By Akhilesh Mithal
The fear that all Muslims of the world are uniting/united with the object of hurting and harming the USA is haunting the President and his coterie. The word getting the workout from the top leaders these days is caliphate the term for the 7th century Islamic empire that spanned the Middle East, spread to South-west Asia, North Africa and Spain, then ended with the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258. Caliphate is a mysterious and ominous word for many Americans and the administration knows it.
| It wasn't a word many of us thought about until we started reading up on Islam and Islamists in the wake of 9-11-01. Then we kept stumbling across the term. Pooh-poohing the idea seems kind of disingenuous. But then, the rest of the article is, too. |
They recognise that there is a lot of resonance when they use the term caliphate. Zbiignew Brzezinski (national security adviser to President Carter said that the word had an almost instinctive fearful impact.
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More than 40,000 members of the Hizbut Tahrir on Sunday (March 5th, 2006) took to the streets of Indonesian cities to protest injustice against their religion across the world, marking the fall of the last caliphate in Turkey.Hizbut Tahrir advocating one Islamic caliphate in the world, rallied to the National Monument (Monas) square, opposite the U.S. embassy in Central Jakarta. "Down, Down (with) the USA. Up, Up (with) the Caliphate" said placards waved by protesters in Jakarta, including veiled women and their children. Similar rallies by Hizbut Tahrir members were reported in the Indonesian cities of Surabaya in East Java, Solo and Semarang in Central Java and in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Bandung in West Java, Padang in West Sumatera, Medan in North Sumatera, Lampung, etc. |
| Maybe to him. Most of us had to pause and look it up. The Islamic world not having been front and center in the affairs of the world for the past few hundred years remember "the Sick Man of Europe"? we weren't up on the intricacies of their thinking, if any. Imagine our surprise when we revisited the Wonderful World of Turbans and found comic-book quality Evil. |
The US vice-president Dick Cheney has warned that Al Qaidas ultimate goal is the re-establishment of the Caliphate with dire consequences for the USA.
| Gawd knows various big turbans have announced just that enough times. Hizb ut-Tahrir's dedicated to that very premise. I can't fault him for taking them at their word, though obviously Akhilesh Mithal can. |
As now we hear talk of a revival of the Caliphate (an institution that disappeared in 1924) it is time to consider some facts which might be relevant. The English word Caliph derives from the Arabic Khaleefah. The root khalf means to leave behind. The English equivalents would be vicegerent, deputy, viceroy, lieutenant or successor.
| The banner of the Hizb ut-Tahrir website has the quote "And there shall be khilafah rashidah." The name of the website is Khilafah.com. Khilafah is the rule of the Khalifa. |
In the Holy Quran (Sura ii 2Cool Adam is described as Gods khaleefah on earth. And when God said to the Angels, I am about to place a vicegerent (khaleefah) upon the earth, they said, Wilt thou place therein one who will do evil thereon and shed blood?
Prophet David is also mentioned as a khaleefah in the Quran. The Dictionary of Islam, published in 1885, says, In Muhammadanism it (khaleefah) is the title given to the successor of Muhammad (On Whom Be Peace) who is vested with absolute authority in all matters of state, both civil and religious, as long as he rules in conformity with the law of the Quran (the holy book) and the Hadees (traditions of the prophet).
The first Caliph Abu Bakr succeeded the Prophet in 632 AD (11 AH) and the institution suffered great vicissitudes such as the assassination of the ruler, abolition of the dynasty, and total eradication at the hands of the Mongol Hulaku (1258) but reappeared in different places until the last Caliph and Sultan of Turkey was deposed and exiled by Mustafa Kamal in 1924.
| The Turks present an interesting case study in what the caliphate would bring to the lands it ruled an initial period of aggressiveness (fall of Byzantium), followed by defeat (Lepanto, Gates of Vienna), followed by a long, slow descent into senility and ineptitude. The descent can be attributed only in part to the defeats indeed, it's more likely the defeats can be attributed to the descent. Part of that was due to the practice of strangling potential rivals with bowstrings, which managed to eliminate the best and the brightest, leaving rule to the most vicious. With innovation effectively outlawed, the Grand Turk allowed the Islamic world to slip into torpor, poverty and ignorance. That's their legacy, and those pushing the caliphate want to export it. |
Turkey was simultaneously declared a state without any Islamic paraphernalia.
| Coincidentally, Turkey is today probably the most advanced Muslim nation, with the possible exception of Malaysia. |
With Turkey no longer a Muslim state, Hyderabad Deccan in India became the largest state ruled by a Muslim in the world of 1924. The Nizam, a puppet of the British Indian government, promptly entered into a matrimonial alliance with the erstwhile ruler/Caliph and brought the Princesses Durru-Shehwaar (Pearl of Emperor size) and Niloufer (Blue Lily) as brides for his two sons. The Princess Durru-Shehwaar was raised to succeed her father and educated in arts, civil and military. She was made Princess of Berar and soon became most popular in Hyderabad. The Nizam disinherited his sons and making his grandson Mukarram Jah, born of Princess Durru-Shehwaar, and therefore uniting the bloodlines of Turkey Sultans with his own heir to the Hyderabad throne. The idea was that if and when the Caliphate were to be revived the children of the union between the Asaf Jahi Nizam and the Sultan Caliph of Turkey would be available, ready and willing to take up the assignment.
| I don't think the guys pushing for the reestablishment of the caliphate have the descendents of a princess of Hyderabad in mind for the big turban. I believe they're looking for somebody more, shall we say, Arab? Perhaps a prince? Maybe tracing his ancestry all the way back to the Profit (PTUI)? |
The Nizam himself was deposed in 1948 and his progeny have shown no interest in taking up the role for which they were conceived and born. Princess Durru Shehwaar died in London, where she had lived for many decades, at 3 am on February 7, 2006 at over 90 years of age. Perhaps Americans can, to ease their disquiet, contact Prince Mukarram Jah and get a statement from him that he is against the revival of the Caliphate, which was vested in his mothers family through thirty seven generations from the year 1299 AD.
| Unless he's got lotsa money and he can prove he's an Arab, he's not the one we have to worry about. |
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