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caliphate

caliphate , the rulership of Islam; caliph , 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.

Bibliography: See W. Muir, The Caliphate (1898, repr. 1964); T. W. Arnold, The Caliphate (1924, repr. 1966); A. S. Tritton, The Caliphs and Their Non-Muslim Subjects (1930, repr. 1970); M. Ali, Early Caliphate (tr. 1947); S. K. Bakhsh, The Caliphate (1954); P. K. Hitti, History of the Arabs (10th ed. 1970); H. Kennedy, The Early Abbasid Caliphate (1981).