Reference
- caliphate(kăl'ĭfāt´´, –fĭt), the rulership of Islam; caliph(kăl'ĭf´´), the spiritual head and temporal ruler of the Islamic state. In principle, Islam is theocratic: when Muhammad died, a caliph [Arab.,=successor] was chosen to rule in his place. The caliph had temporal and spiritual authority but was not permitted prophetic power; this was reserved for Muhammad. The caliph could not, therefore, exercise authority in matters of religious doctrine. The first caliph was Abu Bakr. He was succeeded by Umar, Uthman, and Ali. Sunni Muslims recognize these first four, or Rashidun (the rightly guided), caliphs. Shiites, however, recognize Ali as the first caliph. After Ali's death, Muawiya became caliph and founded the Umayyad dynasty (661–750), chiefly by force of arms. Its capital was Damascus. In 750 the Abbasid family, descended from the Prophet's uncle, led a coalition that defeated (749–50) the Umayyad family. The Abbasid dynasty (749–1258) is sometimes called the caliphate of Baghdad. One Umayyad, Abd ar-Rahman I, escaped the general massacre of his family and fled to Spain; there the emirate of Córdoba was set up in 780. This later became the caliphate of Córdoba, or the Western caliphate, and persisted until 1031. A third competing contemporaneous caliphate was established by the Fatimids in Africa, Syria, and Egypt (909–1171). After the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols under Hulagu Khan in 1258, the Abbasids fled to Egypt. The Ottomans captured Egypt in 1517 and Selim I assumed the title of caliph by questionable right. The Ottoman sultans, however, kept the title until the last sultan, Muhammad VI, was deposed. He was succeeded briefly by a cousin, but in 1924 the caliphate was abolished by Kemal Atatürk. A year later Husayn ibn Ali, king of Arabia, proclaimed himself caliph, but he was forced to abdicate by Ibn Saud. Subsequently, several pan-Islamic congresses attempted to establish a rightful caliph. A number of Islamist political parties and Islamist guerrilla groups have called for the restoration of the caliphate by uniting, either through peaceful political action or through force, Islamic nations in a transnational state.
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Perspectives
The Islamic Caliphate
For approximately six hundred years after the death of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, the Muslim community formed a cohesive state called the Caliphate. This book follows the four distinct Caliphates (Rightly Guided, Umayyad, 'Abbasid, and Fatimid) through their periods of leadership, to the state's prolonged downfall at the hands of the Seljuqs and the Crusaders, and its ultimate defeat by the Ottoman Empire. This text includes a focus on contributions made to the arts, literature, medicine, astronomy, science and mathematics, among other disciplines, particularly during the golden age of the Caliphate spanning the eighth and ninth centuries.
Caliphate Redefined
How the Ottomans refashioned and legitimated their rule through mystical imageries of authority The medieval theory of the caliphate, epitomized by the Abbasids (750-1258), was the construct of jurists who conceived it as a contractual leadership of the Muslim community in succession to the Prophet Muhammed's political authority. In this book, Hüseyin Yılmaz traces how a new conception of the caliphate emerged under the Ottomans, who redefined the caliph as at once a ruler, a spiritual guide, and a lawmaker corresponding to the prophet's three natures. Challenging conventional narratives that portray the Ottoman caliphate as a fading relic of medieval Islamic law, Yılmaz offers a novel interpretation of authority, sovereignty, and imperial ideology by examining how Ottoman political discourse led to the mystification of Muslim political ideals and redefined the caliphate. He illuminates how Ottoman Sufis reimagined the caliphate as a manifestation and extension of cosmic divine governance. The Ottoman Empire arose in Western Anatolia and the Balkans, where charismatic Sufi leaders were perceived to be God's deputies on earth. Yılmaz traces how Ottoman rulers, in alliance with an increasingly powerful Sufi establishment, continuously refashioned and legitimated their rule through mystical imageries of authority, and how the caliphate itself reemerged as a moral paradigm that shaped early modern Muslim empires. A masterful work of scholarship, Caliphate Redefined is the first comprehensive study of premodern Ottoman political thought to offer an extensive analysis of a wealth of previously unstudied texts in Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Turkish.
