K͟HABAR-I-WĀḤID (خبر واحد‎). A term used in the Traditions for a tradition related by one person and handed down by one chain of narrators. [TRADITION.]

K͟HABAR MUTAWĀTIR (خبر متواتر‎). A term used for a tradition which is handed down by very many distinct chains of narrators, and which has been always accepted as authentic and genuine, no doubt ever having been raised against it.

Syud Ahmad Khan says all learned Muslims of every period have declared the Qurʾān is the only Ḥadīs̤ Mutawātir, but some have declared certain Aḥādīs̤ also to be Mutawātir, the number of such not exceeding five. (Essay on the Traditions, p. 15.) [TRADITIONS.]

K͟HABĪS̤ (خبيث‎). “Impure; base; wicked.”

Qurʾān viii. 38: “That God may distinguish the vile from the good, and may put the vile one on the top of the other, and heap all up together, and put them into hell.”

K͟HADĪJAH (خديجة‎). Known as K͟hadījatu ʾl-Kubrā, “K͟hadījah the Great.” The first wife of Muḥammad, and the first convert to a belief in his mission.

She was a Quraish lady of good fortune, the daughter of K͟huwailid, who was the great grandson of Quṣaiy. Before she married Muḥammad, she was a widow who had been twice married, and had borne two sons and a daughter. Upon her marriage with Muḥammad, she had attained her fortieth year, whilst he was only twenty-five years of age. She continued to be his only wife until the day of her death. She died December, A.D. 619, aged 65; having been his counsellor and support for five-and-twenty years. She had borne Muḥammad two sons and four daughters: al-Qāṣim, and ʿAbdu ʾllāh, also called at̤-T̤aiyib and at̤-T̤āhir, Zainab, Ruqaiyah, Fāt̤imah, and Umm Kuls̤ūm. Of those, only Fāt̤imah survived the Prophet, and from her and her husband ʿAlī are descended that posterity of Saiyids who are the subjects of such frequent petitions in the k͟hut̤bahs and the liturgical prayers in all parts of the Muḥammadan world.

Muḥammad ever retained his affection for K͟hadījah. ʿĀyishah said: “I was never so jealous of any one of the Prophet’s wives as I was of K͟hadījah, although I never saw her. The Prophet was always talking of her, and he would very often slay goats and cut them up, and send pieces of them as presents to K͟hadījah’s female friends. I often said to him, ‘One might suppose there had not been such another woman as K͟hadījah in the world!’ And the Prophet would then praise her and say she was so and so, and I had children by her.” (Mishkāt, book xxix. ch. xxii.)

According to a traditional saying of Muḥammad, K͟hadījah, Fāt̤imah, the Virgin Mary, and Āsiyah the wife of Pharaoh, were the four perfect women. (Mishkāt, book xxiv. ch. xxix. pt. 2.) [MUHAMMAD.]

K͟HAFĪ (خفى‎). “Hidden.” A term used in works on exegesis for that which is hidden in its meaning, as compared with that which is obvious. [QURʾAN.]

K͟HAIBAR (خيبر‎). A rich and populous valley, eight stages from al-Madīnah, inhabited by Jews. It is celebrated in the history of Islām as the scene of one of Muḥammad’s expeditions, A.H. 7, when the chief Kinānah was slain and the whole valley conquered. (See Muir’s Life of Mahomet, new ed., p. 388 seqq.)

Here the Prophet instituted mutʿah, or temporary marriage [MUTʿAH.] Here were the special orders regarding clean and unclean animals promulgated. Here Muḥammad married Ṣafīyah, the widow of the chief of K͟haibar. Here Zainab, the sister of the warrior Marhab, who had lost her husband, her father, and her brother in battle, tried to poison the Prophet with a poisoned kid. The campaign of K͟haibar, therefore, marks an epoch in the Prophet’s history. [MUHAMMAD.]

K͟HAIRĀT (خيرات‎). The Plural of K͟hair. “Charity; good deeds.” The word occurs in the Qurʾān in its singular form (k͟hair), but in modern theological works it is more frequently used in its plural form.

K͟HAIRU ʾL-QURŪN (خير القرون‎). The best generations. A term used for the first three generations of Muslims from the time of the Prophet. Muḥammad is related to have said there would be three virtuous generations, the one in which he lived and the two following it.

K͟HALFĪYAH (خلفية‎). A sect of Muslims founded by K͟halfu ʾl-K͟hārijī, who maintained, contrary to the general belief, that the children of idolators will be eternally damned.

