over the eastern half of the kingdom. Mu'āwiya aspirations in state policy were finally to found a dynasty. He proclaimed his son Yazīd as his successor, although this act was opposed not only to the ancient common law based on usage but also to the mode of election of the theocracy.
On Mu'āwiya death (18 April 680) Yazīd was accordingly recognised in the West and partially also in 'Irāḳ. At once a double opposition began to foment; that of the Ali party in 'Irāḳ, which had already begun to revive under Mu'āwiya, and the theocratic opposition of the Ḥijāz. The endeavour to transfer the central government once more, respectively to 'Irāḳ and to the Ḥijāz, probably underlay the opposition in both cases. As regards 'Irāḳ that theory is a certainty, for the families of Kūfa and Baṣra had not forgotten that in Ali's time they had been the masters of the empire. Now however Ali's Shī'a (party) was thrust into the background by the Syrians. They looked back to Ali, and their ardent desire was a restoration of that golden period for Kūfa. Their enthusiasm for Ali and his kin is therefore nothing more than a glorification of their own special province, of the one and only 'Irāḳ Caliph. This brilliant period they hoped after the death of the great Mu'āwiya to recover for themselves by selecting Ḥusain, the second son of Ali. Ḥusain complied with the solicitations of the Kūfa people. These however, unsteady and undisciplined as ever, shrank from rebellion and failed him at the last moment. Ḥusain and those remaining faithful to him were cut down at Karbalā (10 Oct. 680). Ali's son had thereby, like others before him, fallen as a martyr to the cause of Shī'ism. Political aspirations slowly assumed a religious tinge. The death of the prophet's grandson in the cause of the Kūfa people, their remorse on that account, their faded hopes, their hatred of the Syrians, and, last but not least, heterodox currents which now began to shew themselves, prepared the way for the great Shiite insurrection a few years later under Mukhtār. Ali is now no longer simply the companion and son-in-law of the prophet, but has become the heir of his prophetic spirit, which then lives on in his sons. The Ali dynasty – so at least say the legitimists – are the only true priestly Imāms, the only legal Caliphs. The struggle for the house of the prophet, for the Banū Hāshim, becomes more and more the watchword of the opposition party, who, after their political overthrow in Irāḳ, removed their sphere of operation to Persia. There however this Arabian legitimism united with Iranian claims, and, in the fight for the Banū Hāshim, the Persians were arrayed against the Arabs. With this war-cry the Abbasids conquered.
Although Ḥusain expedition to Karbalā had ended in a fiasco, the Umayyads were not destined to get off so lightly against the opposition of the Medina people, an opposition of the old elective theocracy against the new Syrian dynasty. Their opposition candidate was 'Abdallāh, son of that Zubair who had fallen in the fight against Ali. Yazīd was
