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| Caliphate & the Myth of Violence |
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The purpose here is not to justify by stealth the use of violence as a tool for political change. It is to demonstrate that the Caliphate as a stable, independent, accountable and representative state can not be rubbished by associating it with the acts of violence perpetrated by some who claim to want something that goes by the same name; that means and goals represent distinct realities and must be decoupled. The Caliphate has a long track record of ruling quite disparate communities, ethnicities, regions and religions with success, bringing stability to previously war-ravaged territories, engaging populations and earning strong loyalties from the communities and religions it governed. Equating the Caliphate to the violence of the likes of al-Qaida is false; we must dispense of the term - and the reality of - terror from a description of the Caliphate.
Contrary to the prophecies of doom Washington and London are so eager to forward, the Caliphate will be a stabilising force for the Muslim world.It will certainly threaten foreign interests in the lands it governs if those interests resemble current behaviour towards the Muslim world - few doubt that. That may partly explain why the west is so eager to malign it. But asserting independence does not render a state unstable. Indeed, part of the Caliphate's appeal for Muslims is that it will stand-up to foreign aggression and wrestle back what they believe is rightfully theirs. The Caliphate will bring stability to the Muslim world in numerous ways.
Firstly, the Caliphate is an accountable political system whose head is legitimated only through popular consent [3]. It will therefore be unlike the regimes that currently litter the Muslim world, which are both unrepresentative and unaccountable, and inherently fragile and unstable as a result. With no means of recourse within these regimes and no channels to express dissent or criticism, peoples' concerns have become threatening political undercurrents, even threats of rebellion and overthrow, a reality exasperated by the widespread use of brutality by security services to deal with opposition.The Caliphate, in striking contrast, engages voices of dissent through the political system by providing extensive channels for accounting all parts of the states' apparatus as well as a consultative assembly made-up of elected representatives with significant powers.
Secondly, the Caliphate system is consistent with - not alien to - the values of the people in the Muslim world. This provides it deep roots and a better chance at working in partnership with its populations because it engages them on a common point of reference and for common goals. But it also means the Caliphate acts as a guarantor for values considered most at threat since its demise by Muslim peoples. The secular, autocratic even atheistic regimes that emerged in the Caliphate's wake significantly curtailed Islamic practice and engineered new readings of Islamic values and history.They often imposed views that broke with orthodoxy to demand loyalty to divisive and failed ideologies from Arabism to Communism, or combinations of both.The import of foreign value systems too is often associated with the threat of eroding deeply Islamic values; values deemed 'western', for example, are tarnished by perceptions of western moral and sexual decadence. A political system that credibly protects Islamic values is key to securing public confidence and partnership.
Thirdly, the loss of the Caliphate brought with it an unprecedented loss of authority and leadership on Islamic issues. The resulting vacuum allowed individuals to become global figureheads for merely speaking the rhetoric of anti-colonialism and standing-up to perceived aggressors, such as the likes of bin Laden. Conferences like those held in the Jordanian capital Amman last July which denounced the takfiri thought espoused by the likes of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi carry little weight or credibility, organised under the auspices of a Jordanian monarchy created on the ashes of the Caliphate and which to this day celebrates the Arab revolt considered by most a treacherous collusion with British colonisers. The same is true for declarations made by the OIC whose conferences are characterised by useless gestures and by hospitality that isolates them from the suffering of their own people, a perception not changed simply by holding the December conference in the holy city of Mecca. This crisis in leadership after the Caliphate dangerously allowed its functions to be dismembered and claimed by virtually anyone who was willing to take them on, from tax collection, to defending Muslim territory (and deciding when and how) to defining the relationship between Islam and other peoples. The Caliphate was the only institution able to provide credible leadership on Islamic issues and which can hold a credible Islamic debate that denounces weak or erroneous understandings that threaten both western and Muslim populations.
Efforts to malign the Caliphate must be challenged with an understanding of exactly what it would represent. Equating it with, and
making it inseparable from, the violence that has struck western capitals is a false association that lacks historical, political and intellectual credibility particularly in the Muslim world.The goal of replacing unrepresentative unaccountable rulers with a political system that is neither and which draws on strong ideological commonalities with its people can only be a stabilising force for the region.The Caliphate represents an alternative political vision for the Muslim world and a political system that draws on a strong historical record.
Remarks from senior US and British officials demonstrate the Caliphate is now finding its way into the language of the war on terror. American officials have recently introduced it as a pretext for continuing US involvement in Iraq. For Eric Edelman, US under secretary of defence for policy "Iraq's future will either embolden terrorists and expand their reach and ability to re-establish a Caliphate, or it will deal them a crippling blow. For us, failure in Iraq is just not an option". In addition to Tony Blair's post 7/7 remarks, the British Home secretary, Charles Clarke, said in a speech to the US think tank the Heritage Foundation "there can be no negotiation about the recreation of the Caliphate; there can be no negotiation about the imposition of Shariah law". Lord Curzon's warnings that "we must put an end to anything which brings about any Islamic unity between the sons of the Muslims" where appended by his remarks about the end of the Caliphate: "The situation now is that Turkey is dead and will never rise again, because we have destroyed its moral strength, the Caliphate and Islam". The fact that less than eight decades after the British government announced its death, demands for a Caliphate re-appear clearly challenge Lord Curzon's forecasts as does it bring to the fore his warnings.The Caliphate may soon become the defining debate of our age; the emerging prospect of its arrival must be met with a willingness to understand a system that would undoubtedly usher in a new era for the Muslim world.
Reference- Hourani, A (2002). A History of the Arab Peoples. Faber & Faber Ltd, London. pp 316
- Caliphate is the anglicised version of the word 'Khilafah' and 'Khilafat'
- This was discussed at length in the fourth edition article 'New Caliphate New Era'
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