descent. Their standard of requirements contained only religious and moral qualities; and they claimed for the community the continual control of the chosen leader's behaviour and the right of deposing him as soon as they found him failing in the fulfilment of his duties. Their anarchistic revolutions, which during more than a century occasionally gave much trouble to the Khalifate, caused Islâm to accentuate the aristocratic character of its monarchy. They were overcome and reduced to a sect, the survivors of which still exist in South-Eastern Arabia, in Zanzibar, and in Northern Africa; however, the actual life of these communities resembles that of their spiritual forefathers to a very remote degree.
Another democratic doctrine, still more radical than that of the Khârijites, makes even non-Arabs eligible for the Khalifate. It must have had a considerable number of adherents, for the tradition which makes the Prophet responsible for it is to be found in the canonic collections. Later generations, however, rendered it harmless by exegesis; they maintained that in this text "commander" meant only subordinate chiefs, and not “the Commander of the Faithful.” It became a dogma in the orthodox Mohammedan would, respected up to the sixteenth century, that only members of the tribe of Qoraish could take the place of the Messenger of God.
