Page:Thomas Walker Arnold - The Caliphate (1924).pdf/13

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I

THE CALIPHATE AND THE HOLY ROMAN
EMPIRE

During the early part of the Middle Ages two rival political systems, one in the West and the other in the East, dwelt face to face, ignorant and entirely unappreciative of one another's ideals. Each claimed to exist by divine appointment and appealed for sanction of its authority to the revealed Word of God. When Pope Innocent III declared that the Lord had entrusted to Peter not only the Universal Church but the government of the whole world,[1] he enunciated that doctrine of a world religion which Christianity has held from its very inception; and the theory of the Holy Roman Empire set before it as its aim a World-State in which the Emperor would be universal sovereign, controlling and guiding the secular affairs of the faithful with an ever-widening authority, until it should embrace the whole surface of the globe. Similarly, Islam is a universal religion and claims the allegiance of all men and women, who must either accept the Muslim faith or pay tribute as subject peoples; corresponding to this common recognition of the same creed there was to be a unity of political organization in which all believers were to owe obedience to the supreme head of the community, the Khalīfah.

  1. ↑ Page:Thomas Walker Arnold - The Caliphate (1924).pdf/209
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