Wheeler reflected yet another Islamophobic concern among many Britons and Americans: a global surge of Islamism meant to bring the world under singular Muslim domination. Much of this centered on Istanbul (or Constantinople, the name many commentators preferred), “the capital of Mohammedanism” as an American missionary there put it in 1835. In his overview of religions that went through at least five reprintings in the first half of the nineteenth century, John Haywood explained that Muslims’ “spiritual head” lived in Turkey, a man equivalent to the “Roman Pontiff, or the Grecian Patriarch.” He was referring to the khalifa (caliph), an office of leadership of the entire Muslim community dating back to the successors of Muhammad. The Ottoman sultans had claimed it for themselves since 1517.

XREF: Parallels modern discourse about global Islamism and Islamic caliphate fears; the historical continuity is striking. Pays off: "British colonial rule inadvertently united armed Muslims against England."

Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon F…, loc. 67