spiritual court and ecclesiastical recognition. He found it good to have a Khalifa of his own to use in any question of legitimacy. The name had yet so much value. Finally, in 1517, the Mamluk rule went down before the Ottoman Turks, and the story told by them is that the last Abbasid, when he died in 1,538, gave over his rights to their Sultan, Sulayman the Great. Since then, the Ottoman Sultan of Constantinople has claimed to be the Khalifa of Muhammad and the spiritual head of the Muslim world.

Such were the fates of the Commanders of the Faithful. We have traced them through a long and devious course, full of confusions and complications. Leaving aside the legitimist party, the whole may be summed in a word. The theoretical position was that the Imam, or leader, must be elected by the Muslim community, and that position has never, theoretically, been abandoned. Each new Ottoman sovereign is solemnly elected by the Ulama, or canon lawyers and divines of Constantinople. His temporal sovereignty comes by blood; in bestowing this spiritual sovereignty the Ulama act as representatives of the People of Muhammad. Thus the theoretical position was liable to much modification in practice. The Muslim community resolves itself into the people of the capital; still further, into the body-guard of the dead Khalifa; and, finally, as now, into the peculiar custodians of the Faith Among the Ibadites the position from the first seems to have been that only those learned in the law should act as electors. Along with this, the doctrine developed that it was

the duty of the people to recognize un fait accompli and to do homage to a successful usurper—until another more successful should appear. They had learned that it was better to have a bad ruler than no ruler at all. This was the end of the democracy of Islam.

Finally, it may be well to give some account of the constitutional question as it exists at the present day. The greatest of the Sultans of Islam is undoubtedly the Emperor of India. Under his rule are far more Muslims than fall to any other. But the theory of the Muslim State never contemplated the possibility of Muslims living under the rule of an unbeliever. For them, the world is divided into two parts, the one is Dar al-Islam, abode of Islam; and the other is Dar al-harb, abode of war. In the end, Dar al-harb must disappear into Dar al-Islam and the whole world be Muslim. These names indicate with sufficient clearness what the Muslim attitude is toward non-Muslims. It is still a moot point among canon lawyers, however, whether Jihad, or holy war, may be made, unprovoked, upon any Dar al-harb. One thing is certain, there must be a reasonable prospect of success to justify any such movement; the lives of Muslims must not be thrown away. Further, the necessity of the case—in India, especially—has brought up the doctrine that any country in which the peculiar usages of Islam are protected and its injunctions—even some of them—followed, must be regarded as Dar al-Islam and that Jihad within its borders is forbidden. We may doubt, however, if this doctrine would hold back the Indian Muslims to