[543] According to the most probable account of historians, it never was Alí who pretended to be a God, but _Abdallah_, son of _Wahab_, son of _Saba_, a Jew converted to Islamism, who was the first instigator of the seditious movements to which Omar fell a victim, promulgated the doctrine, that a particle of divinity resided in Alí, the true Imám, that he is not dead, but only for a time withdrawn from the eyes of men; that he would reappear one day upon the earth, and fill it with justice, in the same manner as it is now filled with iniquities. This doctrine served as a foundation to the different sects which admitted the transmission of the Imamate to the descendants of Alí, by right of succession, and spread in the east and west of Asia, in Africa, and in Spain. [544] Nimrod and Pharáun maintain, in the Koran and in the traditions of the Muhammedans, the same character as in the Bible of the Hebrews, for tyranny against men and presumption towards God; the first was the enemy of Abraham, the other of Moses: both were punished by God. [545] _Ebn Maljam_, “the son of Maljam,” was _Abd-ur-rahman_, who assassinated Alí. [546] We have already (see vol. I. p. 100, note) touched upon the enmity which existed between the family of Alí and that of Moaviah, the son of Abu Sofian and of Hinda, a woman famous for her animosity against Muhammed, the prophet. Nevertheless Moaviah became one of the secretaries of Muhammed, after whose death he was appointed to the government of Syria by Omar, and confirmed in that station by Osman. After the violent death of this khalif, Moaviah declared himself the avenger of his protector, and would not submit to Alí, upon whom he waged war during four years, and after whose death he opposed with equal ardour Hasan, who succeeded his father in the khalifat. Surrounded by rebellion in his own camp, Hasan could not resist, but resigned his right and person to Moaviah. He died in Medina of poison given him, as some say, by his wife, Jáda, or by his minister, at the injunction of Moaviah (see _Elmacin, trad. Erpenii_, p. 56); according to others, in concordance with the Dabistán, by the fraud of Moaviah’s son, Yazid, who seduced Jáda, and instigated her to poison her husband, promising to marry her, but after the perpetration of the act, rejected, with scorn, the woman supplicating for the price of her deed. I shall add, according to _Abulfeda_ (_edit. of Reiske_, p. 350), that in Hasan terminated (A. D. 661) the legitimate khalifat, or the succession of chiefs whom the free consent of the Muslims called and established, and thus was fulfilled the prediction of the prophet, which from the mouth of Safina, his freeman, is recorded in the