the first period. (2) The partisans of Ali, the Shi'a (Shi'ites), who in
proportion as their influence with the Arabs declined, contrived to
strengthen it by obtaining the support of the non-Arabic Moslems, aided
thereto, especially in the latter period, by the Abbasids, who at the
decisive moment succeeded in seizing the supreme power for themselves.
(3) The Kharijites, who, in spite of the heavy losses they sustained at
the hands of Ali, maintained their power by gaining new adherents from
among those austere Moslems, who held both Omayyads and Alids as
usurpers, and have often been called, not unjustly, the Puritans of
Islam. (4) The non-Arabic Moslems, who on their conversion to Islam, had
put themselves under the patronage of Arabic families, and were
therefore called maula's (clients). These were not only the most
numerous, but also, in virtue of the persistency of their hostility, the
most dangerous. The largest and strongest group of these were the
Persians, who, before the conquest of Irak by the Moslems, were the
ruling class of that country, so that Persian was the dominant language.
With them all malcontents, in particular the Shi'ites, found support; by
them the dynasty of the Omayyads and the supremacy of the Arabs was
finally overthrown. To these elements of discord we must add:--(1) That
the Arabs, notwithstanding the bond of Islam that united them,
maintained their old tribal institutions, and therewith their old feuds
and factions; (2) that the old antagonism between Ma'adites[11]
(original northern tribes) and Yemenites (original southern tribes),
accentuated by the jealousy between the Meccans, who belonged to the
former, and the Medinians, who belonged to the latter division, gave
rise to perpetual conflicts; (3) that more than one dangerous
pretender--some of them of the reigning family itself--contended with
the caliph for the sovereignty, and must be crushed _coute que coute_.
It is only by the detailed enumeration of these opposing forces that we
can form an idea of the heavy task that lay before the Prince of the
Believers, and of the amount of tact and ability which his position
demanded.

The description of the reign of the Omayyads is extremely difficult.
Never perhaps has the system of undermining authority by continual
slandering been applied on such a scale as by the Alids and the
Abbasids. The Omayyads were accused by their numerous missionaries of
every imaginable vice; in their hands