to that is added "a Caliphate from
the Koreysh," the idea is to Arabs at least irresistible. How indeed
should it be otherwise when we look back on history?

For my own part, though I do not pretend to determine the course events
will take, I consider this notion of a return to Mecca decidedly the
most probable of all the contingencies we have reviewed, and the one
which gives the best promise of renewed spiritual life for Islam.
Politically the Caliph at Mecca would of course be less important than
now on the Bosphorus; but religiously he would have a far more assured
footing. Every year the pilgrimage from every part of the world would
visit him, and instead of representing a mere provincial school of
thought, he would then be a true metropolitan for all schools and all
nations.

The Arabian element in Islam would certainly support such a nomination,
and it must be remembered that Arabia extends from Marocco to Bushire;
and so would the Indian and the Malay--indeed every element but the
Turkish, which is day by day becoming of less importance. I have even
heard it affirmed that a Caliphate of the Koreysh at Mecca would go far
towards reconciling the Schismatics, Abadhites, and Shiahs with
orthodoxy; and I have reason to believe that it would so affect the
liberal three-quarters of Wahhabism. To the Shiahs, especially, a
descendant of Ali could not but be acceptable; and to the Arabs of Oman
and Yemen a Caliph of the Koreysh would be at least less repugnant than
a Caliph of the Beni Othman. There certainly have of late years been
symptoms of less bitterness between these schismatics and their old
enemies, the Sunites; and such a change in the conditions of the
Caliphate might conceivably bring about a full reconciliation of all
parties. Mussulmans can no longer afford to fight each other as of old;
and I know that a reunion of the sects is already an idea with advanced
thinkers. Lastly, the Caliphate would in Arabia be freed from the
incubus of Turkish scholasticism and the stigma of Turkish immorality,
and would have freer scope for what Islam most of all requires, a moral
reformation.

It is surely not beyond the flight of sane imagination to suppose, in
the last overwhelming catastrophe of Constantinople, a council of Ulema
assembling at Mecca, and according to the legal precedent of ancient
days electing a Caliph. The assembly would, without doubt, witness
intrigues of princes and quarrels among schoolmen and a