The heretical sects remain to us.  Of these the most notable without contestation is the Shiite, or Sect of Ali, which traces its origin to the very day of the Prophet’s death, when Abu Bekr was elected Caliph to Ali’s exclusion.  I will not here renew the arguments urged in this old dispute more than to say that the dispute still exists, though it has long ceased to be the only cause of difference between Shiah and Suni.

Beginning merely as a political schism, the Shiite sect is now distinctly a heresy, and one which has wandered far from the orthodox road.  Their principal features of quarrel with the Sunites are—­first, a repudiation of the Caliphate and of all hierarchical authority whatsoever; secondly, the admission of a right of free judgment in individual doctors on matters of religion; and thirdly, a general tendency to superstitious beliefs unauthorized by the Koran or by the written testimony of the Prophet’s companions.  They also—­and this is their great doctrinal quarrel with the unitarian Sunites—­believe in a series of incarnations of the twelve qualities of God in the persons of the “twelve Imams,” and in the advent of the last of them as a Messiah, or “Mohdy,” doctrines which are especially advanced by the Sheykhi school of Shiism and minimized by the Mutesharreh or orthodox.  These last matters, however, are rather excrescences than necessary parts of Shiism.  They owe their prevalence, without doubt, to the Persian mind, which is equally prone to scepticism and credulity, and where Shiism has always had its stronghold.

The religious constitution of the sect of Ali has been described to me by a member of it who knows Europe well as resembling in its organization the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.  That is to say, it acknowledges no head, temporal or spiritual, and each congregation represents a separate unit of authority in itself.  There is no such functionary in Persia as Sheykh el Islam, or Grand Mufti, and the Shah claims to be neither Imam nor Caliph.  Each Shiite doctor who has taken his degree at Kerbela or Ispahan may deliver his fetwa or opinion on points of doctrine, and the only test of his authority to preach or lead the prayer in mosque is his power of attracting a congregation.  It is strange that in a sect which had its origin in an assertion of hereditary right to the Caliphate everything hereditary should be now rigidly excluded.

In theory, I believe the Shias still hold that there is an Imam and Caliph, but they will not tolerate the pretension of any one now in authority to the title, and leave it in abeyance until the advent of the Mohdy, or guide, who is to reunite Islam and restore its fortunes.  So much is this the case that, sovereign though he be and absolute master in Persia, the Shah is to the present day looked upon by the Persians as a usurper, and he himself acknowledges the fact in a rather curious ceremony.  It is a maxim with Mussulmans of all sects that prayer is not valid if made in another man’s house without his permission, and this being so, and the Shah admitting that his palaces of right belong not to himself but to the Mohdy, he is obliged to lease them according to legal form from an alem or mujtahed, acting for the supposed Mohdy, before he can pray in them to his spiritual profit.