K͟HĀLID (خالد‎). Son of al-Walīd. The famous Muḥammadan general. He fought against Muḥammad at Uḥud and defeated the Muslim army. The Prophet married Maimūnah, who was an aunt to K͟hālid, a lady fifty-one years of age, and soon afterwards K͟hālid himself embraced Islām and became one of its most powerful champions. He led the Bedouin converts in the advance on Makkah, and was present as one of the chief leaders of the Muslim army at the battle of Ḥunain, and subsequent expeditions. In the reign of Abū Bakr, he murdered Mālik Ibn Nuwairah, an eminent Arab chief, and married his widow. The murder greatly displeased the K͟halīfah Abū Bakr, and he would have ordered K͟hālid to be put to death, but ʿUmar interceded for him. He afterwards took the lead in various expeditions. He invaded al-ʿIrāq and Syria, took Bustrah, defeated the Christians at Ajnadin, commanded the Muslim army at Yarmūk, and subdued the country as far as the Euphrates. After the taking of Damascus, he was recalled by ʿUmar, and sent to Ḥimṣ and Baʿlabakk. He died at Ḥimṣ A.H. 18, A.D. 639.

K͟HĀLIDŪN (خالدون‎), pl. of k͟hālid, “Everlasting.” A term used to express the everlasting character of the joys of heaven and the torments of hell. It is used fifty times in the Qurʾān in this sense. [ETERNAL PUNISHMENT.]

K͟HALĪFAH (خليفة‎), pl. K͟hulafāʾ, from k͟half, “to leave behind.” Anglice, “Caliph.” A successor; a lieutenant; a vicegerent, or deputy. The word is used in the Qurʾān for Adam, as the vicegerent of the Almighty on earth.

Sūrah ii. 28: “And when thy Lord said to the angels, ‘I am about to place a vicegerent (k͟halīfah) on the earth,’ they said, ‘Wilt Thou place therein one who will do evil therein and shed blood?’ ”

And also for David:—

Sūrah xxxviii. 25: “O David! verily We have made thee a vicegerent (k͟halīfah); judge then between men with truth.”

In Muḥammadanism it is the title given to the successor of Muḥammad, who is vested with absolute authority in all matters of state, both civil and religious, as long as he rules in conformity with the law of the Qurʾān and Ḥadīs̤. The word more frequently used for the office in Muḥammadan works of jurisprudence, is Imām (leader), or al-Imāmu ʾl-Aʿz̤am (the great leader). It is held to be an essential principle in the establishment of the office, that there shall be only one K͟halīfah at the same time; for the Prophet said: “When two K͟halīfahs have been set up, put the last to death and preserve the other, for the last is a rebel.” (Mishkāt, book xvi. ch. i.)

According to all Sunnī Muḥammadan books, it is absolutely necessary that the K͟halīfah be “a man, an adult, a sane person, a free man, a learned divine, a powerful ruler, a just person, and one of the Quraish (i.e. of the tribe to which the Prophet himself belonged).

The Shīʿahs hold that he should be one of the descendants of the Prophet’s own family; but this is rejected by the Sunnīs and Wahhābīs.

The condition that the K͟halīfah should be of the Quraish is very important, for thereby the present Ottoman Sultāns fail to establish their claims to the K͟halīfate (Arabic K͟hilāfah). The four immediate successors of Muḥammad are entitled the K͟hulafāʾu ʾr-Rāshidūn, or “the well-directed K͟halīfahs.” According to the Bag͟hyatu ʾr-Raid, only the first five K͟halīfahs, Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUs̤mān, ʿAlī, and al-Ḥasan, are entitled to the distinction of K͟halīfah, the others being merely Amīrs, or Governors. After the deaths of the first five K͟halīfahs, the K͟halīfate, which is allowed by all parties to be elective and not hereditary, passed successively to the Umayades (Banū Umayah). The first K͟halīfah of this dynasty was Muʿāwiyah, the grandson of Umaiyah of the Quraish tribe, who received the K͟halīfate from al-Ḥasan. Of the Umayades, there were fourteen K͟halīfahs who reigned at Damascus, extending over a period from A.H. 41 to A.H. 132 (A.D. 661 to A.D. 750). The title then passed to Abū ʾl-ʿAbbās, the fourth in descent from al-ʿAbbās, the uncle of Muḥammad, and the Abbaside K͟halīfahs, thirty-seven in number, who reigned at Bag͟hdād from A.H. 132 to A.H. 656 (A.D. 750 to A.D. 1258).

