8. We must not forget that these last-named have borrowed much from the first ones, and it is by them that they have known the celebrated Khalif of Bagdad, one of the principal heroes of the "Thousand and One Nights," Haroun al Raschid, whose presence surprises us not a little when figuring in adventures incompatible with the dignity of a successor of the Prophet.

[Footnote 1: That the Khalifate is in no way to be compared with the Papacy, that Islâm has never regarded the Khalif as its spiritual head, I have repeatedly explained since 1882 (in "Nieuwe Bijdragen tot de kennis van den Islam," in Bijdr.

He had received embassies and presents from the sovereigns of the East, Christian and Mussulman, from the emperors at Constantinople and the khalifs at Bagdad.

For, imprisonment or internment of the Khalif in his own capital will be not only a mockery of fulfilment but it would he adding injury to insult.

Fortunately similar rivalries, dissensions, and treasons prevailed amongst the Mussulman emirs, some of them Turks and others Persians or Arabs, and at one time foes, at another dependants, of the Khalifs of Bagdad or of Egypt.