Significance of the Caliphate
Due to the rise and fall
of ISIS, the notion of the caliphate has been in the news recently and so I
wanted to give you guys a primer on the history and the significance of this
notion with reference to the Ottoman Empire, especially since it may play a role
in our committee.
The caliphate first
emerged as an institution in the wake of the death of Prophet Muhammed in 632.
Since he did not nominate a successor, the Muslim community (ummah) designated
its new leader, known as the ‘khalifa’ or ‘caliph’. However, with the passage
of time and the spreading and fracturing of the ummah, the caliphate began to
assume a more temporal and less religious significance, while also becoming a
title of hereditary transmission, similar to a traditional monarchy. Throughout
history, there have been 4 major caliphates: the Rashidun Caliphate (632-661),
the Umayyad Caliphate (661-750), the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258) and the
Ottoman Empire (1517 onwards).
The Ottoman Empire,
though nominally claiming to be the caliphate, did not place much religious
significance on this fact until the mid 18th century, when the Sultan asserted
his religious authority over Crimean Muslims during treaty negotiations with
Russia. With the rise of the nation-state and of the Empire’s losses in Europe
in the nineteenth century, Sultan Abdulhamid began to propagate the concept of
the caliph as the pan-Islamic Muslim ‘Pope’ who has temporal and spiritual
authority over all Muslims. This was encouraged by the British Empire, both to
curry favor with Indian Muslims and to prevent Russia from advancing further
down towards the Indian Subcontinent.
This later came to haunt
the British when World War 1 broke out and the Sultan declared Jihad against
the Christian invaders. In order to start the Arab Revolt, the British, through
the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, promised to support the establishment of an
Arab Caliphate controlling the holy places of Mecca and Medina. There was a
fundamental misunderstanding here, with the British assuming that Hussein meant
a religious position similar to the Pope with merely spiritual authority while
Hussein wanted the temporal authority as well. With the end of the War and the
surrender of the Ottoman Empire, Hussein now assumed that these earlier
promises would be fulfilled.
Over the course of our
committee, the question of whether the caliphate continues to exist will be
resolved. For centuries, the Ottoman Empire stood as the last real Islamic
power, with the Sultan claiming authority over all Muslims. However, this
notion conflicts with the increasingly powerful ideal of secular, nation-states
with the separation of religion and the state.
Links for further
research:
1. (Very dense but very informative)
https://www-jstor-org.libproxy.berkeley.edu/stable/pdf/3693438.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ae2ea599133479b4603cbcd6a83f4a664
1. (Very dense but very informative)
https://www-jstor-org.libproxy.berkeley.edu/stable/pdf/3693438.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ae2ea599133479b4603cbcd6a83f4a664
2.
(Not related to our committee but an interesting read about ISIS’ ideology) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/
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