United States or Iran ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They begin with Mawiyeh ibn Ommiyah, founder of the Ommiad dynasty, and end with Mostasem Billah, the last Sultan of the Abbasides. The third period is a phase of temporal inter-regnum during which for nearly three hundred years the Khalifeh exercised no sovereign rights, and resided as a spiritual chief only, or as we should now say Sheykh el Islam, at Cairo.
As a rule the temporal government of Islam was intrusted to a Sadrazzam, or Grand Vizier, the spiritual duty of prayer to a Naïb, or deputy Imam, and the elaboration or interpretation of law and doctrine to such Ulema or Mujtaheddin as could command a following. The character of the Khalifeh, however, was still essentially sacred.
The Ulema, indeed, such as were Hanefites, admitted him to be legally Khalifeh; but many of the Shafite school denied this, pleading still that as an alien to the Koreysh his claim was illegal, while to the ignorant mass of the people out of his dominions his spiritual title remained almost unknown.
Orthodox Mussulman writers recognize four distinct phases which the office of Khalifeh has undergone, and four distinct periods of its history. The word Khalifeh, derived from the Arabic root khalafa, to "leave behind," signifies literally one left behind, and in the legal sense the relict or successor of the prophet and heir to his temporal and spiritual power.
He shall begin by purging the earth of injustice, fighting against oppressors wherever he shall find them, Mohammedan as well as Infidel, and he shall teach the people a perfect law which they shall have forgotten, and he shall reign over Islam in place of their Khalifeh, being called the Móhdy, or guide.
The Sultans, neither of Egypt nor of India, nor till Selim's time of the Turkish Empire, ever claimed for themselves the title of Khalifeh, nor did the Sherifal family of Mecca, who alone of them might have claimed it legally as Koreysh. Neither did Tamerlane nor any of the Mussulman Mongols who reigned at Bagdad.
It must, then, have been an interesting and startling novelty with Mussulmans to hear of this new pretender to the ancient dignity interesting, because the name Khalifeh was connected with so many of the bygone glories of Islam; startling, because he who claimed it seemed by birth incapable of doing so.
The Sunite or Orthodox Mohammedan world holds it as a dogma of faith that there must be a Khalifeh, the ex-officio head of their religious polity, and the successor of their prophet. In temporal matters, whoever holds this office is theoretically king of all Islam; and in spiritual matters he is their supreme religious authority.
Nowhere was a supreme temporal head of Islam to be seen, and the name of Khalifeh as that of a reigning sovereign ceased any longer to be heard of in the world. Only the nominal succession of the Prophet was obscurely preserved at Cairo, whither the survivors of the family of Abbas had betaken themselves on the massacre of their house at Bagdad.
Everywhere the reactionary party is standing to its arms, and is beginning to recognize a leader in this supple Armenian Khalifeh, who is defying Europe, and seems willing, if necessary, to lead them one day on a Jehad. With all this, however, it must not be supposed that Orthodox Islam is by any means yet won back to Constantinople.
Word Of The Day