The temporal power of the Abbaside K͟halīfahs was overthrown by Halāk K͟hān, grandson of the celebrated Chenjiz K͟hān, A.D. 1258; but for three centuries, certain descendants of the Abbaside, or Bag͟hdād K͟halīfahs, resided in Egypt, and asserted their claim to the spiritual power. The founder of the present dynasty of Turkish Sult̤āns was ʿUs̤mān (Othmān), a chieftain descended from the Orghuz Turks (born at Sakut, A.D. 1259), who was at first the ruler of a small territory in Bithynia, but who in 1299 invaded the whole country of Makkah, and subsequently extended his conquests to the Black Sea, and whose successor, Salīm (ninth in descent), obtained the title of K͟halīfah from one of the Abbaside K͟halīfahs in Egypt. About the year A.D. 1515 (A.H. 921), Salīm I., ruler of the Ottoman Turks and Emperor of Constantinople, finding himself the most powerful prince of his day in Islām, and wishing still further to consolidate his rule, conceived the idea of reviving in his own person the extinct glories of the K͟halīfate. He had more than one claim to be considered their champion by orthodox Muḥammadans, for he was the grandson of that Muḥammad II. who had finally extinguished the Roman Empire of the East; and he had himself just ended a successful campaign against the heretical Shah of Persia. His only rivals among Sunnī princes were the Muslim Emperors in India, the Emperor of Morocco, and the Mameluke ruler of Egypt, then known to the world as par excellence, “the Sultan.” With the two former, as rulers of what were remote lands of Islām, Salīm seems to have troubled himself little, but he made war on Egypt. In A.D. 1516 he invaded Syria, its outlying province, and in A.D. 1517 he entered Cairo. There he made prisoner the reigning Mameluke, Qansau ʾl-G͟haurī, and had him publicly beheaded.

He then, in virtue of a very doubtful cession made to him of his rights by one Mutawakkil Ibn ʿAmri ʾl-Ḥākim, a descendant of the house of al-ʿAbbās, whom he found living as titular K͟halīfah in Cairo, took to himself the following style and title: Sult̤ānu ʾs-Salāt̤īn wa Ḥākimu ʾl-Ḥākimīn, Māliku ʾl-Baḥrain wa Ḥāmīyu ʾl-Barrain, K͟halīfatu ʾr-Rasūli ʾllāh, Amīru ʾl-Muʾminīn, wa Sult̤ān, wa K͟hān; that is: “King of kings and Ruler of rulers, Monarch of the two seas (the Mediterranean and the Red Sea) and Protector of the two lands (al-Ḥijāz and Syria, the holy lands of Islām), Successor (K͟halīfah) of the Apostle of God, Ruler of the Faithful, King and Chief.” It is said that he first had the satisfaction of hearing his name mentioned in the public prayers as K͟halīfah when he visited the Great Mosque of Zacharias at Aleppo, on his return northwards in 1519.

Such are the titles still claimed by the Ottoman Sult̤āns, who arrogate to themselves the position of K͟halīfahs and Successors to the Prophet. It is, however, a mere assertion; for the title and office being elective and not hereditary, it was not in the power of any K͟halīfah to transfer it to another. Force of circumstances alone has compelled the ruler of the Ottoman Empire to assume the position, and has induced his subjects to acquiesce in the usurpation. We have not seen a single work of authority, nor met with a single man of learning, attempting to prove that the Sult̤āns of Turkey are rightful K͟halīfahs; for the assumption of the title by anyone who is not of the Quraish tribe is undoubtedly illegal and heretical, as will be seen from the following authorities:—

Mishkātu ʾl-Maṣābīḥ, book xxiv. ch. xii.: “Ibn ʿAmr relates that the Prophet of God said: ‘The K͟halīfah shall be in the Quraish tribe as long as there are two persons in it, one to rule and another to serve.’ ”

Sharḥu ʾl-Muwāqif, p. 606, Arabic edition, Egypt: “It is a condition that the K͟halīfah (Imām) be of the Quraish tribe. All admit this except the K͟hawārij and certain Muʿtazilahs. We all say with the Prophet: ‘Let the K͟halīfah be of the Quraish’; and it is certain that the Companions acted upon this injunction, for Abū Bakr urged it as an authority upon the Anṣārs, on the day of Sakhifah, when the Companions were present and agreed. It is, therefore, for a certainty established that the K͟halīfah must be of the Quraish.”

