سياسي خارجي ٢٩٣٤/٣٧ "الخلافة (الإسلامية)" [و‎‎٣‎٢] (١٣٦/٦٣)

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by Sheikh El Maraghi. If the influences secularly
represented by El Azhar were to predominate in Egypt,
smelling of doctrinaire reaction and clerical obscurantism,
there can be no warmth in Turkish friendship for Egypt. A
resuscitation of the Caliphate would be viewed by Turkey
with annoyance and repulsion.
What precedes may not represent textually what
Aras said, but I think it renders fairly what he was thinking.
I told him that my own personal impression was
that the Caliphate as a practical issue was probably dead, and
certainly moribund.
It appears that in saying this I reckoned without
my host - if the Aga Khan can be so described. I had no
idea at all that the Aga Khan was stirring in the Caliphate
question.
Like Miles Lampson I have excellent personal
relations with the Aga Khan that I would not wish to be
disturbed. But the Caliphate campaign which the Aga Khan is
apparently conducting, I must say frankly, alarms me. My now
lengthy experience in the Islamic East drives me to the
conclusion that the revival of the Caliphate, whether universal
or as a constellation of local institutions, will bring
nothing but trouble, of which the brunt, as usual, will in
the end be borne by the British Empire.
It is therefore my devout and fervent hope that, at
the worst, His Majesty’s O-overnment will maintain their
total detachment from the whole caliphate issue, at second best
will stone-wall vis-A-vis of the Aga Khan’s campaign, and at
the best will find some means of discouraging the Aga Khan
from further pursuit of the Caliphate Grail.
In expressing this personal opinion I am not
defending Turkish modes of thought; I am expressing my cwn
convictions.