Note 55 — Chapter II

But many of the tribes revered the name and memory of Ali. His refusal to be bound by the tradition, or Sonna, became a kind of religious creed, and a wide and deep gulf was opened between two rival sects, the Sonnites, or believers in the tradition, and the Schiites, or sectaries, who reject the tradition, regard Ali as the Vicar of God, and his three predecessors as execrable usurpers. The religious discord of the friends and enemies of Ali may be said to be actually maintained still to the present day in the immortal hatred of the Schiite Persians, and the Sonnite Turks. The twelve Imams, or pontiffs, of the Persian church are Ali, Hassan, Hosein, and the lineal descendants of Hosein to the ninth generation. The curse against Ali and his adherents was abolished by Omar II., in 719.