THE ABBASID AGE 81ety and to keep them layered: pure-blooded Arab Muslims at the top;
below them, Muslims with one Arab and one non-Arab parent; then non-
Arab Muslims; then non-Arab Muslims with non-Muslim parents; then
non-Muslims who at least belonged to one of the monotheistic faiths; and
so on down to the lowest of the low, rank polytheists born of polytheistic
parents, who had virtually no legal rights.
Friction among all these designated social gradients, and especially the
friction between the Arab nouveau aristocrats and the Persian former aris-
tocrats, kept a sense of grievance smoldering beneath the surface in this
portion of the Muslim realm.
Another shadow haunted the conscience of the Islamic world as well.
Muslim sacred history was problematically rich with anecdotes about the
simple, rugged lifestyle of the founders. Their simplicity and humbleness
went to the very essence of their appeal as religious figures. Inevitably, there-
fore, a feeling started percolating in the lower reaches of this new society that
something about all this splendor wasn't right. This prosperous, pleasure-
plump society could not be what Allah had meant when he charged Mo-
hammed with establishing a just community devoted to worship of the one
God. Of course, the richer you were, the less likely that such considerations
would trouble your dreams. For the poor, however, tales of luxury at court
and the sight of perfumed Arab noblemen riding through the streets clad in
silk had to evoke comparisons with Mohammed's simple blanket folded four
times to provide both mattress and cover and Khalifa Omar at his cobbler's
bench, mending his own shoes. Add to all this the odor left by the way in
which the Umayyads came to power, a process that had generated two en-
during opposition movements, the Shi'i and the Kharijites.
The Kharijites were the less numerous, but their movement was more
radical. Their theology had come to focus on extravagant demands for pu-
rity. They said the leadership of the Muslim world belonged to the person
who most assiduously practiced what the religion preached. No secular
ruler could ever meet the standards of the Kharijites. In fact, quite proba-
bly, no ruler anywhere could ever meet their standards, period, so the
Kharijites could preach revolution no matter what the circumstances. As
long as anyone was in power, someone would feel oppressed, and as long
as anyone felt oppressed, Kharijite agitators could use their doctrines to
fuel insurgencies.