Problems were apparent as early as 661, when the established line of ‘Rightly Guided Caliphs’ ended with the death of ‘Ali (the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law) and the rise of a rival Arab clan–the Umayyad dynasty. The Umayyads moved the capital of the Muslim world beyond the confines of Arabia for the first time, settling in the great Syrian metropolis of Damascus, and they held sway over Islam until the mid-eighth century. However, this same period witnessed the emergence of the Shi‘a (literally the ‘party’ or ‘faction’), a Muslim sect who argued that only descendants of ‘Ali and his wife
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