of all the forms of the faith. Mu'awiya was a statesman by nature, and had moulded his province into an almost independent kingdom. The Syrian army was devoted to him, and could be depended upon to have no other interests than his. From the beginning of Ali's reign, he had been biding his time; had not given his allegiance, but had waited for the hour to strike for revenge for Uthman and power for himself. The time came and Mu'awiya won. We here pass over lightly a long and contradictory story. It is enough to note how the irony of history wrought itself out, and a son of the Abu Sufyan who had done so much to persecute and oppose Muhammad in his early and dark days and had been the last to acknowledge his mission, became his successor and the ruler of his people. But with Ali ends the revered series of the four "Khalifas who followed a right course" (al-khulafa ar-rashidun), reverenced now by all orthodox Muslims, and there begins the division of Islam into sects, religious and political—it comes to the same thing.

The Umayyads themselves clearly recognized that with their accession to power a change had come in the nature of the Muslim state. Mu'awiya said openly that he was the first king in Islam, though he retained and used officially the title of Khalifa and Commander of the Faithful. Yet such a change could not be complete nor could it carry with it the whole people—that is clear of itself. For more than one hundred years the house of Umayya held its own. Syria was solid with it and it was supported by many statesmen and soldiers; but outside of

Syria and north Arabia it could count on no part of the population. An anti-Khalifa, Abd Allah, son of the az-Zubayr of whom we have already heard, long held the sacred cities against them. Only in A.H. 75 (A.D. 692) was he killed after Mecca had been stormed and taken by their armies. Southern Arabia and Mesopotamia, with its camp-cities al-Kufa and alBasra, Persia and Egypt, were, from time to time, more or less in revolt. These risings went in one or other of two directions. There were two great anti-Umayyad sects. At one time in Mu'awiya's contest with Ali, he trapped Ali into the fatal step of arbitrating his claim to the Khalifate. It was fatal, for by it Ali alienated some of his own party and gained less than nothing on the other side. Part of Ali's army seceded in protest and rebellion, because he—the duly elected Khalifa—submitted his claim to any shadow of doubt. On the other hand, they could not accept Mu'awiya, for him they regarded as unduly elected and a mere usurper. Thus they drifted and split into innumerable sub-sects. They were called Kharijites—goers out—because they went out from among the other Muslims, refused to regard them as Muslims and held themselves apart. For centuries they continued a thorn in the side of all established authority. Their principles were absolutely democratic. Their idea of the Khalifate was the old one of the time of Abu Bakr and Umar. The Khalifa was to be elected by the whole Muslim community and could be deposed again at need. He need be of no special family or tribe; he might be a slave, provided he was a good Muslim ruler.