ISIS Caliphate: Grab for Power or Religious Revival

Is the ISIS declaration of a new caliphate in Iraq about religion or power?

William Dalrymple, a writer and historian, argues that the recent claim by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi  is more of a “jihadi nostalgia for a golden era of Islam” than it is about religion.”

To prove his point, Dalrymple reviews the history of the caliphate  in this fascinating essay for The Guardian.  He notes that it “is far more troubled, bloody and contested than many realise.”

That’s because the title of caliph was contested, first between the Umayyads and Abbasids, and then later by the Ottomans and Mughals. The very last caliph, Abdülmecid II, an Ottoman, was deposed and sent into exile in 1924 by Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.

Dalrymple argues that the “restoration of the caliphate has been a dream of Islamic revivalists since at least the 1950s, when Hizb ut-Tahrir began calling for its resurrection.”

He notes that “the Taliban leader Mullah Omar went as far as claiming for himself one of the caliph’s traditional titles, Amir al-Mu’minin, the commander of the believers; the restoration of the caliphate was often mentioned by Osama bin Laden as his ultimate goal.”

For these reasons, Dalrymple sees the recent claim of Abu Bakr al-Baghdad as more of grab for power than it it is for a religious revival.

Like most of Dalrymple’s writing, this essay reflects an engaging style that allows the reader to understand the culture as well the history of period about which he writing.

For example, here’s how he describes the Ottoman caliph on his last days before exile:

Photographs of the last caliph show an elderly, intellectual figure in a fez, kaftan and pince-nez, absorbed in the books of his library. Here he composed classical music and read the complete works of Victor Hugo, while cultivating his gardens and painting portraits of his family.