Note 11 — THE THREE CALENDERS, SONS OF KINGS, AND THE FIVE LADIES OF BAGDAD

This may probably be an allusion to the two great divisions prevailing among the Mohammedans, the Soonnis and the Shiites. The former upheld the legitimacy of the three first successions of Mohammed; the latter maintained the right of his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, and his descendants, called Fatemites or Ismaelites. They both received the Koran, but the one added to it the Sonna, or certain oral traditions attributed to Mohammed, which the other rejected.