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caliph

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caliph

Title of civic and religious heads of the world of Islam. The first caliph was Abu Bakr. Nominally elective, the office became hereditary, held by the Umayyad dynasty 661–750 and then by the Abbasid dynasty. After the death of the last Abbasid (1258), the title was claimed by a number of Muslim chieftains in Egypt, Turkey, and India. The most powerful of these were the Turkish sultans of the Ottoman Empire.

The title was adopted by the prophet Muhammad's successors. During the 10th century the political and military power passed to the leader of the caliph's Turkish bodyguard; about the same time, an independent Fatimid caliphate sprang up in Egypt. The last of the Turkish caliphs was deposed by Kemal Atatürk in 1924.



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In the reign of the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid, there lived at Bagdad a porter who, in spite of his humble calling, was an intelligent and sensible man.
The Arabian Nights by Lang, Andrew View in context
"'The beast,' continued Sinbad to the caliph, 'swam, as I have related, up hill and down hill until, at length, we arrived at an island, many hundreds of miles in circumference, but which, nevertheless, had been built in the middle of the sea by a colony of little things like caterpillars'"
The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherezade by Poe, Edgar Allan View in context
Restored by order of the Caliph Omar, it was definitely destroyed in 761 or 762 by Caliph Al-Mansor, who wished to prevent the arrival of provisions to Mohammed-ben-Abdallah, who had revolted against him.
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by Verne, Jules View in context
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