Among these were _Osman_ and _Ali_. After a hard contest between these two competitors, the former, supported by his four colleagues, was proclaimed khalif at the end of the year 23, or the beginning of 24 of the Hejira, 643 or 644 A. D. Osman Ben Affan was called by his partisans ذو النورين, _zo ul naráin_, “the possessor of two lights,” because he had married Rakíah and Omm al Kachúm, both daughters of Mohammed, whose prophecy was supposed to be the source of light diffused over his whole posterity. Osman published the Koran such as it was in the original text, deposited (as was before said) in the hands of Hafsat, one of Mohammed’s widows, and he caused all copies, differing from this one, to be suppressed. The domination of the Mohammedans was established and extended, to the east, in Khorassen and in Upper Asia; to the west, over the whole northern coast of Africa and even a part of Spain, during this khalif’s reign, which, after eleven years, terminated by his violent death in an insurrection which took place against him in Egypt. The Egyptians offered the government to Ali. As before mentioned, he was one of the six persons named by Omar as fit for the khalifat, which Ali claimed as his right, being the cousin-german and son-in-law (husband of Fatima, the eldest daughter) of Mohammed, and thus the head of the family of the Hashemites, who were distinguished by the name of “the house of the Prophet.” After Osman’s death, Ali was by his party proclaimed the head of the Muselmans. His title was اسد الله الغالب, _assad allah al-ghaleb_, “the lion of God, the victorious.” Possessed of great learning, he composed several celebrated works in prose and in verse, although he had to sustain a continual struggle with the adverse party. He was assassinated in Kufa, in the year 40 of the Hejira, 660 A. D. After him, his sons Hassan and Hossain (see note 3, pp. 47-48) fell victims to Moavia, a relation of Osman, and the mortal enemy of the whole race of Ali. The contest between these two parties was, after the death of their chiefs, carried on by their numerous adherents, and, connected as it is with some difference in their religious opinions and rites, continues to our days. Ali is acknowledged the head of the شيعة, _Shiâts_, which word means in general “a troop, a party,” but is particularly applied to those who believe that the _Imamat_, or the supreme dignity over the Muselmans, belongs by right to Alí and his descendants, who call themselves _Aladiliats_, or “the party of the just.” Opposed to them are the _Sonnites_, so called from the Arabic word _sonnat_, which signifies “precept, rule,” or the orthodox faith of Muselmans, comprehending the traditional laws relative to