The Ḥujjatu ʾllāhi ʾl-Balāg͟hah, p. 335, Arabic edition, Delhi: “It is a necessary condition that the K͟halīfah (Imām) be of the Quraish tribe.”

The Kashʾhāfu ʾl-Iṣt̤ilāḥāt; A Dictionary of Technical Terms. Edited by Colonel N. Lees, in loco: “The K͟halīfah (Imām) must be a Quraish.”

It is a matter of history that the Wahhābīs regarded the Turkish Sult̤ān as a usurper, when Saʿūd took Makkah and al-Madīnah in 1804; and to the present day, in countries not under Turkish rule, the k͟hut̤bah is recited in behalf of the Amīr, or ruler of the Muslim state, instead of the Ottoman Sult̤ān, which would not be the case if he were acknowledged as a lawful K͟halīfah. In a collection of k͟hut̤bahs, entitled the Majmaʿu K͟hut̤ab, the name of the Sult̤ān of Turkey does not once occur, although this collection is much used in Muḥammadan states. We have seen it stated that the Sult̤ān is prayed for in Hyderabad and Bengal; but we believe it will be found, upon careful inquiry, that he was not mentioned by name, until very recently, in any of the mosques of India. K͟hut̤bahs, in which there are prayers for the Ottoman Sult̤ān by name, have been imported from Constantinople.

According to Mr. W. S. Blunt, the chief arguments of the Hanifite ʿUlamāʾ in support of the claims of the present Ottoman dynasty are:—

(1) The right of the Sword.—The K͟halīfate being a necessity (and this all Muslims admit), it was also a necessity that the de facto holder of the title should be recognised until a claimant with a better title should appear. Now, the first qualification of a claimant was, that he should make the claim, and the second, that he should be supported by a party; and Salīm had both claimed the K͟halīfate and supported his pretensions at the head of an army. He challenged the world to produce a rival, and no rival had been found.

(2) Election, that is, the sanction of a legal body of elders. It was argued that, as the ahlu ʿaqd (or council), had been removed from al-Madīnah to Damascus, and from Damascus to Bag͟hdād, and from Bag͟hdād to Cairo, so it had been once more legally removed from Cairo to Constantinople. Salīm had brought with him to St. Sophia’s some of the ʿUlamāʾ (learned men) of the Azhar mosque in Cairo, and these in conjunction with the Turkish ʿUlamāʾ had elected him or ratified his election. A form of election is to the present day observed at Constantinople in token of this right, and each new Sult̤ān of the house of ʿUs̤mān, as he succeeds to the temporal sovereignty of Turkey, must wait before being recognised as K͟halīfah till he has received the sword of office at the hands of the ʿUlamāʾ. This ceremony it is customary to perform in the mosque of Aiyūb.

(3) Nomination.—Sult̤ān Salīm, as has been already said, obtained from Mutawakkil, a descendant of the Abbasides, and himself titularly K͟halīfah, a full cession of all the K͟halīfah rights of that family. The fact, as far as it goes, is historical, and the only flaw in the argument would seem to be that Mutawakkil had no right thus to dispose of a title to an alien, which was his own only in virtue of his birth. As a precedent for nomination, they cite the act of Abū Bakr, who on his death-bed recommended ʿUmar as his successor in the K͟halīfate.

(4) The Guardianship of the Two Shrines (Ḥaramān), that is to say, of Makkah and Jerusalem, but especially of Makkah. It has been asserted by some of the ʿUlamāʾ, and it is certainly a common opinion at the present day, that the sovereignty of al-Ḥijāz is in itself sufficient title to the K͟halīfate. It seems certainly to have been so considered in the first age of Islām, and many a bloody war was then fought for the right of protecting the Baitu ʾllāh, but the connection of al-Ḥijāz with the empire of the K͟halīfahs has been too often broken to make this a very tenable argument. In the tenth century, Makkah was held by the Karmathian heretics, in the thirteenth by the Imāms of Ṣanʿāʾ, and for seven years in the present century by the Wahhābīs. Still the de facto sovereignty of the Ḥaramān, or two shrines, was one of Salīm’s pleas; and it is one which has reappeared in modern arguments respecting the K͟halīfal rights of his descendants.

