The next most important of the heretical sects is the Abadiyeh.  These, according to some, are the religious descendants of the Khawarij, a sect which separated itself from the Califate in the time of the Seyid Ali, and, after a severe persecution in Irak, took refuge at last in Oman.  Whatever their present doctrines, they seem at first to have been like the Shiites, political schismatics.  They maintained that any Mussulman, so long as he was not affected with heresy, might be chosen Imam, and that he might be deposed for heresy or ill-conduct, and indeed that there was no absolute necessity for any Imam at all.  They are at present only found in Oman and Zanzibar, where they number, it is said, about four millions.  Till as late as the last century the Imamate was an elective office among them, but with the accession of the Abu Said dynasty it became hereditary in that family.[8] They reject all communion with the Sunites, but I have not been able to discover that they hold any doctrines especially offensive to the mass of Moslems.  Their differences are mainly negative, and consist in the rejection of Califal history and authority later than the reign of Omar, and of a vast number of traditions now incorporated in the Sunite faith.

Allied to them but, as I understood, separate, are the Zeidites of Yemen, who are possibly also descended from the Khawarij.  But, as the Zeidites are accustomed to conceal the fact of their heresy and to pass themselves when on pilgrimage as Sunites, I could learn little about them.  They were, till ten years ago, independent under the Imams of Sana, and it is certain that they repudiate the Califate.  In former times, before the first conquest of Arabia by the Turks, these Imams were all powerful in Hejaz, and on the destruction of the Bagdad Califate assumed the title of Hami el Harameyn, protector of the holy places.  The Turks, however, now occupy Sana, and the office of Imam is in abeyance.  The Zeidites can hardly number more than two millions, and their only importance in the future lies in the fact of their geographical proximity to Mecca, and in the fact that their sympathies lie on the side of liberality in opinion and reform in morals.  Neither Zeidites nor Abadites have any adherents out of their own countries.

Of the Wahhabites a more detailed account is needed, as although their numbers are small and their political importance less than it formerly was, the spirit of their reform movement still lives and exercises a potent influence on modern Mohammedan ideas.  I have described elsewhere[9] the historical vicissitudes of the sect in Arabia, and the decline of its fortunes in Nejd, but a brief recapitulation of these may be allowed me.