Khutbah, discourse by which the Imams would ordinarily commence their Friday prayer, following the example of Muhammed. Muhammed, on the assembly days, would mount a platform and speak to the people of the grandeur of Allah, then he would bring up matters for deliberation. The Rashidun caliphs who succeeded him followed the same usage. But the Islamic dominion being very expansive and the government having become nearly despotic, the people were no longer consulted on government business and it was left to the muftis to make the khutbah in the name of the caliph. Upon the advent of a new caliph, during the khutbah , the people would raise their hands, place one on the other, and this ceremony would take the place of the oath of fidelity. Thus, the sovereign was supposed to be him in whose name the khutbah was made. The powerful families who revolted against the caliphs of Baghdad did not dare at first to deprive them of the homage of the khutbah . It seems however, that in going about it so clumsily, they perpetuated the memory of their revolt. The khutbah was made in the name of the caliph by duty and in that of the sultan by submission everywhere, except in Africa and Egypt, where the Fatimids ordered it in their name only. But Nur ad-Din, sultan of Syria, was no sooner master of Egypt than he ordered the khutbah in the name of the caliphate of Baghdad. That example was followed generally by all the Muhammedan princes, and lasted nearly until the extinction of the caliphate in the person of al-Musta’sim billah, whom the Mongols, conquerors of the Orient up to the frontiers of Egypt, enclosed in a sack and crushed under the feet of their horses. Four years after this event, Baibars, fourth of the Mamluk Turks, vested the dignity of the caliph upon an unknown who was said to be of the Abbas family, and who made the khutbah in his name. This so-called caliph was killed after five months, and named Hakem as his successor to this fictitious caliphate, whose only prerogative was that of having his name pronounced in a prayer. Hakem’s name remained in the khutbah among the Mamluk Turks and the Circassians until the death of Tumambay, the last Circassian sultan, whom Selim had strangled in 1515. The imaginary caliphate having thus ceased, the khutbah , that prayer as ancient as Islam, was no longer said. During this period, when the Fatimids ordered the khutbah in their name, the Abbasids treated them as heretics, but the Fatimids were not to be outdone by those who were envious of them and thereby draped a black carpet over the platform on which the khutbah was said in their name. The Fatimids from their side cried of heresy against the Abbasids because white was the color of Hali.