CALIPH, or Khalif, the sovereign dignitary among the Mahometans, vested with an almost absolute authority in all matters relating to religion and civil polity. In the Arabic it signifies successor or vicar, the caliphs bearing the same relation to Mahomet that the popes, in the estimation of Roman Catholics, bear to St Fcter. It is at this day one of the titles of the grand seignior or sultan, who claims to be successor to Mahomet, through the line including Abu-Bekr, Oman, and Othman (the Sunnite view), and also of the Sophi or Sufi of Persia as claimant through Ali (the Shiite view). The history of the rule of the Sophis may occasionally remind the student of the saying current respecting Russian autocracy some fifty years ago, that it was “despotism tempered by assassination.” When Louis XIV. was one day, in the presence of some courtiers, extolling the government of the Sophis as something approaching to an almost ideal excellence, the Marshal d’Estrees replied, “But, sire, I have seen three of them strangled during my lifetime.” One of the chief functions of the caliph, in his quality of imaum or chief priest of Islamism, was to begin the public prayers every Friday in the chief mosque, and to deliver the khootba or sermon. In after times they had assistants for this latter office; but the former was always performed by the caliph in person. The caliph was also obliged to lead the pilgrims to Mecca in person, and to march at the head of the armies of his empire. He granted investiture to princes and sent swords, standards, gowns, and the like, as presents to princes of the Mahometan religion, who, though they had thrown off the yoke of the caliphate, held of it as vassals. The caliphs usually went to the mosque mounted on mules; and the Seljukian sultans, ...