as his
successor in the Caliphate.

4. _The guardianship of the two shrines_, that is to say of Mecca and
Jerusalem, but especially of Mecca. It has been asserted by some of the
Ulema, and it is certainly a common opinion at the present day, that the
sovereignty of Hejaz is in itself sufficient title to the Caliphate. It
seems certainly to have been so considered in the first age of Islam,
and many a bloody war was then fought for the right of protecting the
Beyt Allah; but the connection of Hejaz with the Empire of the Caliphs
has been too often broken to make this a very tenable argument. In the
tenth century it was held by the Karmathian heretics, in the thirteenth
by the Imams of Sana, and for seven years in the present century by the
Wahhabis. Still the _de facto_ sovereignty of the Harameyn, or two
shrines, was one of Selim's pleas; and it is one which has reappeared in
modern arguments respecting the Caliphal rights of his descendants.

5. _Possession of the Amanat_ or sacred relics. This last was a plea
addressed to the vulgar rather than to the learned; but it is one which
cannot be passed by unnoticed here, for it exercises a powerful
influence at the present day over the ignorant mass of Mussulmans. It
was asserted, and is still a pious belief, that from the sack of Bagdad,
in 1258, certain relics of the Prophet and his companions were saved and
brought to Cairo, and thence transferred by Selim to Constantinople.
These were represented to constitute the Imperial insignia of office,
and their possession to give a title to the Caliphal succession. They
consisted of the cloak of the Prophet borne by his soldiers as a
standard, of some hairs from his beard, and of the sword of Omar. The
vulgar believe them to be still preserved in the mosque of Ayub; and
though the Ulema no longer insist on their authenticity, they are often
referred to as an additional test of the Sultan's right.

Such, then, were the arguments of the Hanefite school, who defended
Selim's claim, and such they are with regard to his successors of the
house of Othman. By the world at large they seem to have been pretty
generally accepted, the more so as the Turkish Sultans, having only a
political end in view, were satisfied with their formal recognition by
their own subjects, and did not bring the question to an issue with
their independent neighbours. Neither the Mogul Emperors at Delhi nor
the Sheriffs of Morocco were called upon to acknowle