empty appearance of worldly authority. This appearance was all that the later Abbasids retained after the loss of their temporal power; spiritual authority of any kind they never possessed.
The spiritual authority in catholic Islâm reposes in the legists, who in this respect are called in a tradition the "heirs of the prophets." Since they could no longer regard the khalîfs as their leaders, because they walked in worldly ways, they have constituted themselves independently beside and even above them; and the rulers have been obliged to conclude a silent contract with them, each party binding itself to remain within its own limits.[1] If this contract be observed, the legists not only are ready to acknowledge the bad rulers of the world, but even to preach loyalty towards them to the laity.
The most supremely popular part of the ideal of Islâm, the reduction of the whole world to Moslim authority, can only be attempted by a political power. Notwithstanding the destructive criticism of all Moslim princes and state officials by the canonists, it was only from them that they could expect measures to uphold and extend
- ↑ That the Khalifate is no way to be compared with the Papacy, that Islâm has never regarded the Khalîf as its spiritual head, I have repeatedly explained since 1882 (in "Nieuwe Bijdragen tot de kennis van den Islam," in Bijdr. tot de Taal-, Landen Volkenkunde van Nederl. Indië, Volgr. 4, Deel vi, in an article, "De Islam," in De Gids, May, 1886, in Questions Diplomatiques et Coloniales, 5me année, No. 106, etc.). I am pleased to find the same views expressed by Prof. M. Hartmann in Die Welt des Islams, Bd. i., pp. 147–8.
