MUSLIMS: DOCTRINESof dynastic legitimacy. There is no evidence that those who followed
al-Mukhtar did so, although he seems to have been aware of the
possibility.!05 In fact, none o·f the ideas associated with al-Mukhtar
seem to have come from his Persian supporters. But one of his wives,
'Amra bint an-Nu'man al-An~arl, was executed by Mu~'ab for in-
sisting that al-Mukhtar was a prophet.^106 Apart from the lack of evi-
dence, one of the main problems with the "Persian explanation" is
that there were as many Persians at Basra as at Kufa, and those at
Basra do not seem to have supported the claims of 'All's family. Non-
Arabs made a greater contribution to Kharijism in the seventh century
because they were more involved.
THE GHULAT
Up until the end of the seventh century, support for the family of
'All in Iraq was expressed in terms that Muslim Arabs brought with
them. From about the turn of the century, new ideas began to appear
among small groups of extremists (Ar. ghulat) belonging to the Kay-
saniyya. The belief by some of the followers of MUQammad ibn al-
I:Ianafiyya that he would return was based most directly on the pre-
Islamic Arab concept of the Arthurian return (Ar. raj'a) of the hero. ID?
A similar claim may have been made for 'Ali after he was killed, but
the idea of return was not limited to Shi'i circles. 'Umar I is said to
have refused to believe that MUQammad was dead and expected him
to return as Moses had.los This was most easily coordinated with
Christian Messianic ideas, but in this period the idea of return was
not necessarily eschatological. More important expressions of escha-
tological expectations occur in non-Shti contexts and concern the
arrival of a future savior who has not been here yet but who will come
in the last days. The south Arabian savior called the QaQtani was such
a figure, and 'Abd ar-RaQman ibn MUQammad ibn al-Ash'ath claimed
to be the QaQtani when he rebelled against al-J:Iajjaj. The Magian
figure of the Saoshyant who will be both priest and king and will bring
about a perfect society by uniting royalty with the good religion in
his person^109 resembled the later Shi'i concept of the Imam-Mahdi.
105 Baladhuri, Ansiib, V, 223.
106 Dixon, Umayyad Caliphate, p. 75.
107 Bravmann, Spiritual Background, p. 265.
108 Tabari, Ta'rtkh, I, 1815-16.
109 Duchesne-Guillemin, La religion de l'Iran ancien, p. 353.