(5) Possession of the Amānāt, or sacred relics. This last is a plea addressed to the vulgar rather than to the learned; but it is one which cannot be passed by unnoticed here, for it exercises a powerful influence at the present day over the ignorant mass of Muslims. It was asserted, and is still a pious belief, that from the sack of Bag͟hdād in A.D. 1258, certain relicts of the Prophet and his Companions were saved and brought to Cairo, and thence transferred by Salīm to Constantinople. These were represented as constituting the imperial insignia of office, and their possession as giving a title to the succession. They consisted of the cloak of the Prophet, borne by his soldiers as a standard, of some hairs of the Prophet’s beard, and of the sword of ʿUmar. The vulgar still believe them to be preserved in the mosque of Aiyūb at Constantinople. (See The Future of Islām, by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, London, 1882, p. 66.)

On the general question as to whether or not an Imām, or K͟halīfah, is necessary for Islām, the author of the Sharḥu ʾl-Muwāqif says, “The appointment of an Imām (i.e. K͟halīfah) is incumbent upon the united body of Muslims, according to the orthodox law of the Sunnīs, although the Muʿtazilahs and Zaidīyahs say it is merely expedient, but not ordered by the law, whilst the Ishmailīyahs and the Imāmīyahs say God will Himself appoint an Imām for the establishment of sound doctrine. Some say the appointment of an Imām is only necessary when Muslims are at peace amongst themselves and united, and not when they are in a state of rebellion.

The arguments in favour of the absolute necessity of an Imām, or K͟halīfah, being appointed, are that in the time of Abū Bakr, the first K͟halīfah, it was established by general consent; and Abū Bakr, in his first k͟hut̤bah after the death of Muḥammad, said: “Beware! Muḥammad is certainly dead, and it is necessary for this religion that some one should be appointed for its protection.” And all the Muslims at that time consented to this saying of Abū Bakr, and consequently in all ages Muslims have had an Imām. And it is well known that without such an officer Islām cannot be protected from evil, for without him it is impossible to maintain the orders of the Muslim law, such as marriage, Jihād, punishment, and the various ordinances of Islām. (Sharḥu ʾl-Muwāqif, p. 603.)

The following are some of the injunctions of Muḥammad regarding the Imām or K͟halīfah:—

“When two K͟halīfahs have been set up, put the last of them to death and preserve the other, for the second is a rebel.”

“He who acknowledges an Imām must obey him as far as he can, and if a pretender comes, kill him.”

“Whomever God appoints as Imām, and he does not protect his people, shall never smell the smells of paradise.”

“It is indispensable for every Muslim to listen to, and approve the orders of the Imām, whether he likes or dislikes, so long as he is not ordered to sin and act contrary to law; then when he is ordered to sin, he must neither attend to it nor obey it.”

“Whoever quits obedience to the Imām and divides a body of Muslims, dies like the people in ignorance; and whoever takes a part in an affray, without knowing the true from the false, does not fight to show his religion, but to aid oppression; and if he is slain, then he dies as the people of ignorance; and that person who shall draw his sword upon my people, and kill the virtuous and the vicious, and not fear the killing of Muslims or those protected by them, is not of me nor am I of him.”

“The Companions said, ‘O Prophet! when they are our enemies and we theirs, may we not fight with them?’ He said, ‘No, so long as they keep on foot the prayers amongst you’; this he repeated, ‘Beware! he who shall be constituted your prince, see if he does anything in disobedience to God; and if he does, hold it in displeasure, but do not withdraw yourselves from his obedience.’”

“He who forsakes obedience to the Imām, will come before God on the Day of Resurrection without a proof of his faith; and he who dies without having professed to the Imām, dies as the people of ignorance.”

“Prophets were the governors of the children of Israel; when one died, another supplied his place; and verily there is no prophet after me, and the time is near when there will be after me a great many K͟halīfahs. The Companions said, ‘Then what do you order us?’ The Prophet said, ‘Obey the K͟halīfah, and give him his due; for verily God will ask about the duty of the subject.’ ”

“Beware! you are all guardians, and you will all be asked about your subjects; then the Imām is the guardian of the subject, and he will be asked respecting the subject; and a man is as a shepherd to his own family, and will be asked how they behaved, and his conduct to them; and a wife is a guardian to her husband’s house and children, and will be interrogated about them; and a slave is a shepherd to his master’s property, and will be asked about it whether he took good care of it or not.”

“God never sent any prophet, nor ever made any K͟halīfah, but had two counsellors with him; one of them directing lawful deeds, and that is an angel, and the other, in sin, and that is the devil; and he is guarded from sin whom God has guarded.” (Mishkāt, book xvi. ch. i.)