Medina, where it is tolerated rather than
acknowledged, and a few Shiites are to be found in most of the large
cities of the west, but everywhere the sect of Ali stands apart from and
almost in a hostile attitude to the rest of Islam. It is noticeable,
however, that within the last fifty years the religious bitterness of
Shiite and Sunite is sensibly in decline.

The next most important of the heretical sects is the Abadiyeh. These,
according to some, are the religious descendants of the Khawarij, a sect
which separated itself from the Califate in the time of the Seyid Ali,
and, after a severe persecution in Irak, took refuge at last in Oman.
Whatever their present doctrines, they seem at first to have been like
the Shiites, political schismatics. They maintained that any Mussulman,
so long as he was not affected with heresy, might be chosen Imam, and
that he might be deposed for heresy or ill-conduct, and indeed that
there was no absolute necessity for any Imam at all. They are at present
only found in Oman and Zanzibar, where they number, it is said, about
four millions. Till as late as the last century the Imamate was an
elective office among them, but with the accession of the Abu Said
dynasty it became hereditary in that family.[8] They reject all
communion with the Sunites, but I have not been able to discover that
they hold any doctrines especially offensive to the mass of Moslems.
Their differences are mainly negative, and consist in the rejection of
Califal history and authority later than the reign of Omar, and of a
vast number of traditions now incorporated in the Sunite faith.

Allied to them but, as I understood, separate, are the Zeidites of
Yemen, who are possibly also descended from the Khawarij. But, as the
Zeidites are accustomed to conceal the fact of their heresy and to pass
themselves when on pilgrimage as Sunites, I could learn little about
them. They were, till ten years ago, independent under the Imams of
Sana, and it is certain that they repudiate the Califate. In former
times, before the first conquest of Arabia by the Turks, these Imams
were all powerful in Hejaz, and on the destruction of the Bagdad
Califate assumed the title of Hami el Harameyn, protector of the holy
places. The Turks, however, now occupy Sana, and the office of Imam is
in abeyance. The Zeidites can hardly number more than two millions, and
their only importance in the future lies in the fact of their
geographical proximit