids, who ruled Morocco from 788 to 985, were also Zeidites. More permanent was the sway of the Zeidite Imams in southern Arabia (Yemen), where they gained a footing at the end of the ninth century, and have maintained themselves to the present day. In theology the Zeidites, like the Shiites in general, were much influenced by the Mutazilites, and still preserve the characteristics of their doctrine.

The most important of the branches of the Shiites are the Imamites, or, as they have been commonly called in more recent times, the "Twelvers." The latter name is given them because, in distinction from their chief rivals, the "Seveners," their succession of Imams includes twelve names, beginning with Ali, Hasan, and Husein, and then in the line of Husein to the eleventh, Hasan al-Askari (died A. H. 260). The twelfth, Mohammed ibn Hasan, disap

peared from among men, and is the Concealed Imam, the Mahdi who shall come. The Twelvers, who have been called the Shia High Church, have been the state religion of the kingdom of Persia since 1502. The rival sect of the "Seveners" end their series of visible Imams with Ismail ibn Jafar, the sixth in the succession recognised by the Twelvers. From them sprang the Ismailis, of whom there will be more to say hereafter.

The partisans of Ali accuse the other side of mutilating or corrupting the text of the Koran to get rid of the embarrassing passages which established the claims of Ali to the succession. According to them Othman, who supervised the redaction of the existing text of the Koran, suppressed in different places more than five hundred words of revelation, among them the explicit declaration: "Verily, Ali is the guidance." The orthodox naturally retorted on them the accusation of interpolating the text and of falsely interpreting it in favour of Ali, thus dealing with the revelation of God in the Koran as the Jews and Christians had done with their Scriptures.1

It is frequently said that the most salient difference between the great body of Moslems and the Shiites is that the former acknowledge and the latter deny the authority of tradition. This error, which is probably due to the fact that the orthodox Moslems call themselves Sunnites ("traditionalists"), entirely mistakes the Shiite position. The authority of tradition has no less weight with them than with the Sunnites, and a considerable part of the traditions found in the orthodox Sunna books are accepted also by the Shiites. The difference between them is that to be authoritative with the Shiites a tradition must be traced back to the "family of the Prophet," among whom Ali himself occupies the place of eminence; while for the Sunnites it is sufficient that an unbroken chain of transmitters ascends to one of the "companions of the Prophet."

In matters of ritual observance the differences between

1 There is, in fact, no ground for the Shiite charges.

the Shiites and other Moslems are not greater than those which divide the various rites of Sunnite Islam; the main features of these observances were fully established before the schism. In the religious law, also, the differences are comparatively small. One of the most considerable is that the Shiites allow and the Sunnites disallow a form of temporary marriage (mut'a) which was customary among the Arabs before Mohammed and which Mohammed himself in the Koran appears to permit. According to the Sunnites, Mohammed later withdrew this permission; while the Shiites maintain that Omar unlawfully prohibited such marriages.

In their theology the Shiites are much more hospitable to Mutazilite doctrines than Sunnite orthodoxy is. The Mutazilites were especially strong in the regions where the Shiites were most numerous, and there was no Shiite alAshari. Notwithstanding their more liberal theology, the Shiites are much more intolerant than the orthodox Moslems.1 One probable reason of this is the fact that many Zoroastrians were converted to Mohammedanism in its Shia form; for Zoroastrianism was a highly intolerant religion. To Zoroastrian influence is probably also to be ascribed the fact that to the Shiites all the rest of mankind, Jews, Christians, and Moslems, are unclean. To the Sunnite Moslem, animals slaughtered by Jews or Christians are clean; to the Shiite unclean. The marriage of a Moslem to a Jewish or Christian woman is permitted by the Sunna, prohibited by the Shiites.

1 The Mutazilites themselves, when they had the power were, like many other liberals, the reverse of tolerant to the conservatives.

CHAPTER XIX

MOHAMMEDANISM

MYSTICISM AND PHILOSOPHY

Other-worldliness of Primitive Islam-Example of Christian Ascetics -Early Sufis-Influence of Neoplatonism-The Mystic Way and Goal-Love to God-Indian Influence-Pantheism-Essays of the Pure Brotherhood-"Theology of Aristotle"-Moslem Aristotelians: al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Avicenna-Averroes.

MOHAMMED's call, as it is in one of the oldest Suras of the Koran, was to give warning that the judgment of God was impending upon his nation, in which none would escape destruction save such as, renouncing their vain gods and their evil ways, made their submission to the one true God and did his will as revealed through his prophet. The first believers lived in constant expectation of this great crisis and in preparation for it. The religious exercises in which Mohammed had engaged even before his appearance as a prophet, and which he taught to his earliest followers, were inspired by the sense of imminent catastrophe; fasting and prayer were their characteristic features. The small success of his mission at Mecca and the persecutions which he and his followers had to endure quickened this kind of piety. "Other-worldliness" was the ruling idea of the religion.

At Medina the circumstances of the situation to some extent diverted the mind of Mohammed and his followers from that world to this. Nevertheless, we should err if we thought that the character of the religion or the sentiment of believers underwent a radical change. The possession of Mecca and the transformation of the Kaaba into the sanctuary of Islam, the conversion of the Arabs in town and desert, were part of the plan of God for the establishment of