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 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.

The sixth imam, Jaffer, upon the death of his eldest son, Ismail, appointed another son, Moussa or Moses, his heir; but a large body of the Shiahs denied the right of Jaffer to make a new nomination, declaring the imamate to be strictly hereditary.

He called himself a descendant of Ismail and claimed to be the legitimate imam.

They taught that the true Imam, though invisible to mortal sight, is ever living; they predicted the mahdi's speedy appearance, and kept their adherents on the alert to take up arms in his service.

The missionary then proclaimed the imam Obeid-Allah as the true caliph and spiritual head of Islam.

Then humbly prostrating himself before him, he hailed him as the expected mahdi, and in January, 910, he was duly prayed for in the mosque of Kayrawan as "the Imam 'Obeid-Allah el-Mahdi, Commander of the Faithful.'

The name of the Abbasside caliph was at once expunged from the Friday prayers at the old mosque of Amr at Fustat; the black Abbasside robes were proscribed, and the preacher, in pure white, recited the Khutba for the imam Moizz, emir el-muminin, and invoked blessings on his ancestors Ali and Fatima and all their holy family.

Coins were struck with the special formulas of the Fatimite creed"Ali is the noblest of [God's] delegates, the wazir of the best of apostles"; "the Imam Maadd calls men to profess the unity of the Eternal"in addition to the usual dogmas of the Mahometan faith.

This view is in bold contradiction to the hereditary principle, represented, by the "Mahdi" of the "Imam's" descent from the Kureish tribe of Arabia, which caused the very separation of the Shia sect from the Sunnis, which is the very essence of Shia belief, and which has among other fictions, led to the assumption of the name of "Kureishi" by some of the Kafirs.

[Mohammedan etc.] mullah, muezzin, ayatollah; ulema, imaum^, imam, sheik; sufi; kahin^, kassis^; mufti, hadji, dervish; fakir, faquir^; brahmin^, guru, kaziaskier^, poonghie^, sanyasi^; druid, bonze^, santon^, abdal^, Lama, talapoin^, caloyer^. V. take orders &c 995.

And I cried out, "Now shall I right myself, I, Adeb the Despised,for God is just!" There he who wronged my father dwelt in peace, My warlike father, who, when gray hairs crept Around his forehead, as on Lebanon The whitening snows of winter, was betrayed To the sly Imam, and his tented wealth Swept from him, 'twixt the roosting of the cock And his first crowing,in a single night:

And so He led me over mossy floors, Flowered with the silken summer of Shirar, Straight to the Imam's chamber.

In a sleep, Thick with the fumes of the accursed grape, Sprawled the false Imam.

The Imam never moved.

She replied In a low murmur, whose bewildering sound Almost lulled wakeful me to sleep, and sealed The sleeper's lids in tenfold slumber, "Prince, Lord of the Imam's life and of my heart, Take all thou seest,it is thy right, I know, But spare the Imam for thy own soul's sake!"

He descended the pulpit trembling with emotion, and left the Imam of the mosque to continue the service.

With regard to this last and twelfth Imam, some say, very erroneously, that he is yet to appear.

Now the fact is, the twelfth Imam has appeared.

[110] The sacred rupee, or piece of silver, is a coin which is dedicated to the Imam Zamin, or "the guardian Imam, (a personage nearly allied to the guardian saint of a good Catholic), to avert evils from those who wear them tied on the arm, or suspended from the neck.

[110] The sacred rupee, or piece of silver, is a coin which is dedicated to the Imam Zamin, or "the guardian Imam, (a personage nearly allied to the guardian saint of a good Catholic), to avert evils from those who wear them tied on the arm, or suspended from the neck.

Perhaps I never would have mounted had not Imam, the dragoman, with the frank unceremoniousness of the East, caught me up in his arms and landed me on my donkey before I could protest.

I never got to the point of personally beating mine, but Imam beat a few of them every day.

I called to the dragoman, and said: "Imam, Hassan won't bring up my donkey.

" Imam looked at him a moment in silence, then with a lightning slap on the cheek he laid him flat in the sand.