Caliphs, The Caliphate Quotes
This quotation illustrated the extreme polarization between the current fundamentalist Muslims, and the Muslim modernists and the West. Kamal Ataturk, the great leader and stateman who is the father of modern Turkey, is castigated by the author for leading the new Turkish parliament to depose the Caliph – the civil and religious autocrat, one of whom reigned from after the death of Muhammad till his abolishment in 1924. Most of the rest of the world credits Ataturk with being one of the great leaders of all time—one who led a democratic revolution which transformed Turkey into the only Muslim secular democracy, requiring pubic secular European type education for all children, giving women the right to vote (before the U. S. even), adopting a European alphabet and dress, and outlook on life—creating most remarkably a total cultural revolution with virtually no loss of life. No revolutionary leader, before or since has led so extensive a political and cultural revolution, and it was a bloodless revolution. Turkey, into the 21st century, was by far the most powerful, industrialized, scientific and modern nation of Muslims in the world and others were far behind. Yet many Islamic theologian still castigate Atatork for his great achievements as being against the will of God.
The “Caliphate” is the Islamic concept of a single leader of all Muslims in the world who has both Religious and Political power at the same time. After the death of the Prophet Mohammed, there were a succession of Caliphs and Baghdad was considered the seat of the Caliphate for much of that time. For fanatic Muslims who want to bring back the Caliphate, Baghdad has an importance that is almost on a par with Mecca and Jerusalem. The George W, Bush administration did not recognize the importance of Baghdad and Iraq to non-Iraqi Muslims and the importance of driving infidels (Christians) our of their “seat of government,” This was one of the motivations that brought so many “foreign fighters” into Iraq who would not stop at anything in order to get the infidels out.
Khomeini was a politician as well as a cleric. He was not always consistent depending on his audience. This book was the publication of 17 different speeches with different audiences. Here he opposes all monarchy, but there is little doubt that his main target was the monarchy of Saudi Arabia. In {620335} he suggests that monarchy would be acceptable if the monarch followed Islamic law. Here he leaves no room for monarchies of which there were and are a number in the Muslim world. And at the height of Islam there was a Caliph who not only had absolute rule of ALL Muslim countries, but he was the absolute ruler of the religion. The Caliph and later the Islamic Sultan held more absolute power than any king or Pope ever had. Most of the Islamic fundamentalists claim that they want a return to having a Caliph with absolute power. And even in Iraq today, the “Supreme Leader” exercises more autonomous power, than any monarch or dictator does in his own country.
What is particularly interesting about this passage is that a Middle Eastern contemporary historian and commentator compared circumstances to political events with the Umayyads and the Abbisids to those in Persia and Rome. Chosroes (Khosrow) was a Persian King who had his brothers murdered, and Caesar was viewed as a tyrant. Even then, the history of politics, in one country influenced events and attitudes in others,
Yazid ibn al-Walid ibn 'Abd al-Malik. This is an Islamic doctrine that operates to this day together with the stricture that a bad ruler must be endured and not revolted against UNLESS he does not follow his Islamic religious obligations. This is why many Islamic rulers curry favor with the clerics. As long as they do not claim he is violating the word of God, his rule is safe from revolution. However, if the clerics turn on him, he is in deep trouble. Thus Saudi Arabia endures a monarchy and the ruling family pays the Wahhabi enormous sums to avoid their religious condemnation.
Rebellion and revolution has always been unallowed in the Muslim religion.
He was in many ways centuries ahead of his time with constructive ideas for any people and age. However, this was one of the exceptions. Unfortunately it became the norm for most Islamic countries even to modern times. Essentially, a bad ruler in this Islamic doctrine can be removed only if he does not follow Islam. For just being unjust or incompetent, revolution is not allowed and prayer is the only recourse. That is one of the major reasons that there have been so few Arab uprisings and revolutions although there have been many assassinations for alleged religious apostasy or insufficiency.
Mehmet’s father Murat had just died. There was a custom in Islam that the new Sultan have all his brothers executed so that there would be absolute certainty who was the legitimate Sultan and that dissenting forces should not rally around another son of the old Sultan to have a regime change and/or a civil war. Stability and certainty in the line of succession was critical to the Muslims in that the Sultan was not only the civil ruler, but the highest religious authority as well. He had the power of the Christian Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor together. The struggle between the Sunnis and the Shiites which has overwhelmed Islamic unity was originally all about who the successor to Muhammad would be.
This is an amazing quotation in the sense that it shows the absolute manner in which the Ottoman Turkish Empire ruled the Islamic World in the Middle East and North Africa. The Sultan and Caliph had absolute rule over both the civil and religious areas of the Islamic world. In this decree, the Caliph actually gave an entire nation to his loyal servant, Muhammad Ali, who had acted as Governor of Egypt for the Sultan. Muhammad Ali was neither a Turk or an Egyptian. He was an Albanian, racially and ethnically totally different from the nation that became his. From then on, Muhammad Ali’s children would inherit the Egyptian throne. And they did and his dynasty lasted until the revolution in 1923. The Ottoman Empire was far more controlling and arbitrary than the British Empire and lasted much longer as the Ottoman Caliph controlled the Islamic religion as well as the civil nations.
The last Calif of the Muslims was removed in 1924 as part of the Turkish Reform. The position has had attraction for many Muslim leaders who saw themselves in the role, but since 1924, nationalism and modernism and the lack of an effective international Muslim leader has precluded it.
Abu Ja'far Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Mansur. And al-Rahman had assembled a very powerful army of blond, blue-eyed Slavic slaves supplemented with black African warriors. The Caliph, was always concerned when one of his subjects had an effective fighting force as he might be a rival. But if the troops were Muslims the danger was not so great as there was a built in loyalty to the Caliph. However, in this case, the fierce fighters were not Muslims. Hence the sea was a desirable barrier.
