Abu Hashim, the son of Muhammad b. al-Hanafiya, died in 98 A.H. poisoned, it was generally believed, by the Khalif Sulayman, and bequeathed his rights to Muhammad b. `Ali b. `Abdullah, a descendant of the house of Hashim, to which the Prophet and `Ali had belonged, the rival clan of the Quraysh tribe opposed to the clan of the `Umayyads. Abu Hashim assumed that the Imamate was his to be passed on to whom he saw fit, a view of the Imamate which was not accepted by the stricter Shi`ites who were legitimists, but the partisans of Abu Hashim do not seem to have been extremists in spite of their Kaysanite origin. In 99 the Khalifate passed to Umar II. the one `Umayyad who showed `Alid sympathies, putting an end to the public cursing of `Ali which had formed part of the public ritual in the mosques of Damascus since the days of Mu`awiya and who represented a type of personal piety to which the `Umayyad Khalifs had hitherto been strangers. His brief reign of less than three years did not, however, remove the evils of tyranny and misgovernment, and he was followed by other rulers more in conformity with the old bad type. About the time of Umar’s death a deputation of Shi`ites waited upon Muhammad b. `Ali the Hashimite, a man of noted piety and the one who had now become, as legatee of Abu Hashim the son of Muhammad b. al-Hanafiya, the recognised head of an important wing of the Shi`ites, and swore to support him in an endeavour to obtain the Khalifate “that God may quicken justice and destroy oppression” (Dinwari: _Akhbaru t-Tiwal_. ed. Guirgass, Leiden. p. 334): and Muhammad had answered that “this is the season of what we hope and desire, because one hundred years of the calendar are completed.” (id.) The supporters of the family of Muhammad b. al-Hanafiya, who had now transferred their allegiance to Muhammad b. `Ali, were extremely important, not so much by reason of their numbers as by their excellent organisation. They had developed a regular system of missionaries (_da`i_, plur. _du`at_) who travelled under the guise of merchants and confined their teaching to private instructions and informal intercourse, a method which has become the standard type of Muslim missionary propaganda. By Abu Hashim’s death and legacy Muhammad b. `Ali found this very fully organised missionary work at his service, and its emissaries were fully confident that his acceptance of the overtures of the Shi`ite deputation meant that he stood as the champion of Shi`ite claims. The stricter Shi`ites who followed the house of al-Husayn did not admit the claims of Muhammad b. al-Hanafiya or his descendants, but they supported Muhammad b. `Ali’s efforts under the impression that he was a Shi`ite champion.