stated<\/a>, \u201cThey hope to establish a violent political utopia across the Middle East, which they call a \u201ccaliphate\u201d \u2013 where all would be ruled according to their hateful ideology.\u201d Some months later, in a May 2007 press conference, the President said of al-Qa\u2019ida, \u201cTheir strategy is to drive us out of the Middle East. They have made it abundantly clear what they want. They want to establish a caliphate. They want to spread their ideology. They want safe haven from which to launch attacks.\u201d While the accuracy or inaccuracy, methods, and ambitions of the President\u2019s claims are the subject of a separate discussion for a different forum, his use of the term \u201ccaliphate\u201d, which obliged immediate response from many a Muslim speaker and activist, deserves comment.<\/p>\nThe Qur\u2019an states that God created Adam in particular and the human race in general to be His khal\u012bfa<\/i> (caliph) on the earth. The term \u201ccaliph\u201d has been used throughout Muslim history to refer to various persons of authority, be they monarchical political leaders or the heads of revivalist and\/or Sufi movements. Scholars have sometimes used the term in referencing the Sunni outlook on the golden age of Muslim history, that of the Rightly Guided Caliphs who succeeded the Prophet Muhammad.<\/p>\n
While popular definition of the term indicates a sort of vicegerency of the Divine or successorship to the Prophets, the moral, social, political, and economic dimensions of this role have been thoroughly explored. A common topic of Muslim Student Association lectures, for example, is the construction and constitution of a theoretical, ideal Islamic way of life \u2013 whether as society or as polity \u2013 and the term used in such lectures is caliphate<\/i>. Political Islamists use the term to reference the establishment of an Islamic polity, commonly regarded as the \u201cIslamic State.\u201d They sometimes refer mournfully to March 3, 1924 as the moment of the final demise of the Caliphate: the abolition of the Ottomans. The majority of these Islamists are non-violent; more importantly, few have any connection to al-Qa\u2019ida.<\/p>\n
As an anti-occupation resistance movement, the Indian subcontinent saw the rise of a \u201cKhelafat Movement\u201d to fight off the British colonizers. A non-Muslim member of this movement went on to attain his own global notoriety: M. K. Gandhi. Recently, scholars such as Professor Amina Wadud have placed focus not on the political or liberatory meanings of the term, but on the aspect of moral agency. Others still have embraced the zeitgeist and directed attention to the role of the human race in caring for the environment: These Muslims call on congregants to fulfill their roles as caliphs of the earth.<\/p>\n
The term, then, is a robust and multidimensional one. But the President\u2019s remarks \u2013 emblematic of the widespread characterization of Islam as uniquely connected to violence and authoritarianism (a characterization that is sometimes opportunist, sometimes bigoted, but consistently myopic) \u2013 have compelled what is now becoming the most common use of the term by Muslims in the United States: the apologetic use. It is the same tune that we have heard for over a century of Islam in America. In the same way that jihad<\/i> does not mean \u201choly war\u201d but \u201cstruggle\u201d, caliphate<\/i> does not mean \u201cauthoritarian state\u201d but \u201cGod\u2019s vice-regency.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thus, the President has perpetuated a theme by adding a new word to a growing lexicon of hate. Likewise, the apologists are responding in a familiar way, necessarily diminishing the complexity of a term to counter its flagrant misappropriation: Yesterday it was jihad<\/i>; today it is caliphate<\/i>; no doubt tomorrow will see a different term. As the Muslim populations of America actively work to develop their indigenous Islam, the challenge will involve determining \u2013 in the face of this rhetorical contest \u2013 exactly what types of caliphs<\/i> they seek to be. This writer intends to continue using the term caliphate<\/i>. That is his jihad<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Omer M. Mozaffar is a PhD student in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of Chicago, and teaches in the Asian Classics Curriculum at the University of Chicago\u2019s Graham School of General Studies. This piece was originally published in Sightings<\/i>, the journal of the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
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