The Caliphate
This title, first published in 1925, are based on a series of lectures delivered in the University of London. The chapters explore the nature of the caliphate, its origin and history, and the situation and trend of development in the early twentieth century. This title will be of interest to students of Middle Eastern studies, religion and history.
Demystifying the Caliphate
In Western popular imagination, the Caliphate often conjures up an array of negative images, while rallies organised in support of resurrecting the Caliphate are treated with a mixture of apprehension and disdain, as if they were the first steps towards usurping democracy. Yet these images andperceptions have little to do with reality. While some Muslims may be nostalgic for the Caliphate, only very few today seek to make that dream come true. Yet the Caliphate can be evoked as a powerful rallying call and a symbol that draws on an imagined past and longing for reproducing or emulatingit as an ideal Islamic polity.The Caliphate today is a contested concept among many actors in the Muslim world, Europe and beyond, the reinvention and imagining of which may appear puzzling to most of us. Demystifying the Caliphate sheds light on both the historical debates following the demise of the last Ottoman Caliphate andcontroversies surrounding recent calls to resurrect it, transcending alarmist agendas to answer fundamental questions about why the memory of the Caliphate lingers on among diverse Muslims. From London to the Caucasus, to Jakarta, Istanbul, and Baghdad, the contributors explore the concept of theCaliphate and the re-imagining of the Muslim ummah as a diverse multi-ethnic community.
Baghdad During the Abbasid Caliphate
The history of Baghdad as a metropolis coincides with the history of the rise and fall of the Abbasid Caliphs. In this volume, first published in 1900 and written by a recognized authority in the field, the history of the city and of the Abbasid dynasty are closely interwoven so that, from a scholarly blending of contemporary records and discursive narrative, an accurate picture emerges of the state and society within the capital of the Muslim world during the period from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries.
Islam into Asia
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This episode explores military engagements between widely differing cultures. Learn about the 751 battle between the Chinese Tang forces and the Abbasid Caliphate, which altered the religious orientation of central Asia. Then follow the 1192 clash between the Indian Rajputs and a Turkish Islamic army, and its permanent effects on Indian culture.
Culture Shock! Travels of Ibn Fadlan
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowFollow the Abbasid Caliphate's administrator, Ibn Fadlan, as he travels from cosmopolitan Baghdad to the rustic wilds of central Asia. He brings money and instructions to King Almis of the Volga Bulgars, who has recently converted to Islam. Then he visits the Slavic Rus tribe for a bizarre and fascinating encounter.
Islam and the Caliphate
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowHow did Muslim civilization emerge? Why did it burst upon the scene so dramatically? And how did it come to play such a significant role among Turkish-speaking nomads? Get background on the caliphate and its divisions, the teachings of Muhammad, and how a Muslim capital at Baghdad and associated cities spread Islam through trade connections.
Learn More
- Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258)At its height in the late eighth century C.E., the Abbasid caliphate claimed political authority over an area stretching from the Nile to the Oxus River (or Amu Darya, in Central Europe)...
- Abu Bakr (573–634 CE)bu Bakr b. Abi Quhafa, the first caliph of Islam (r. 11/632–13/634), of the clan of Taym of the tribe of Quraysh, was a close companion of Muhammad, and the first adult male to accept him as the Messenger of God and convert to Islam...
- The High CaliphateFor over a thousand years, the Arabs have lacked a satisfactory history. They have been wracked with internal factionalism and strife, external invasion, subordination to outside rulers, natural disasters, and exaggerated hopes and fears...
- Rashid, Harun Al- (C. 146/763–193/809)Harun al-Rashid (Aaron “The Rightly Guided”) was the fifth Abbasid caliph, who ruled the great Islamic empire from 170/786 to 193/809 during its zenith...
- Sokoto Caliphate, Nineteenth CenturyThe Sokoto caliphate was situated mostly in present-day northern Nigeria and parts of southern Niger...
Umayyad Caliphate in Damascus: 661
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowThe establishment of the Umayyad caliphate’s capital in Damascus was the most important political turning point in early Muslim history. Trace the Umayyads’ achievements, and investigate their reasons for locating the empire’s capital away from the Arabian peninsula, reflecting the shift from a religiously inspired Islamic empire to a politically oriented imperial power.