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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 owe their local Khalifate far more to the out-of-the-way position of their country which prevented Abbasids and Turks from meddling with their affairs.
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.
Shortly after this decision, el-Mahdi died, in the year 785, having reigned ten years and two months. Musa el-Hadi, his eldest son, succeeded him, being the fourth caliph of the race of Abbasids. On ascending the throne, he withdrew the government of Egypt from Fadl ibn Salih, appointing in his place Ali ibn Suleiman, also a descendant of Abbas.
In the year 750 the Ommayads were supplanted by the Abbasids, who transferred the capital from Damascus to Baghdad. The first Abbasid caliph was Abu'l-Abbas, who claimed descent from Abbas, the uncle of Muhammed. The caliph Merwan II., the last of the Ommayads, in his flight from his enemies came to Egypt and sent troops from Fostât to hold Alexandria.
Some scholars explain this phenomenon by the spiritual character which the dignity of Khalif is supposed to have acquired under the later Abbasids, and retained since that time, until the Ottoman princes combined it again with the temporal dignity of sultan.
Without thinking of rivalling the Abbasids or their successors, some of the princes of such remote kingdoms, e.g., the sherifs of Morocco, assumed the title of Commander of the Faithful, bestowed upon them by their flatterers.
Its voidness would sooner have been realized, if lack of energy had not prevented the later Abbasids from trying to recover the lost power by the sword, or if amongst their rivals who could also boast of a popular tradition e.g., the Omayyads, or still more the Alids a political genius had succeeded in forming a powerful opposition.
The reaction of the non-Arabian converts against the suppression of their own culture by the Arabian conquerors found support in the opposition parties, above all with the Shi'ah. The Abbasids, cleverer politicians than the notoriously unskillful Alids, made use of the Alid propaganda to secure the booty to themselves at the right moment.
Hulaku, the sacker of Bagdad, had put the Caliph Mustasim to death, and the remnant of the Abbasids had kept up a shadowy succession at Cairo, under the protection of the Sultan of Egypt. Selim the Osmanli, when he entered Cairo as a conqueror in 1517, caused the contemporary Abbasid to cede his title, for what it was worth, to him and his successors.
This appearance was all that the later Abbasids retained after the loss of their temporal power; spiritual authority of any kind they never possessed. The spiritual authority in catholic Islam reposes in the legists, who in this respect are called in a tradition the "heirs of the prophets."
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