Another party, consisting mainly of city Arabs infected with Persian ideas as to the divinity of the ruler, clung to `Ali with inconvenient affection. They regarded `Ali and his descendants as the only legitimate caliphs, and came to be known as Shi`ites (q.v.). They remain to-day the largest part of Islam outside orthodoxy. During the Omayyad caliphate (661-750) there were three centres of religious thought and influence; students and teachers often passed from one to the other, thus making universal the teachings which in their origin were due to local circumstances. These centres were Damascus (the seat of the caliphate), Medina and the East (Irak, &c.). In Damascus the court was worldly and indifferent to the interests of Islam. The early Omayyads were distinguished for their striving after dominion (_mulk_). Instead of attempting to propagate Islam, they tolerated other religions and favoured Christians who were distinguished as poets (e.g. Akhtal) or officials (John of Damascus), or men likely to be of use to them in any way. The doctrines of Christianity began to influence even serious Moslems and to affect their way of stating Moslem belief. John of Damascus (d. before 767), the Greek theologian, and his pupil, Theodorus Abucara (d. 826), have written controversial works on Islam, from which it seems probable that disputations on subjects pertaining to religion were held between Christians and Moslems. Two schools of heretical Moslem sects arose under these influences--that of the Murjiites and that of the Qadarites. The Murjiites ("postponers") were so called because they postponed the judgment of human actions until the Day of Judgment. In politics they accepted the Omayyads as _de facto_ rulers, since they were Moslems, and left the judgment of their actions to God. As theologians they taught that religion consists in belief (_iman_) in the unity of God and in his apostle, and in that alone, consequently no one who held this faith would perish eternally, though he had been a sinner. This was opposed to the Kharijite doctrine that the unrepentant sinner would perish eternally, even though he had professed Islam.