Is there then in Islam, east, or west, or south, a man of sufficient eminence and courage to proclaim himself Caliph, in the event of Abd el Hamid’s political collapse or death?  What would be his line of action to secure Mahommedan acceptance?  Where should he fix his capital, and on what arms should he rely?  Whose flag should he display?  Above all—­for this is the question that interests us most—­could such a change of rulers affect favourably the future thought and life of Islam, and lead to an honest Moslem reformation?  These questions, which are being cautiously asked of each other by thoughtful Mussulmans in every corner of the east, I now propose to consider and, as far as it is in my power, to answer.

I have said that Islam is already well prepared for change.  Whatever Europeans may think of a future for the Ottoman Empire, Mussulmans are profoundly convinced that on its present basis it will not long survive.  Even in Turkey, the thought of its political regeneration as an European Empire has been at last abandoned, and no one now contemplates more than a few years further tenure of the Bosphorus.  Twenty years ago it was not so, nor perhaps five, but to-day all are resigned to this.

Ancient prophecy and modern superstition alike point to a return of the Crescent into Asia as an event at hand, and to the doom of the Turks as a race which has corrupted Islam.  A well-known prediction to this effect, which has for ages exercised its influence on the vulgar and even the learned Mohammedan mind, gives the year 1883 of our era as the term within which these things are to be accomplished, and places the scene of the last struggle in Northern Syria, at Homs, on the Orontes.  Islam is then finally to retire from the north, and the Turkish rule to cease.  Such prophecies often work their own fulfilment, and the feeling of a coming catastrophe is so deeply rooted and so universal that I question whether the proclamation of a Jehad by the Sultan would now induce a thousand Moslems to fight voluntarily against the Cross in Europe.

The Sultan himself and the old Turkish party which supports him, while clinging obstinately in appearance to all their ground, really have their eyes turned elsewhere than on Adrianople and Salonica and the city of the Roman Emperors.  It is unlikely that a new advance of the Christian Powers from the Balkan would meet again with more than formal opposition; and Constantinople itself, unsupported by European aid, would be abandoned without a blow, or with only such show of resistance as the Sheriat requires for a cession of territory.[14] The Sultan would, in such an event, pass into Asia, and I have been credibly informed that his own plan is to make not Broussa, but Bagdad or Damascus his capital.  This he considers would be more in conformity with Caliphal traditions, and the Caliphate would gain strength by a return to its old centres.  Damascus is surnamed by theologians Bab el Kaaba, Gate of the Caaba; and there or at Bagdad, the traditional city of the Caliphs, he would build up once more a purely theocratic empire.