It is almost certain that if Abd el Mejid and Abd el
Aziz had been succeeded by another of those senseless monarchs who have
so often filled the Imperial throne, the Ottoman Caliphate would already
have been a thing of the past, at least as regards the larger and more
intelligent part of Islam. In the collapse of its physical power in
1879, the official camarilla of Constantinople would have been unable to
control the movement of revolt against the spiritual and temporal
sovereignty of the Sultan, and something would have taken its place
offering a more possible foundation for true religious reform. Arabia
would in all probability have by this time asserted its independence,
and under a new Caliphate of the Koreysh would have been attracting the
sympathies and the adhesion of the Eastern world. There might have been
schisms and religious convulsions, but at least there would have been
life; and what Islam requires is to live. But unfortunately Abd el Hamid
was neither a mere voluptuary nor an imbecile, and catching, by an
instinct which one cannot but admire, the one rope of safety which
remained for him and his house, he placed himself at the head of the
extreme reactionary party of Islam, and thus put back for a while the
hour of fate.
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