Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/318

 661] charge even of collusion. And herein ʿAlī must be held accountable not only for a grave dereliction of duty, but for a fatal error which shook the stability of the Caliphate itself, as he was himself not long in finding to his cost.

Tradition, strange to say, is silent, and opinion uncertain, as to where the body of ʿAlī lies. Some believe that he was buried in the Great Mosque at Al-Kūfa, others in the palace. Certainly, his tomb was never, in early times, the object of any care or veneration. The same indifference attached to his memory throughout the realm of Islām, as had attached to his person during life, and it was not till a generation had passed away that any sentiment of special reverence or regard for the husband of the Prophet's daughter, and father of his only surviving progeny, began to show itself.

There is no trace whatever at this period of the extravagant claims of later days. On the contrary, even at Al-Kūfa, the capital that should have been proud of its Caliph, there prevailed at this time towards him and his family an utter want of enthusiasm and loyalty, amounting at times to disaffection. The fiction of the divine Imāmship was a reaction in favour of ʿAlī's descendants, arising out of the coming tragedy at Kerbalā and cruel fate of the Prophet's progeny, which, fostered by ʿAlid and ʿAbbāsid faction, soon became a powerful lever, skilfully and unscrupulously used, to overthrow the Umeiyad dynasty.