The Caliphate: Utopian Bullshit

Perhaps the greatest complaint against Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was that he supposedly abolished the caliphate. It is true that the Ottoman sultans called themselves caliphs starting with Yavuz Sultan Selim; it is true that the last of the so-called caliphs from the House of Osman (in other words, from the Ottoman dynasty) was exiled by Atatürk, and that the office was abolished by his parliament. In reality, though, the caliphate died long before Mustafa Kemal exiled Abdülmecid II. 

Critics complain that if it was not for Mustafa Kemal, if it was not for his decision to abolish it in 1924 and send Abdülmecid II into exile, Muslims would still have a caliph. They present ridiculous conspiracy theories: foreign conspirators, they claim, ended the caliphate through their agent Mustafa Kemal. If it was not for him, all the world's Muslims would have a figurehead to gather around, Muslims would be united and stop fighting each other and Islam would dominate the world- a utopia, in other words. 

They begin to imagine that Islam commands them to create this utopia, but as with most utopian fantasies like Fascism or Communism, these attempts end in disaster. Such a utopia did not even exist under the Prophet, nor under the legitimate (according to the Sunni perspective) caliphs who knew him personally. Yet these people presume to try to create an Islamic utopia in our day, as if they were better than the Prophet or his family and companions. 

Currently, the issue of the Caliphate is all over the news because of the so-called "Islamic State" and its leader, who had the arrogance to declare himself a caliph, a successor to the Prophet Muhammad. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has no authority whatsoever to become a caliph, and there is no theological basis for his claims. He is simply an actor, and his play will not end happily. (I hope it ends soon). He has essentially created a new religion with himself as its prophet, although he would never admit this, and he is not the first to commit this sin.

The caliphate under the Ottomans was simply a re-packaged version of an old Tengrist belief that the Han was the Son of Tengri. Of course once the Turks accepted Islam they could no longer call their Hans "The Son of Tengri", so they opted for other titles like "The Shadow of God on Earth" and after the conquest of Egypt from the Abbasids, "Caliph". Yet according to those who promote the caliphate, the fact that the Ottomans killed their own brothers, married more than four women, failed to educate their people about Islam, etc. are all fineand good because after all, these are the Shadows of God on Earth- who are we to question them? (I will do another post on this mindset later).

The caliphate under the Abbasids was simply more of the same nonsense that the Ummayads peddled: with no theological basis whatsoever, Arab kings claimed to be successors to the Messenger of God and to have religious authority over Muslims. The Ummayad claim to the throne is the most preposterous of all: Mu'awiya, who fought against Ali, claiming to have the right to rule over Muslims was preposterous enough, but his son Yazid, who was responsible for the murder of the Prophet's grandson Hussain, is the most preposterous and horrifying claim of them all. 

The Shi'a, of course, reject the idea of the caliphate outright, saying that Ali should have lead the community from the Prophet's death onward. Sunni historians have had two views: the majority say Ali was indeed the fourth and final rashid caliph, but a minority- including Tirmidhi if I'm not mistaken- view his son Hasan as the final rashid caliph. 

Needless to say, whether we view Ali bin Abi Talib or his son Hasan bin Ali as the last of the rightly guided caliphs is beside the point: once the Ummayads entered the picture, the caliphate lost all legitimacy, and it has never regained that legitimacy and never can. To try to defend Mu'awiyah is pathetic, to try to defend Yazid is simply heinous. To accept the caliphate after Yazid is to accept the murderer of the Prophet's grandson Hussain as the legitimate political sucessor to the Prophet whose grandson he murdered. 

None of these so-called caliphs ever had control over the Muslim world anyway, and even in the time of the rashid ones there were still internal conflicts- even in the time of the Prophet himself there were plenty of munafiqun. The Sunni-Shia split, the spread of Islam from Spain to Indonesia, East Turkistan to Timbuktu; Muslims fighting each other endlessly; all of these factors have meant that for most of Islam's history, there has not been a single, unified authority for Muslims to look to. 

The Caliphate probably died with Ali bin Abi Talib, not with Abdülmecid II. Even the Prophet could not create a utopia, and it is time for those who are attempting to establish a new Caliphate to stop thinking of themselves as better than our Master.