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His chief-justice, a bigoted Sunní, who had used his power to persecute Shiahs and all so-called heretics, including Faizí the brother of Abulfazl, was exiled, with all outward honour, to Mekka.
Among the sects which sprang up was one that claimed to represent the true succession of Mahomet. This sect was itself the result of a schism among the adherents of one of the two principal divisions of the Moslems the Shiahs. They maintained that Ali, a relation and the adopted son of Mahomet and husband of his daughter Fatima, was the first legitimate imam or successor of the prophet.
The people who make so much of these descendants of Mohammed are called Shiahs; the other Moslems who think they are more orthodox are called Sunnites. What do you think of our second picture? Is not the design very pretty for an embroidery pattern? The motto is written twice; once from the right and once backward from the left, the same as in the other picture.
Thus it was that the Hazaras and Shiah inhabitants of the small principalities on the head-waters of the Oxus were sold into Sunni slavery, and the purchase of the Shiah Circassians in the Turkish markets was justified on the same grounds. The bitter experience of ages has taught all Shiahs that, once helplessly at the mercy of the Sunnis, there must be absolute submission on all points.
Let the cup-bearer," he exclaims, quoting from a popular poet, "tell our enemy, the worshipper of fire, to cover his head with dust, for the water that had departed is returned into its channel." He concludes this letter by threatening, with excommunication and destruction, all Shiahs, or, in other words, all Persians who are adverse to the renewal of hostilities.
On issuing his mandate to form the Shiahs into a new branch of the true faith, he intimated to the Emperor of Constantinople his high aim at general concord among Mohammedans. Islam, as it was forced on Persia, was the faith of foreign conquerors and oppressors, so it never has had the same considerable influence on the people as elsewhere.
In the desert, where all are latitudinarian, they are the popular party; and, though themselves beyond a suspicion of unorthodoxy, they have always shown a tolerant spirit towards the Shiahs and other heretics, with whom the Sherifal authority necessarily comes in contact every year at the Haj.
Another high functionary, equally bigoted, received a similar mission, and the rule was inculcated upon all that in the eye of the law religious differences were to be disregarded, and that men, whether Sunnís, or Shiahs, Muhammadans or Hindus, were to be treated alike: in a word, that the religious element was not to enter into the question before the judge or magistrate.
The two main sects of Moslems are the Sunnis and the Shiahs; the former regard the three caliphs who followed Mohammed as his legitimate successors, whereas the latter hold them to be usurpers, and believe that his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, husband of Fatimah, together with their sons Husein and Hasan, are the prophet's true inheritors.
The schism among the Shiahs grew out of the claim of the schismatics that the legitimate imam or successor of the Prophet must be in the line of descent from Ali.
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