Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - Mohammedanism (1916).djvu/76

 Rh limits difference of opinion was allowed in his community. Of that privilege Mohammedans have always amply availed themselves.

When the difference touched on political questions, especially on the succession of the Prophet in the government of the community, schism was the inevitable consequence. Thus arose the party strifes of the first century, which led to the establishment of the sects of the Shîʿites and the Khârijites, separate communities, severed from the great whole, that led their own lives, and therefore followed paths different from those of the majority in matters of doctrine and law as well as in politics. The sharpness of the political antithesis served to accentuate the importance of the other differences in such cases and to debar their acceptance as the legal consequence of the difference of opinion that God's mercy allowed. That the political factor was indeed the great motive of separation, is clearly shown in our own day, now that one Mohammedan state after the other sees its political independence disappearing and efforts are being made from all sides to re-establish the unity of the Mohammedan world by stimulating the feeling of religious brotherhood. Among the most cultivated Moslims of different countries an earnest endeavour is gaining ground to admit Shîʿites, Khârijites and others, formerly abused as heretics, into the great community, now threatened by common foes, and to regard their special