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| Caliphate & the Myth of Violence |
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By Akmal Asghar
Contributing Editor : New Civilisation
akmal.asghar@newcivilisation.com
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As the attacks that rocked London's transport system unfolded before the world last July, the attention immediately turned to the British government's response.The world speculated as to where the blame would be directed, which new targets would be unveiled as part of the war to rid the world of terror. In response to the attacks on 9/11, the US invaded two countries, overthrew their regimes and has since moved to pressure Iran and Syria. After the Madrid bombings, a huge swing in Spanish public opinion dramatically changed the fortunes of the leftist political opposition who came to power on the pledge that it would pull-out all Spanish troops from Iraq. What would follow 7/7 and how would it affect the logic that had thus far formed the backbone of the War on Terror?
At the heart of the British Prime Minister's response was a new thrust that put the spotlight on 'ideology': the ideas and goals that drove the 'terrorists'. Tony Blair declared this was "a battle not just about the terrorist methods but their views. Not just their barbaric acts, but their barbaric ideas. Not only what they do but what they think". He shifted the focus away from the terrorist methods that had dominated the War on Terror to bring into focus the political ideas and goals of those who had perpetrated the attacks. But this was with a view to discredit these goals as a natural extension of terror itself as he referred to their "inherent" violence. In Blair's drive, the means employed by al-Qai'da bombing western interests, infrastructure and indeed capitals - were intimately woven into a set of political goals that demanded a Middle East free from western influence, the formation of a Shariah-based political system - the Caliphate - and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. He described these political goals part of an 'evil ideology' as he forged the argument they were as dangerous as, indeed inseparable from, the violent means of terrorism.
This took a political vision that centred on the formation of a new Caliphate and scarred it with the horrors of terrorism. The construct sought to construe the Caliphate as some violent throwback that would usher in a new dark age, characterised by sectarian conflict, persecuted minorities and fear because these had become the hallmarks of the terrorists' campaign to create it. Blair's thrust welded terrorism onto the goal for a Shariah-based political system, a construct that the US administration was equally eager to brandish: President Bush also referred to confronting a "violent political vision" which represented "the establishment by terrorism, subversion and insurgency of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom".The Caliphate was cast as an al-Qaida preserve giving its mere mention an "almost instinctive fearful impact" in the words of Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser. But rubbishing a political vision for the Muslim world that challenges their own by using the language of terrorism fundamentally misconstrues Islamic politics and acts to malign anyone associated with it.The strategy appears largely in vain however - an independent Shariah-based system now features in the vision of most of the largest and best supported organisations in the Muslim world that are neither violent nor part of al-Qaida.
We must decouple means from goals. The phenomena of organisations using violence of the al-Qaida kind, which legitimise attacks on western soil, are relatively recent and brought to the fore by 9/11. It is significantly pre-dated by the political vision of an independent Muslim world under a Caliphate, non-violent calls for which have been heard ever since the day it was formally abolished at the beginning of the twentieth century. Talk of the Caliphate is therefore not new; indeed, it has continued to feature across the spectrum of political debate in the Muslim world even after its demise. To appreciate ongoing calls for its restoration, it is important understand the Muslim world's reaction to its loss and the path of subsequent political debate.
The fall of the Caliphate in 1924 was an event of monumental significance for Muslims as it represented the end of a 1350 year-old institution that had existed since the time of the Prophet Muhammad himself. Its loss had a "deep effect on the way in which politically conscious Arabs thought of themselves" [1] such that in the immediate aftermath, individuals and movements from all quarters of the Islamic political spectrum emerged, advocating the restoration of some form of Shariahbased political system. Demands were not restricted to Turkey though it was the last home of the Caliphate and was then subject to harsh, anti-religious Kemalist policies. In Egypt, even prominent reformists led calls for its immediate re-establishment, Rashid Rida for example saying in his magazine 'al-Manar' "All Muslims will remain in a state of sin until they select another caliph and pledge allegiance to him", and by 1928 a populist Islamic movement had emerged which held Islamic government as a central goal. "When asked what is it that you call, reply that it is Islam, the message of Muhammad, the religion that contains within it a government" were the words of Hassan al-Banna founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. In its dying days, attempts to salvage it where directed from as far away as India by such likes as the Khilafat Movement [2] , a movement which left a significant and lasting impact on Muslim political thought throughout the subcontinent, forming the ideological underpinnings of later demands for a separate Muslim homeland - Pakistan. Even those who had conspired to destroy it, such as Hussein of Mecca who fought the Ottomans with British support, tried to assume its title knowing the regard it held in the Muslim world; other political leaders also tried to take advantage. King Fouad I of Egypt for example "set his sights on the lofty religious position that had been vacated in Istanbul after Turkey abolished the Caliphate in 1924" according to Egypt's al-Ahram newspaper in 1925.This is not to mention conferences held in Cairo in 1926 and throughout India during the early 1920s that addressed various questions of support for the Caliphate. The words of Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Minister at the time, appear to have best caught the Caliphate's significance when he announced to the House of Commons "We must put an end to anything which brings about any Islamic unity between the sons of the Muslims. As we have already succeeded in finishing off the Caliphate, so we must ensure that there will never arise again unity for the Muslims, whether it be intellectual or cultural unity"
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