“The third claim that the Mussulmans have charged us with putting before you is based on a series of injunctions which require the Khalifa to be the warden of the three sacred Harams of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem; and overwhelming Muslim sentiment requires that he should be the warden of the holy shrines of Nejef, Kerbela, Kazimain, Samarra, and Baghdad, all of which are situated within the confines of the ‘Island of Arabia.’ “Although Muslims rely on their religious obligations for the satisfaction of the claims which I have specified above, they naturally find additional support in your own pledge, Sir, with regard to Constantinople, Thrace, and Asia Minor, the populations of which are overwhelmingly Muslim. They trust that a pledge so solemnly given and recently renewed will be redeemed in its entirety. Although the same degree of sanctity cannot be claimed for Constantinople as for the three sacred Harams—Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem—Constantinople is nevertheless held very sacred by all the Muslims of the world, and the uninterrupted historic tradition of nearly five centuries has created such an overwhelming sentiment with regard to Islambol, or the ‘City of Islam’—a title which no city has up to this time enjoyed—that an effort to drive the Turks out ‘bag and baggage’ from the seat of the Khilafat is bound to be regarded by the Muslims of the world as a challenge of the modern Crusaders to Islam and of European rule to the entire East, which cannot be taken up by the Muslim world or the East without great peril to our own Empire, and, in fact, to the Allied dominions in Asia and Africa. In this connection, Sir, I might mention one point, that the Muslims cannot tolerate any affront to Islam in keeping the Khalifa as a sort of hostage in Constantinople. He is not the Pope at the Vatican, much less can he be the Pope at Avignon, and I am bound to say that the recent action of the Allied Powers is likely to give rise in the Muslim world to feelings which it will be very difficult to restrain, and which would be very dangerous to the peace of the world.” With regard to the question of the Caliphate and temporal power, on which the Indian delegation had been instructed to insist particularly, M. Mohammed Ali, in order to make the Moslem point of view quite clear, wrote as follows:[20]