El Husseyn’s successor, the man for whom room was made, and who knew beforehand that it was to be made, was none other than the aged and twice deposed Abd el Mutalleb, the son of the Wahhabite Ghaleb, the fiercest fanatic of the Dewy Zeyd.

I have not room here to describe in detail the effect of this coup de Jarnac on the political aspect of Hejaz.  For the moment the reactionary party is in power at Mecca, as it is at Constantinople.  Abd el Mutalleb is supported by Turkish bayonets, and the Aoun family and the Liberals are suffering persecution at Mecca, while the Sherifal Court, which had hitherto been most friendly to England, has become the focus of Indian discontent.  Outside the town all is disorder.  It is sufficient for the present if I have shown that there is in Hejaz an element of spiritual power already existing side by side with the Sultan, of which advantage may one day be taken to provide him with a natural successor.  If no new figure should appear on the political horizon of Islam when the Ottoman empire dies, sufficiently commanding to attract the allegiance of the Mussulman world (and of such there is as yet no sign), it is certainly to the Sherifal family of Mecca that the mass of Mohammedans would look for a representative of their supreme headship, and of that Caliphate of which they stand in need.

The transfer of the seat of spiritual power from Constantinople to Mecca would be an easy and natural one, and would hardly disturb the existing ideas of the vulgar, while it would harmonize with all the traditions of the learned.  Mecca or Medina would, on the extinction of Constantinople, become almost of necessity the legal home of the Ahl el Agde, and might easily become the acknowledged centre of spiritual power.  All whom I have spoken to on the subject agree that the solution would be an acceptable one to every school of Ulema except the distinctly Turkish schools.  Indeed “Mecca, the seat of the Caliphate” is, as far as I have had an opportunity of judging, the cry of the day with Mussulmans; nor is it one likely to lose strength in the future.  Like the cry of “Roma capitale,” it seems to exercise a strong influence on the imagination of all to whom it is suggested, and when to that is added “a Caliphate from the Koreysh,” the idea is to Arabs at least irresistible.  How indeed should it be otherwise when we look back on history?

For my own part, though I do not pretend to determine the course events will take, I consider this notion of a return to Mecca decidedly the most probable of all the contingencies we have reviewed, and the one which gives the best promise of renewed spiritual life for Islam.  Politically the Caliph at Mecca would of course be less important than now on the Bosphorus; but religiously he would have a far more assured footing.  Every year the pilgrimage from every part of the world would visit him, and instead of representing a mere provincial school of thought, he would then be a true metropolitan for all schools and all nations.