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For at Mohammed's death the Medinese began fiercely contesting the claims of the Qoraishites; and during the reign of Ali, the fourth Khalif, the Kharijites rebelled, demanding, as democratic rigorists, the free election of khalifs without restriction to the tribe of Qoraish or to any other descent.
The sacred tradition relates a saying of Mohammed: "The imams are from Qoraish," intended to confine the Khalifate to men from that tribe. History, however, shows that this edict was forged to give the stamp of legality to the results of a long political struggle.
The sense of the tradition that established descent from the tribe of Qoraish as necessary for the highest dignity in the community was capable of being weakened by explanation; and, even without that, the leadership of the irresistible Ottomans was of more value to Islam than the chimerical authority of a powerless Qoraishite.
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.
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