xegesis; they maintained
that in this text "commander" meant only subordinate chiefs, and not "the
Commander of the Faithful." It became a dogma in the orthodox Mohammedan
world, respected up to the sixteenth century, that only members of the
tribe of Qoraish could take the place of the Messenger of God.

The chance of success was greater for the legitimists than for the
democratic party. The former wished to make the Khalifate the privilege
of Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, and his descendants. At
first the community did not take much notice of that "House of Mohammed";
and it did not occur to any one to give them a special part in the
direction of affairs. Ali and Fatima themselves asked to be placed in
possession only of certain goods which had belonged to Mohammed, but which
the first khalifs would not allow to be regarded as his personal property;
they maintained that the Prophet had had the disposal of them not as owner,
but as head of the state. This narrow greed and absence of political
insight seemed to be hereditary in the descendants of Ali and Fatima; for
there was no lack of superstitious reverence for them in later times, and
if one of them had possessed something of the political talent of the best
Omayyads and Abbasids he would certainly have been able to supplant them.

After the third Khalif, Othman, had been murdered by his political
opponents, Ali became his successor; but he was more remote than any of his
predecessors from enjoying general sympathy. At that time the Shi'ah, the
"Party" of the House of the Prophet, gradually arose, which maintained that
Ali should have been the first Khalif, and that his descendants should
succeed him. The veneration felt for those descendants increased in the
same proportion as that for the Prophet himself; and moreover, there
were at all times malcontents, whose advantage would be in joining any
revolution against the existing government. Yet the Alids never succeeded
in accomplishing anything against the dynasties of the Omayyads, the
Abbasids, and the Ottomans, except in a few cases of transitory importance
only.

The Fatimite dynasty, of rather doubtful descent, which ruled a part
of Northern Africa and Egypt in the tenth century A.D., was completely
suppressed after some two and a half centuries. The Sherifs who have ruled
Morocco for more than 950 years were not chiefs of a party that considered
the legality of their leadership a dogma; they