Protestant-era American commentators modeled the caliph on the Catholic Pope

Evidence

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. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 136

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains what the khalifa/caliph is and how Americans misrecognized it through a papal lens.