caliph

Etymology

From Middle English calife, caliphe, from Old French caliphe, from Medieval Latin calipha, from Arabic خَلِيفَة (ḵalīfa, “caliph”) and خَلِيف (ḵalīf, “successor”).

noun

1. The political leader of the Muslim world; the successor of the prophet Muhammad's political authority.
   The Abbasid caliphs patronized art and science beside religious developments ushering in the Islamic Golden Age when their capital Baghdad began to flourish as a center of knowledge, culture and trade.