'Memorandum on British Commitments to King Husein' [‎111v] (20/20)

A reply in this sense was eventually conveyed to King Huseiu by Colonel Wilson.' 2
In his conversation with Colonel Wilson on the 2nd November i916, quoted above,
the Sherif twice spoke of the Caliphate as being in abeyance, and mentioned that he
possessed a book by a Wahabi authority in which this was demonstrated, and which he
would publish if necessary.
He developed this thesis further in a conversation with Captain Lawrence on
the 2bth July 1917, 78 and the latter received the impression that he was genuinely
averse from the idea of reviving the office in his own person. For the " false Caliphate "
of the Osmanlis he would prefer, it seems, to substitute a spiritual leadership of Islam
in his own family w r ith some such title as Amiral Muminin, if this were genuiuelv offered
to him. His view appears to be that the spiritual leader of Islam should not aim at
being the political sovereign of the whole Moslem world, but that the office should be
combined with a small temporal sovereignty—for instance, over the Hejaz and its Holy
Cities—in order to secure the holder of it the independence necessary to his position.
In fact, according to this conversation, Sherif Husein aims at a position verv like
that of the Papacy when it possessed the temporal power over the Estates of the
Church.
If this is the Sherif's real view, it is remarkably divergent from the chauvinistic
trend of opinion concerning the Caliphate which seems to be more common among
Moslems at present. And it remains to be seen how he would regard the title of Caliph
if it were actually placed within his grasp.
IMation of commitments under (viii) to British desiderata.
His Majesty s Government have succeeded so far in making it clear that they
egard the question of the Caliphate as a purely Moslem affair, without causing Sherif
Husein to doubt their goodwill towards his aspirations in the matter.
We have two purely negative desiderata—avoidance of offence on the one hand to
^ loslein opinion and on the other hand to the Sherif—which have to be reconciled with
one another, and hitherto we have avoided committing ourselves in either direction in
a way that would compromise us in the other.
Y2 Thf^rG u
which was lett to the discretion a^Sir r" ^ of fi na ' text of this note, the drafting of
a scretion ot bir R. ^ mgate. Colonel Brdmond, and Colonel Wilson.
3 174974/17