Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Holy War, Made in Germany (1915).djvu/35

 22 the Far East of Asia and in Central Africa.

Indeed the usurpation of the Caliph title by the Ottoman Sultans had only this significance, that in their political period of splendour they wished to have it established beyond dispute that no other Moslim prince could compare with them in importance. This could in no wise be more aptly done than by adding to all their high-sounding Persian and Turkish titles the name of the most exalted office which had ever existed in Islâm. To their power this nominal title of Caliph has never added anything; they ruled only what their armies had conquered and outside those limits they did not exert the slightest influence.

The Turkish sword soon lost its edge; long before the policy of the great European powers gnawed off piece after piece from the realm of the Ottomans, several