When Bagdad had fallen and a large part of the Abasside family had been exterminated, this political fetishism still had its after-effects; the sultans of Egypt availed themselves of it by making one of those who had escaped murder continue the tradition of the dummy-Caliphate in their capital and thus creating the impression that their territory had now become the centre of Islâm. But this shadow of a shadow was to fade away entirely when the sun of the Ottomans reached its zenith. Under their direction Islâm ventured its last attempt, not to subdue the world, to be sure, but at least to become a world-power of the first rank. They succeeded in taking Constantinople (1452), a task at which the greatest Moslim princes of yore had vainly tried their strength. When in 1517 they had conquered Egypt and subsequently also the province of the holy cities of Arabia, Mecca and Medina, they felt themselves strong enough to try resuscitating the tradition of the real Caliphate; or, at least, to assume the part of fetish themselves. They were not deterred from this even by the express prescription of the law, which requires that he who shall occupy the Caliphate shall be descended from the noble Arabian house of Qoraish. The sophistry of complaisant jurists helped them to remove this objection, and the multitude did not resist these tricks, seeing that the dreams which they connected with the Caliphate now seemed to turn into realities. The conqueror of Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Western Arabia, Mesopotamia, and the empire of Byzantium, whom a large part of Europe considered as a formidable foe, might confidently substitute his sword as a fetish for the powerless pedigree of the Abassides. This re-born Caliphate consequently lacked important traditional characteristics; and in other respects also it could not be considered as the regular continuation of its predecessor. Several of the oldest Mohammedan countries remained entirely outside the Turkish sphere of influence; and those were not only such where, as in Persia, a dynasty opposed to the Turks raised the banner of heresy, but also perfectly orthodox countries in Central Asia, in India, in North-Western Africa, where the Turkish sword found no occasion to assert itself. In Morocco the Turkish Caliphate was even directly ignored, as the local princes, descendants of the Prophet, themselves assumed the highest title. Elsewhere, simultaneously with the rise of the Ottomans or after, there arose new Mohammedan dominions which have never come into contact with any real or supposed political centre of Islâm; such as those in the Far East of Asia and in Central Africa.