File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎241r] (490/834)

el-Nasafi: “ The Caliphate lasted thirty years, after which it
became a Kingdom and Emirate ” that is to say, it became a
Government not different from any other non-Moslem sovereignty.
The thirty lunar years—equivalent to rather more than twenty-
nine solar years—correspond to the period between the death of
Mohammed (632 a.d.) and that of the fourth Caliph (661 a.d).
(5) . This is an attack on the supernatural Imam of the
Shia sect, who is supposed to have vanished at a certain moment
and to remain hidden until his reappearance at an unknown
later time. He is then to return and bring the Golden Age
back to earth.
(6) . This also is an attack on the Shias whose Imam is
limited by divine right to the descendants of Ah. It is also
an attack on the fanatical partisans of the Abbasids, who main
tained that the Caliph had to be a descendant of the Hashim.
a subtribe of the Koreish. Mohammed and All belonged to
the Hashim. They declared that the previous Caliphate of
the Ommiads was illegal, as they were of the Koreish tribe but
not of the Hashim branch.
(7) . Another attack on the Shia doctrine.
(8) . As a result of the decreased importance of the theory
and practice of the Shia sect, Sunni catechisms, drawn up for
the use of schools during the last thirty years in Turkey and
Egypt, have come to omit anything to do with the Caliphate
or Imamate.
(9) . The councils of doctors summoned by the Abbasid
Caliphs, are pure inventions by the Christian Greek Savvas
Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , author of that unfortunate and harmful book called
“ Theorie du droit musulman,” which has caused so much
confusion among Europeans who are not Arabic scholars. Such
councils never occurred in the Islamic world.
(10) . A parallel, which does not escape the attention of
certain Arab authors, as example, Ibn Abi Dinar, who wrote
the history of Tunis in 1681, and dealt with Charles V’s ex
peditions against that place. He observes how the latter
assumed the title of Imbiratur : “ a title belonging to German
sovereigns, muluh al-alman, whose sovereignty is very ancient
and whose Emperor is what the Caliph is for Moslems."
(11) . This baia also takes place for other sovereigns.
It occurred, for example, when Husein Kamel was made Sultan
of Egypt in December, 1914, and when the present Sherif of
Mecca, Husein ibn Ali, declared his independence of Turkey. It is
in constant use for the Sultans of Morocco and the Beys of Tunis.
(12) . In Arabic writers, the expression “ in such a country
the Khutba is held for ‘ X ’ ” is equivalent to saying that “ X ”
is recognised as legal sovereign in that country.