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ELITE 2020 ﺮﺒﻤﻓﻮﻧ ,25 دﺪﻌﻟا , 1 ﺪﻠﺠﻤﻟا
ﺔﺒﺨﻨﻟا
Vol.1 No.25, Nov. 2020

the caliphate before turning it into a hereditary kingship by
they narrate stories about the justice of bin Khattab and the rush
naming his son Yazid as his successor. With that began the era
of a caliph to aid a woman crying out for help in his name. But
of the Umayyad Caliphate, which reached its largest expansion
there is another side to these stories, a side which was detailed
during the rule of Hisham bin Abdel Malek after whom
by Sulaiman Fayyad in his book titled “The Other Face of the
weakness crept in and allowed the Abbasids to seize the
Islamic Caliphate. ”
caliphate from the Umayyads. The Abbasid Caliphate reached
great cultural attainment with its capital Baghdad as a beacon of
Fayyad mentioned several cases of oppression, injustice and
science and scientists before it was crushed by the Mughals. The
tyranny that people suffered from under these caliphates.
caliphate was later revived by the Turkish Ottomans and lasted
Furthermore, this form of rule over various peoples has become
for several centuries until it was ended in the 1920s.
a thing of the past since now the people of each country have the
right to self-determination.
It is worth mentioning that the Muslim World witnessed
Modernity has also affected systems of government in terms of
multiple simultaneous caliphates; for example, aside from the
having civil states that are sovereign and based on citizenship.
Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad, there was the Umayyad
Yet, the proponents of the return of the caliphate keep pointing
Caliphate in Andalusia, which was founded by Abdul Rahman
al-Dakhil (Quraish ’s Hawk) after he had fled Damascus that was out to incidents of abuse of some Islamic minorities as proof of
being taken over by the Abbasids. Similarly, the Umayyad the necessity of having a caliphate with an unmatched strong
Caliphate in Andalusia existed alongside the Fatimid Caliphate,
political will to defend such minorities, as if this would take us
which arose in the Maghreb region at the hands of Ubaid Allah
back to the old rosy picture of the prestigious caliphate. The
al-Mahdi and expanded to Egypt and the Levant. This caliphate
reality on the ground is that this age is over; we are now in a
entered Egypt under al-Moez li din Allah who founded Cairo
new age with its own parameters of power and prestige. These
and made it his capital. It is also worth mentioning that it was a
parameters depend on having the tools of the day in terms of
Shiite caliphate that was ended by Salah al-Din al-Ayoubi.
scientific and technological advancement and communication
What we care about in this historical development is the fact that
and information methods. Moreover, the Quran mentioned
it was a political struggle to establish a kingship that would raise
Muslims as one nation without any reference to the necessity of
the flag of the caliphate. Although these king-caliphs sought to
one state to combine them all, which is something that never
establish a kingship to bequeath to their children, the same way a
materialized even during the flourishing ages of the Islamic
father hands over some money or property to his children, they
caliphate when multiple caliphates existed simultaneously as
contributed to the spread of Islam and the states of some of them
explained above.
reached high levels of cultural and scientific attainment. Their
The fact is that in the era of globalization, the struggle of the
record thus had its positives and negatives and their strength
proponents of political Islam is a globalized, multi-round and
ultimately faded, leading to the end of the caliphate just like
kingdoms and empires had fallen before it. extended struggle. And I don ’t think we will see its end soon.
Until then, we mustn ’t overlook the humanitarian dimension of
The question now is whether the Muslim renaissance is really
the concept of the caliphate. It is the caliphate that is responsible
conditioned on reviving the caliphate, which is what the
for mankind whom Allah designated as His successors on Earth
supporters of political Islam claim. These individuals often
and provided them with reason in order to undertake their
paint a rosy picture of the caliphate where justice prevailed and
mission of knowing the Creator, worshipping Him and
Muslims enjoyed their rights and prestige. In this framework,
promoting life and civilization “al-umran, ” which is ultimately
the goal of the humanitarian caliphate.
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