Now, it is significant that many of those Mohammedan governors, who owe their existence to wild growth in this way, seek, especially in our day, for connection with the Khalifate, or, at least, wish to be regarded as naturally connected with the centre. The same is true of such whose former independence or adhesion to the Turkish Empire has been replaced by the sovereignty of a Western state. Even amongst the Moslim peoples placed under the direct government of European states a tendency prevails to be considered in some way or another subjects of the Sultan-Khalîf. Some scholars explain this phenomenon by the spiritual character which the dignity of Khalîf is supposed to have acquired under the later Abbasids, and retained since that time, until the Ottoman princes combined it again with the temporal dignity of sultan. According to this view the later Abbasids were a sort of popes of Islâm; while the temporal authority, in the central districts as well as in the subordinate kingdoms, was in the hands of various sultans. The sultans of Constantinople govern, then, under this name, as much territory as the political vicissitudes allow them to govern--_i.e._, the Turkish Empire; as khalîfs, they are the spiritual heads of the whole of Sunnite Islâm. Though this view, through the ignorance of European statesmen and diplomatists, may have found acceptance even by some of the great powers, it is nevertheless entirely untrue; unless by "spiritual authority" we are to understand the empty appearance of worldly authority. This appearance was all that the later Abbasids retained after the loss of their temporal power; spiritual authority of any kind they never possessed. The spiritual authority in catholic Islâm reposes in the legists, who in this respect are called in a tradition the _"heirs of the prophets."_ Since they could no longer regard the khalîfs as their leaders, because they walked in worldly ways, they have constituted themselves independently beside and even above them; and the rulers have been obliged to conclude a silent contract with them, each party binding itself to remain within its own limits.[1] If this contract be observed, the legists not only are ready to acknowledge the bad rulers of the world, but even to preach loyalty towards them to the laity. The most supremely popular part of the ideal of Islâm, the reduction of the whole world to Moslim authority, can only be attempted by a political power. Notwithstanding the destructive criticism of all Moslim princes and state officials by the canonists, it was only from them that they could expect measures to uphold and extend the power of Islâm; and on this account they continually cherished the ideal of the Khalifate.