and for the second half of their existence the Khalifs
were little more than ciphers to be played with by
the great princes of the empire and to contribute a
little pomp to their coronations. Finally the Khalifate
was abolished in Asia by the Mongol invasion in the
thirteenth century, and though the title is still claimed
by the Sultan of Turkey, there is no Khalif now in
the old comprehensive sense of the word. ¹

The earliest province to shake off the authority of
the Khalif was Andalusia. To understand how this
happened, we must remember that the Khalifs did not
succeed one another in one unbroken line of family
inheritance. After the first four (or "orthodox")
Khalifs, Abu-Bekr, Omar, Othmamacr;n, and Aly, who
were elected more or less by popular vote, the Syrian
party set up Moāwia as Khalif at Damascus, and
from him sprang the family of the Omeyyad Khalifs,
so called from their ancestor Omeyya. There were
fourteen Omeyyad Khalifs, who reigned from 661 to
750, when they were deposed by Es-Seffāh the
Butcher," who was the first of the second dynasty of
Khalifs, called Abbāside, after their ancestor Abbās,
an uncle of the Prophet Mohammed. The Abbāside
Khalifs transferred the seat of government from
Damascus to Baghdad, and held the Khalifate until
its destruction by the Mongols in 1258. Among the
members of the deposed family of the Omeyyads
was Abd-er-Rahmān, a name which means "Servant
of the Merciful God." Most of his relations were

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