fate of 'Alí and his sons. The Sunnís are blamed for the work of their ancestors in the faith, whilst the Khalífs Abu Bakr, Omar, and Osmán are looked upon as usurpers. Not to them was committed the wonderful ray of light. In the possession of that alone can any one make good a claim to be the Imám, the Guide of the Believers. The terrible disorders of the early days of Islám can only be understood when we realise to some extent the passionate longing which men felt for a spiritual head—an Imám. It was thought to be impossible that Muhammad, the last—the seal—of the prophets should leave the Faithful without a guide, who would be the interpreter of the will of Allah.
We here make a slight digression to show that this feeling extends beyond the Shía'h sect, and is of some importance in its bearing upon the Eastern Question. Apart from the superhuman claims for the Imám, what he is as a ruler to the Shía'h, the Khalíf is to the Sunní—the supreme head in Church and State, the successor of the Prophet, the Conservator of Islám as made known in the Qurán, the Sunnat and the Ijmá' of the early Mujtahidín. To administer the laws, the administrator must have a divine sanction. Thus when the Ottoman ruler, Selim the First, conquered Egypt, (A.D. 1516) he sought and obtained, from an old descendant of the Baghdád Khalífs, the transfer of the title to himself, and in this way the Sultáns of Turkey became the Khalífs of Islám. Whether Mutawakal Billál, the last titular Khalíf of the house of 'Abbás, was right or wrong in thus transferring the title is not my purpose now to discuss. I only adduce the fact to show how it illustrates the feeling of the need of a Pontiff—a divinely appointed Ruler. Strictly speaking, according to Muhammadan law, the Sultáns are not Khalífs, for it is clearly laid down in the Traditions that the Khalíf (or the Imám) must be of the tribe of the Quraish, to which the Prophet himself belonged.
Ibn-i-Umr relates that the Prophet said:—"The Khalífs shall be in the Quraish tribe as long as there are two
persons in it, one to rule and another to serve."[[77]] "It is a necessary condition that the Khalíf should be of the Quraish tribe."[[78]] Such quotations might be multiplied, and they tend to show that it is not at all incumbent on orthodox Sunnís, other than the Turks, to rush to the rescue of the Sultán, whilst to the Shía'hs he is little better than a heretic. Certainly they would never look upon him as an Imám, which personage is to them in the place of a Khalíf. In countries not under Turkish rule, the Khutbah, or prayer for the ruler, said on Fridays in the mosques, is said for the "ruler of the age," or for the Amír, or whatever happens to be the title of the head of the State. Of late years it has become more common in India to say it for the Sultán. This is not, strictly speaking, according to Muhammadan law, which declares that the Khutbah can only be said with the permission of the ruler, and as in India that ruler is the British Government, the prayers should be said for the Queen. Evidently the law never contemplated large bodies of Musalmáns residing anywhere but where the influence of the Khalíf extended.
In thus casting doubt on the legality of the claim made by Turkish Sultáns to the Khalifate of Islám, I do not deny that the Law of Islám requires that there should be a Khalíf. Unfortunately for Islám, there is nothing in its history parallel to the conflict of Pope and Emperor, of Church and State. "The action and re-action of these powerful and partially independent forces, their resistance to each other, and their ministry to each other, have been of incalculable value to the higher activity and life of Christendom." In Islám the Khalíf is both Pope and Emperor. Ibn Khaldoun states that the difference between the Khalíf and any other ruler is that the former rules according to divine, the latter according to human law. The Prophet in transmitting his sacred authority to the Khalífs, his successors, conveyed to
them absolute powers. Khalífs can be assassinated, murdered, banished, but so long as they reign anything like constitutional liberty is impossible. It is a fatal mistake in European politics and an evil for Turkey to recognize the Sultán as the Khalíf of Islám, for, if he be such, Turkey can never take any step forward to newness of political life.[[79]]
This, however, is a digression from the subject of this chapter.
There has been from the earliest ages of Islám a movement which exists to this day. It is a kind of mysticism, known as Súfíism. It has been especially prevalent among the Persians. It is a re-action from the burden of a rigid law, and a wearisome ritual. It has now existed for a thousand years, and if it has the element of progress in it, if it is the salt of Islám some fruit should now be seen. But what is Súfíism? The term Súfí is most probably derived from the Arabic word Súf, "wool," of which material the garments worn by Eastern ascetics used to be generally made. Some persons, however, derive it from the Persian, Súf, "pure," or the Greek σοφια, "wisdom." Tasawwuf, or Súfíism, is the abstract form of the word, and is, according to Sir W. Jones, and other learned orientalists, a figurative mode, borrowed mainly from the Indian philosophers of the Vedanta school, of expressing the fervour of devotion. The chief idea is that the souls of men differ in degree, but not
in kind, from the Divine Spirit, of which they are emanations, and to which they will ultimately return. The Spirit of God is in all He has made, and it in Him. He alone is perfect love, beauty, etc.—hence love to him is the only real thing; all else is illusion. Sa'dí says: "I swear by the truth of God, that when He showed me His glory all else was illusion." This present life is one of separation from the beloved. The beauties of nature, music, and art revive in men the divine idea, and recall their affections from wandering from Him to other objects. These sublime affections men must cherish, and by abstraction concentrate their thoughts on God, and so approximate to His essence, and finally reach the highest stage of bliss—absorption into the Eternal. The true end and object of human life is to lose all consciousness of individual existence—to sink "in the ocean of Divine Life, as a breaking bubble is merged into the stream on the surface of which it has for a moment risen."[[80]]
Súfís, who all accept Islám as a divinely established religion, suppose that long before the creation of the world a contract was made by the Supreme Soul with the assembled world of spirits, who are parts of it. Each spirit was addressed separately, thus: "Art thou not with thy Lord?" that is, bound to him by a solemn contract. To this they all answered with one voice, "Yes."