ORIGIN OF THE WASAWAHILI. 411 



percentage, some say one half, others only $2000, 

 when paying it into the Sayyid's treasury. He 

 was never, however, admitted to any equality by 

 the Arab ruler. The Shirazi clan does not now 

 contain more than a hundred families. 



The "Wasawahili race appears, from the 6 Kilwa 

 Chronicle ' (Huma Chronica dos Beys de Quiloa) 

 mentioned by De Barros (1st Decade of Asia, viii. 

 4, 5), to have been derived from the 6 Emozaydis ' 

 (Amm Zayd) or followers of their Imam, Zayd bin 

 Ali Zayn el Abidm bin Husayn, the grandson 

 of the Prophet. He was proclaimed Khalif ah at 

 Kufa in a. h. 122 (a. d. 739), under the Khalifat 

 of El Hesham bin Abd el Melek, the Ommiade, 

 by whom he was conquered and slain. The pre- 

 tender's son, Yahya, fled to Khorasan, where the 

 Abbasides were already making head against 

 the Ommiades, and the tenets of his followers, 

 the Zaydis, spread throughout Yemen, where 

 they formed, and they still form, a numerous and 

 influential class. Other 6 Shiah ' partisans took 

 refuge from persecution in East Africa, fortified 

 themselves upon the littoral about Shangaya, and, 

 extending southwards, became lords of the land. 

 Some generations afterwards an emigration of 

 Sunni Arabs from El Hasa, in three ships, 

 commanded by seven brothers flying from the 



