The Caliphate: What Does It Mean To Muslims Of Today?
Dr. Ameer Ali
Since the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or IS in short named its captured territory and polity as the Caliphate there had been a chorus of admonition, condemnation and denigration of the institution of the caliphate from political leaders, journalists, Islamic organizations and even academics. They all seem to have agreed quite justifiably that the IS’s caliphate is neither a replica of its medieval predecessor nor a modernised version of it but an artificially concocted moniker adopted for convenience to win popular legitimacy for its criminal enterprise.
Even before IS, Osama bin Laden, called for an Islamic caliphate in his public messages to the umma. Likewise, one of the primary objectives of Hizb al-Tahrir, a non-violent Islamist organization founded in 1953, is to resurrect the caliphate and return to the rule of shariah. Earlier to that, the Muslim Brotherhood fathered by Hassanal Banna of Egypt in 1928 also envisioned the caliphate as the final destiny of political Islam. In short, although as a multi-ethnic and transnational empire the Islamic caliphate disappeared after 1924, as a concept and vision it has outlived that historical institution and since IS’s declaration that concept has entered into the popular political lexicon raising much anxiety and heat.
In reality the spirit of nationalism and creation of the nation-states in the wake of decolonization and liberation movements have divided the Muslim umma now more than ever before. Religion has proved again and again a failure to unite the multi-ethnic and multi-lingual umma. The break-up of Pakistan into Bengali speaking and Urdu speaking countries and the political turmoil and division in Iraq and Syria along ethnic and sectarian lines are glaring illustrations of the failure of Islam as a religion to unite Muslims. In this context even to contemplate a project to bring the fifty-seven countries that form the OIC under the umbrella of a transnational caliphate is impracticable in the extreme.
Yet, in the weekly sermons on Fridays the imams of practically every mosque rarely fail to pray for the souls of the earliest four caliphs of the seventh century and to remind the faithful of the glories of at least the Abbasid Caliphate. A number of independent surveys conducted internationally show that the belief in a shariah based governance in a politically united umma under a caliphate is widely prevalent not only in majority Muslim countries but also amongst their diaspora elements in the U.S., UK, EU and Oceania. What does keep this belief alive? Does the caliphate today have a different connotation from what it meant in the past?
There is a view that resonates among a group of Muslim intellectuals that the caliphate at present represents not a project for the recreation of the dead medieval polity but a metaphor representing the yearning amongst Muslims to reorder the postcolonial world designed by the former masters of colonialism and managed by today’s imperialism. To be precise, it points out to the loss of a centralized Muslim power and influence in the making and management of the world order. Read More
