( Shared by Azeem Farooki)

This series of commentaries, Unviability of Islamic Caliphate, will explain that Islamic caliphate in any form, much less in image of the fetishized first caliphate (632-661 C.E.), is an utter impossibility, even though the romance of a unified Muslim ummah, free of foreign occupations, comprised of all ethnic communities and denominations, devoted to peace, social justice, piety, and glorification of One God, is a dream ideology that fascinates millions of Muslims –much like the utopias of global solidarity, environmental wholeness, scientific socialism, or racial purity that enchant other peoples and communities. The unviability of instituting a new caliphate questions the Western war on terror as well the wild conquest claims Muslim militants make to terrorize a nervous world.

For decades, Arab militants in the Middle East have been praying for the creation of Islamic caliphate modeled after the first caliphate established in Medina after the death of Prophet Muhammad. To the surprise of many Muslims across the world, the Islamic Caliphate State (also known as IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) has actually inaugurated a miniature caliphate in territories purloined from Syria and Iraq. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (b. 1970), holding a doctorate in Islamic studies, is the appointed caliph.

Several maps of Islamic caliphate, attributed to the ISIS, circulate on the internet to display a future empire that stretches from Southern Spain to Western China, a contiguous mass of land stretching beyond the Arab Middle East to include Andalusia, Turkey, the Balkans, Iran, South Asia, Central Asia, and Xinjiang. Some maps include Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation in the world, and Malaysia, though not contiguous to the rest of the empire. Some maps are taken from video games. Others are constructed to show the scale of menace the ISIS poses to the world. Simply put, the maps capture a new global caliphate that will conquer lands to bring vast portions of the planet under one central Islamic authority, as did the first caliphate of the seventh century. These maps fuse the real with the fantastic, picturing fears of absurdity.

Arab Sovereignty over Caliphate

The idea of a new Islamic caliphate is built on two constructs. First, the new caliphate institutes the sovereignty of Sunnis, a matter I will discuss later in the series. Second, the new caliphate aspires to reestablish the prerogative of Arabs as natural rulers of the Muslim world. Because of these two constructs, it is understandable why the ideology of Islamic caliphate is nurtured primarily in Sunni Arab communities. The initiation of the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq is not a freak coincidence but has been deliberately orchestrated (by whom? – a matter also examined in the series) to revive historical memories because Damascus and Baghdad were the seats of two Arab caliphates, the Umayyad caliphate (661-750 C.E.) and the Abbasid caliphate (750-1258 C.E.).

Much like the Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia, the new caliphate draws inspiration from the first Islamic state established in Medina. In 622, after forced migration from Makkah to Medina, the Prophet instituted a small state that would later turn into an enormous empire under the first caliphate. The four rulers of the first caliphate were dutiful companions, dedicated disciples, and close relatives of the Prophet. Even though the Prophet’s circle of companions included a few non-Arabs, most companions were his family members and the Arabs of Makkah and Medina. Within thirty years after the Prophet’s death, and despite inter-clan rivalries, the Arabs embarked upon an unprecedented imperial expansion. Armed with Islamic faith, the indomitable will to fight, and divine permission to acquire booty from defeated enemies, the Arabs under the aegis of the first caliphate, in less than thirty years, conquered Mesopotamians, Syrians, Palestinians, Egyptians, Iranians and others.

Click link for full article;

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/07/the-unviability-of-an-islamic-caliphate-ethnic-barriers/

posted by f.sheikh