Page 13 - Issue-24

Vol.1 Issue 24, October 2020
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moderate shi ’ats , that finally led to the assassination of Ali in 661 such as fiscal deficits , population pressure, loss of government
A.D After then, the stance on caliphate based on hereditary control over provinces , protests and decentralization and rule of
succession took place – but was not a result of caliph Ali himself- but incompetent sultans with struggle over succession ,while modern
the context , and it was fixated for 2 dynasties “ The Ummayyads European states were rising with technology that allowed the
and The Abassyds , but it gained some new aspects in each stage penetration of merchant capital to the ottoman empire then led to
but still caliphate was based on succession. economic dependence, consequently ,ottomans used caliphate now to
appease these rising powers whom they wanted for financial support
Caliphate as Absolute Monarchy ,Ottomans wanted a caliphate that will not object the liberal state.
After the decline of the Abbasid empire by the Mughals in 1258 thus maintained new large scale modernized policies regarding
D.C., 3 Empires were established , the safavid in Iran , Mughal social and financial systems , education , administration , laws and
empire in the East and Ottoman empire in the west that became the restrictions of the power of religious class , that led to internal
greatest one in its Golden age in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, opposition of Muslims that colonial powers advantaged from who
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the concept of caliphate was transformed in order to fit with the new wanted to mobilize the Muslim Umma against the Ottoman empire,
large and diversified multi ethnic Ottoman empire consisting of 75 as , Britain supported local movement of Arab caliphate in Egypt and
different groups with multiple religions : Muslims, Jews and Indian khilafa in India while France supported the Ottomans, along
Christians, specially that the main policy the Turkish empire borne in with Russia that insisted during the Sykes Pickot agreement between
mind was (Ghazu) which is the prevailing stance of the ottoman other powers in 1915 to separate caliphate from the ottomans
caliphate , so it was able to conquer the Christian and non Muslim .Gradually , After achieving total control over the territories of the
regions led before by the ancient decaying empires as safavid , so the decaying ottoman caliphate , the colonial powers lifted no finger in
caliph who now turned to be a Sultan had to rule with semi theocracy supporting caliphate anymore and it was legally abolished by the
but at the same time , to rule with centralized administration to ottoman government in 1924 and disappeared with the collapse of the
control that diversified population and wide lands , the concept of ottoman empire , consequently ,new concepts came into sight that
caliphate was modified and transfromed to be absolute monarchy or seemed more compatible with the conditions of disintegration of the
Sultanate , it ’s no longer one Umma united under one religion , the empire into different regions led by different powers , concept as
sultan is no longer an Imam and religious matters are no longer in national self determination, Modernization took place
public sphere compared to before , the only reason why the Ottomans
held on some of Islam tradition was due to secular rather religious Where does caliphate lie afterwards? ( In the Normative standards)
reasons unlike before , they wanted to keep the union of Muslims Caliphate as a concept is now inert empirically, but it still exists as a
while at the same time protect the Orthodox Christians in their normative standards in some minds or in some actions, there was
regions. always many attempts to revive khilafa back, some were direct,
others indirect , some were violent , others were peaceful, so finally
The disappearance of the concept of Caliphate “Empirically ” we can say that the concept of caliphate although existing as
Caliphate was treated as a tool or a principal institution in the hands normative standard but it results be employed in real life politics
of both the ottoman empire and colonialist west from 17th to 20th which invited us to put some lines around this general concept.
centuries , the ottoman empire started to suffer internal problems

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Vol.1 Issue 24, October 2020