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The Ottoman Caliph's Legitimacy

One view is emphatically that the Turkish Sultan is Caliph. But while many Moslems would support it, others come to a different conclusion. The Rev. Dr.T.P. Hughes, an Anglican clergyman who spent many years in India and is the author of a "Dictionary of Islam " and of an excellent summary of the Mahometan faith entitled "Notes on Muhammedanism," states that he has "not seen a single man of authority who has ever attempted to prove that the Sultans of Turkey are rightful Caliphs," and he gives a number of quotations on the subject from Mahometan writers. A similar opinion is expressed by the Rev. Edward Sell. Dr. Hughes, alluding to his long residence in India, says, " After a careful study of the whole subject for thirty years, twenty having been spent amongst the mosques of the Moslems, I will defy anyone to produce any reasonable proof that any Moslem school in India acknowledges Abdul Hamid as the rightful Caliph."

In the early years of Abdul Hamid, the chief mosques in Stamboul contained extracts from the Sacred Books of the qualifications required in the Caliph. About 1890, by Abdul Hamid's commands, these were ordered to be taken down, and a considerable amount of discontent was thus created amongst the Ulema. One of them asked my informant, " Does Abdul Hamid consider that we are fools, that we do not all know the extracts by heart, and does he think that because they are taken down we shall cease to teach them in the ordinary course of study?"

When Ottoman sultans assumed the authority of caliphs, and took the title and the functions of Imaum-ul-Muslimin, or Commander of the Faithful, the Arabs, the Mohammedans of India, of the Soudan, and of Morocco, repudiated his authority. Even the Mohammedan doctors in Turkey, when called upon to bring arguments to establish Sultan Selim's right to the Caliphate, could only plead that " sovereign power must be held to reside in the person of him who is the strongest, who is the actual ruler, and whose right to command rests on the power of his armies." According to the Koran, " All Moslems ought to be governed by an Imaum [the Imaum-ul-Muslimin]. His authority is absolute and embraces everything. All are bound to submit to him. No country can render submission to any other." But the law goes on to say that the Imaum-ul-Muslimin must be of the family of Koreish.

Skeptics contended that the claim cannot be supported by an appeal to any sort of legal authority and that there is indeed no room for any uncertainty as to the real teaching of Mahomedan law and tradition. It was asserted that the Ottoman Sultan of Turkey was not, and cannot be, regarded as a Caliph de jure, even in his own dominions, for the simple reason that he was not of the Koreysh tribe; Sultan Selim, the first Ottoman Caliph, got the title by force; the Cairo Caliph el Mutawekkil had no legal power to cede the title; and the election by the faithful - the original mode of appointment - was turned into a farce. al-Mutawakkil, a descendent of the Abbasids of Baghdad, was living in exile in Egypt as a pensioner of the Mamluk ruler who was defeated in 1517 by Selim.

Baybars, the most distinguished of the Mamluk rulers, was originally a Turkoman slave who had picked up al-Mutawakkil's father, an uncle of last Abbasid Caliph, and installed him in Cairo with great pomp as, what some scholars labelled a 'pseudo-Caliph' who carried the name but none of the authority of the office. Baybar's object was to confer honor and legitimacy on his crown and give his court an air of primacy in Muslim eyes. Al-Mutawakkil succeeded his father in that role. He claimed to be the legitimate bearer of the Abbasid Caliphate. He had, at best, only a symbolic value for Baybars, in view of his connections with the Abbasid dynasty. On his return to Istanbul Selim carried the hapless al-Mutawakkil with him, to deny a potential future Mamluk any shred of legitimacy. The claim that the Caliphate was transferred by al-Mutawakkil to Selim is considered by some historians to be dubious. It has been argued that al-Mutawakkil was in no position to pass on the Caliphate to anyone, for he did not have it himself, having neither a country nor any power or authority.

Some people said that it was necessary that the Caliph in every age be one for the Mahomedans of the whole world, and, therefore, they regarded the Sultan of Turkey such a Caliph for the whole Mahomedan world. In countries containing large Mahomedan populations under Christian rule, the mere assertion on behalf of "the Commander of the Faithful" of an alleged right to exercise spiritual sway might do harm. Prayers were offered in Indian mosques for the Sultan as the "Master" of the Indian Moslems and for the triumph of his armies over the armies of infidels and polytheists. Though there may be, and have been, more Caliphs than one at one and the same time in different Mahomedan countries, it would appear that a Mahomedan sovereign had the rights of a Caliph only in the country in which he was the ruler. But according to the estimate of some at least experts, "a large majority" of Indian Mahomedans revered the Sultan as their Caliph de facto, whatever his position may be dejure. British troops spent weeks in 1898 engaged in the vigorous suppression of Mahomedan risings, due in all probability to excitement produced on the North-West Frontier of India by news of the Sultan's victories over a Christian Power. Mahomedans believe that, near the Day of Judgment, when Christ will come down from the heavens and Imam Mahdi will be born or reappear, then the latter will be the Imam of the whole world. Those who will be then living will see what will happen.