t us then to
conquer the unbelievers!" And the common people are willingly taught by the
canonists and feed their hope of better days upon the innumerable legends
of the olden time and the equally innumerable apocalyptic prophecies about
the future. The political blows that fall upon Islam make less impression
upon their simple minds than the senseless stories about the power of
the Sultan of Stambul, that would instantly be revealed if he were not
surrounded by treacherous servants, and the fantastic tidings of the
miracles that Allah works in the Holy Cities of Arabia which are
inaccessible to the unfaithful.

The conception of the Khalifate still exercises a fascinating influence,
regarded in the light of a central point of union against the unfaithful.
Apart from the _'amils_, Mohammed's agents amongst the Arabian tribes,
the Khalifate was the only political institution which arose out of the
necessity of the Moslim community, without foreign influence. It rescued
Islam from threatening destruction, and it led the Faithful to conquest. No
wonder that in historic legend the first four occupiers of that leadership,
who, from Medina, accomplished such great things, have been glorified into
saints, and are held up to all the following generations as examples to put
them to shame. In the Omayyads the ancient aristocracy of Mecca came to the
helm, and under them, the Mohammedan state was above all, as Wellhausen
styled it, "the Arabian Empire." The best khalifs of this house had
the political wisdom to give the governors of the provinces sufficient
independence to prevent schism, and to secure to themselves the authority
in important matters. The reaction of the non-Arabian converts against the
suppression of their own culture by the Arabian conquerors found support in
the opposition parties, above all with the Shi'ah. The Abbasids, cleverer
politicians than the notoriously unskillful Alids, made use of the Alid
propaganda to secure the booty to themselves at the right moment. The means
which served the Alids for the establishment only of an invisible dynasty
of princes who died as martyrs, enabled the descendants of Mohammed's
uncle Abbas to overthrow the Omayyads, and to found their own Khalifate at
Bagdad, shining with the brilliance of an Eastern despotism.

When it is said that the Abbasid Khalifate maintained itself from 750 till
the Mongol storm in the middle of the thirteenth century, that only refers
to external