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{"id":18406,"date":"2016-09-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=157"},"modified":"2016-09-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T00:00:00","slug":"its-the-theology-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/09\/its-the-theology-stupid\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s the Theology, Stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

T<\/span>homas Small doesn\u2019t think Hugh Kennedy\u2019s Caliphate<\/em><\/a> gives enough attention to the theological roots of the Caliphate. In his TLS review<\/a>, he writes wryly: \u201cReading Kennedy\u2019s account of the Caliphate, you\u2019d be forgiven for forgetting that there\u2019s anything particularly religious about it.<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Small, the Caliphate is a thoroughly religious institution and idea, part of the \u201cpolitical theology\u201d that was early Islam, a political theology that \u201csacralized\u201d war precisely by sacrilizing the caliph. \u201cAn early caliph didn\u2019t need a pope to hand him a crown,\u201d he writes, \u201cnot because there wasn\u2019t a religious figure to do so, but because the caliph himself was the religious figure, the fons et origo<\/em> of spiritual identity and legitimacy for the umma<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Small continues, \u201cIgnoring or playing down the way Islam in particular sacralizes warfare is to obscure much. Islam was originally a political theology that went something like this: Out of all the peoples and tribes of the world, God chose a tribe of Arabia called Quraysh to carry out his final plan for humanity. From among their number he selected a prophet, revealed his will to him \u201cin clear Arabic\u201d, and instructed him to establish the quintessential divinely ordained polity at Medina. But the death of this prophet was still just the beginning of the story. The Quraysh remained God\u2019s chosen instrument, despite the non-Qurashis swelling their ranks. And though the umma disagreed about how they could determine God\u2019s will in the matter of who exactly was to be caliph \u2014 whether by tribal deliberation, patrilineal heredity, trial by combat, or a combination of the three\u2014it was a matter of faith (except for some outlying schismatics) that God intended him to be a Qurashi, and that under his charismatic leadership the Qurashis would extend God\u2019s sovereignty across the earth until every worldly power was placed under his dominion.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/em>Emphasizing theology has the advantage of placing Islam where it belongs, in late antiquity, in continuity with a history of sacral kingship that begins (at least) with Alexander: \u201c<\/span>the caliphs were not mere kings: they were truly sacred, truly universal monarchs\u2014and like Alexander (whose career the Qur\u2019an sanctions), they were monarchs on a mission. From earliest times, mounting a jihad was the prerogative of the caliph, in line with his divinely ordained task of submitting the world to Islam. . . . Islam belongs to late antiquity. In many respects it is late antiquity\u2019s crowning achievement. This is when the idea of universal monarchy, first espoused by Alexander the Great a thousand years before, finally transformed from a political proposition into a theological dogma\u2014and nowhere more fully than in Islam.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"