Encyclopedia of Islam

caliph

  

125  J

---

See also  F

atimid

 

dynasty

; 

imam

; 

government

, 

i

slamic

;  o

ttoman

 

dynasty

;  s

Unnism

; U

mayyad

c

aliphate

.

Heather N. Keaney

Further reading: Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, 

God’s Caliph (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 

1986); Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the 

Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the 

Eleventh Century (London: Longman Press, 1986); 

Wilfred Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad (Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

caliphate

The caliphate is the office of religious and political 

ruler in Islamdom. It went through several stages 

of historical development. The first four 

caliph

s 

make up what is regarded by Muslims as the 

Rashidun, or the caliphate of the rightly guided 

(r. 632–661). These caliphs were all early converts 

to  i

slam

 and close c

ompanions

 

oF

 

the

  p

rophet

Muhammad. For the most part, they continued to 

model the ideals of Islamic government: uphold-

ing proper religious practice and social justice. It 

was during this period that Islam experienced its 

most rapid expansion into s

yria

, i

raq

, p

ersia

, and 

North Africa

The period of the rightly guided caliphate 

ended in civil war, and the capital of the Islamic 

empire and the caliphate moved from Medina 

to  d

amascUs

. There the U

mayyad

  c

aliphate

 (r. 

661–750) became increasingly secular, exercis-

ing authority based on the power of the military 

rather than moral or religious 

aUthority

. The 

tension between religious legitimacy and secular 

authority eventually led to the overthrow of the 

Umayyads in the eighth century by the Abbasids, 

who moved the capital to b

aghdad

, Iraq. The 

early a

bbasid

 c

aliphate

 (750–1258) is regarded as 

the golden age of Islamicate civilization.

In addition to its wealth and power, the 

caliphate symbolized the united Muslim com-

munity  (

umma

), living proof that despite blood-

shed and civil war, God had not abandoned his 

community. When the caliphate’s political power 

began to decline, the Muslim community held 

even more tightly to the symbolic significance 

of the caliphate. Starting in the 10th century, 

a series of military commanders seized control 

of the military and political workings of the 

empire. Eventually, authority was divided up 

among these commanders, who were known 

as amirs or 

sUltan

s. Due to the symbolic and 

religious significance of the caliphate, however, 

sultans claimed to rule on its behalf. Throughout 

the medieval period, the caliphate and sultan-

ate complemented each other, with the former 

lending religious legitimacy to the latter, while 

the sultanate provided the political and military 

power to defend Islamdom.

The sultans proved incapable, however, of 

defending Islam and the caliphate from the Mon-

gols, who destroyed Baghdad and the Abbasid 

Caliphate in 1258. Even though the m

amlUk

sultans of e

gypt

 attempted to continue the caliph-

ate in c

airo

 through an Abbasid survivor, the 

caliphate no longer carried the same religious 

significance. When the Ottoman Turks defeated 

the Mamluks in 1517, they absorbed the caliphate 

into their sultanate.

When the Turkish nationalist m

UstaFa

 k

emal

a

tatUrk

 (d. 1938) dismantled the Ottoman Empire 

and established t

Urkey

 as a modern, secular 

nation-state, he formally abolished the caliphate 

in 1924. This marked the symbolic end of an era 

and made official what had in many ways been a 

longstanding reality. Today there are still reform-

ers who call for a restoration of the caliphate, 

believing that it is necessary for enforcing 

sharia

and establishing God’s government on Earth.

See also 

imam

; F

atimid

 

dynasty

; k

hilaFat

 m

ove

-

ment

; o

ttoman

 

dynasty

.

Heather N. Keaney