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detail, disappeared from human eyes. Their programmes varied from moderate, more or less dynastic opposition to extreme religious heterodoxy, far removed from the commonly accepted teachings of Islam. A recurring feature is the cult of holy men - Imams and dais - who were believed to possess miraculous powers, and whose doctrines reflect mystical and illuminationist ideas derived from Gnosticism, Manichaeism, and various Iranian and Judaeo- Christian heresies. Among the beliefs attributed to them are those of reincarnation, the deification of the Imams and sometimes even of the dais, and libertinism - the abandonment of all law and restraint. In some areas - as for example among the peasants and nomads in parts of Persia and Syria - distinctive local religions emerged, resulting from the interaction of Shiite teachings and earlier local cults and creeds.

The political programme of the sects was obvious: to overthrow the existing order and instal their chosen Imam. It is more difficult to identify any social or economic programme, though their activities were clearly related to social and economic discontents and aspirations. Some idea of these aspirations may be inferred from the messianic traditions that were current, showing what needs the Mahdi was expected to meet. Part of his task was, in the broad sense, Islamic - to restore the true Islam, and spread the faith to the ends of the earth. More specifically, he was to bring justice - to `fill the world with justice and equity as it is now filled with tyranny and oppression', to establish equality between the weak and the strong, and to bring peace and plenty.
At first, the leaders to whom the Shia gave their allegiance based their claims on kinship with the Prophet rather than on descent from him in the direct line, through his daughter Fatima; some of them, including a few of the most active, were not descendants of Fatima - some not even of Ali, but of other branches of the Prophet's clan. But after the victory and betrayal of the Abbasids, the Shia concentrated their hopes on the descendants of Ali and, among these, more particularly on those who sprang from his marriage with the Prophet's daughter. Increasing stress was laid on the importance of direct descent from the Prophet, and the idea gained ground that since the Prophet's death there had in fact been a single line of legitimate Imams, who alone were the rightful heads of the Islamic community. These were Ali, his sons Hasan and Husayn, and the descendants of Husayn through his son Ali Zayn al-Abidin, the solitary survivor of the tragedy at Karbala. Apart from Husayn, these Imams had in the main refrained from political activity. While other claimants spent themselves in vain attempts to overthrow the Caliphate by force, the legitimate Imams preferred to function as a sort of legal opposition to the Caliphs in power. They resided in Mecca or Medina, far from the main political centres, and, while maintaining their claims, did little to advance them. On the contrary, they sometimes gave recognition, and even help and advice to the Umayyad, and after them to the Abbasid rulers of the Empire. In the pious Shiite tradition, this attitude of the legitimate Imams is given a religious colouring; their passivity was an expression of their devoutness and otherworldliness, their acquiescence an application of the principle of Tagiyya.

The term Tagiyya, caution, precaution, denotes an Islamic doctrine of dispensation - the idea that, under compulsion or menace, a believer may be dispensed from fulfilling certain obligations of religion. The principle is variously defined and interpreted, and is by no means peculiar to the Shia; it was they, however, who were most frequently exposed to the dangers of persecution and repression, and by them therefore that the principle was most frequently invoked. It was used to justify the concealment of beliefs likely to arouse the hostility of the authorities or the populace; it was cited