of the Prophet’s uncle Abbas existed for the purpose of lending an additional glory to Mohammedan princes by a diploma.  Even after the destruction of Bagdad by the Mongols in 1258, from which only a few Abbasids escaped alive, Indian princes continued to value visits or deeds of appointment granted them by some begging descendant of the “Glorious House.”  The sultans of Egypt secured this luxury permanently for themselves by taking a branch of the family under their protection, who gave the glamour of their approval to every new result of the never-ending quarrels of succession, until in the beginning of the sixteenth century Egypt, together with so many other lands, was swallowed up by the Turkish conqueror.

These new rulers, who added the Byzantine Empire to Islam, who with Egypt brought Southern and Western Arabia with the Holy Cities also under their authority, and caused all the neighbouring princes, Moslim and Christian alike, to tremble on their thrones, thought it was time to abolish the senseless survival of the Abbasid glory.  The prestige of the Ottomans was as great as that of the Khalifate in its most palmy days had been; and they would not be withheld from the assumption of the title.  There is a doubtful tale of the abdication of the Abbasids in their favour, but the question is of no importance.  The Ottomans owed their Khalifate to their sword; and this was the only argument used by such canonists as thought it worth their while to bring such an incontestable fact into reconciliation with the law.  This was not strictly necessary, as they had been accustomed for eight centuries to acquiesce in all sorts of unlawful acts which history demonstrated to be the will of Allah.

The sense of the tradition that established descent from the tribe of Qoraish as necessary for the highest dignity in the community was capable of being weakened by explanation; and, even without that, the leadership of the irresistible Ottomans was of more value to Islam than the chimerical authority of a powerless Qoraishite.  In our own time, you can hear Qoraishites, and even Alids, warmly defend the claims of the Turkish sultans to the Khalifate, as they regard these as the only Moslim princes capable of championing the threatened rights of Islam.

Even the sultans of Stambul could not think of restoring the authority of the Khalif over the whole Mohammedan world.  This was prevented not only by the schismatic kingdoms, khalifates, or imamates like Shi’itic Persia, which was consolidated just in the sixteenth century, by the unceasing opposition of the Imams of Yemen, and Kharijite principalities at the extremities of the Mohammedan world.  Besides these, there were numerous princes in Central Asia, in India, and in Central Africa, whom either the Khalifate had always been obliged to leave to themselves, or who had become so estranged from it that, unless they felt the power of the Turkish arms, they preferred to remain as they