SHIITES (also SHEEAHS; "sectaries," from the Arabian shiah, "a party"), the name given by orthodox Muslims or Sun nites to Ali's followers, who call them selves al-adeliyyah, "the right people." They were the champions of Ali's right to be Mohammed's successor as being his cousin and son-in-law; and after Ali's death they took the side of his sons Has san (Hasan), Hussein (Hosain), and Mo hammed ibn al-Hanafiyyah. The Per sians, believers in the divine right and even in the divine nature of kings, took this side. All Shiites allegorize the Ko ran; but the ultra Shiites, founded by Abdallah ibn Saba, a converted Jew of Yemen, differed from the moderate Shiites or Zaidites in believing in the transmi gration of souls, and in calling Ali and his legitimate successors incarnations Of God. By Shiite help the Abbasides in 750 wrested the caliphate from the Om miades. Yet, unsound as the Abbasides were, and decided as Persian ascendency was for 100 years, the Shiites gained little. They were the strength of the "veiled prophet" in 770-779 and of Balek in 817-837. Their disaffection was one chief reason for the introduction of Turks into the caliph's service (830-840).
In 765 the death of Jaafar the Vera cious, the Sixth Shiite Imam, developed the Ismaili sect of the Shiites. Those fol lowed the eldest son Ismael; the majority, following Moosa, the second son, were afterward named Twelvers, the series of their Imams ending with the 12th. In Irak in 887 arose the Karmathian branch of the Ismailis. In 909 an Ismaili pro claimed himself in north Africa as the first Fatimide caliph. The 6th caliph of this line, Hakim, was declared to be God's 10th and final incarnation by Darazi, who founded the sect of the Druses. In 1090 Hassan Sabbah, an Ismaili of Khorassan, as the Sheikh of the Mountains insti tuted the order of Assassins, who gen erally recognized the Fatimide caliphate.
Ismailis are still found in Persia and Syria. The moderate Shiism, that has been the national religion of Persia since the native royal line of Safiides ascended the throne in 1499, is more Koranic than Sunnism. It has Hadith and Sunna, but not those of the orthodox Muslims. It has its own modes of religious washing, and its own postures in prayer.
Shiites, habitually ill-used in Arabia, absent themselves much from Mecca, and, unable to bless Abu-bekr and Omar, who are buried in Medina, go still less thither. But they do pilgrimage unhindered to the tombs of All and Hussein in the pashalic of Bagdad, and to the tomb of Riza, one of their 12 imams, in Meshhed, the capital of Khorassan, and to the tombs of Shiite saints. They keep the orthodox feasts and others, among which the Moharram feast, occupying the first 10 days of the month Moharram, and com memorating the martyrdom of Hussein, is the chief. They detest Ayeshah and the founders of the four orthodox schools, and hold all caliphs save Ali to have been usurpers. They own no caliphate nor imamate; these have been dormant since the death of Mohammed, their 12th imam, in 879, but shall be revived in him when he, the Hidden Imam, reappears as the Mandi. Shiism, the ancient protest of Persian patriotism against Arabian ascen dency, has spread through Afghanistan into India, but toward the W. has made no way. The Shiites, divided and sub divided into sects, number 10,000,000, most of whom are Aryans. Toleration and free thought are common in towns and among the more cultivated Persians. In 1736 Nadir Shah tried but failed to restore the Shiites to orthodoxy.