For Westerners, discussion of the caliphate often evokes images of organizations like Islamic State (ISIS) and medieval brutality. Mention of sharia law conjures up similar impressions. So does the subject of Islam. And Arabs, for that matter. A pattern emerges.
With regard to the caliphate specifically, the horrors that come to the Western mind are based on a misunderstanding of Arab-Islamic history. While I will forgo a review of the basics here, as the article does a decent job of it, a few points are worth accenting:
1. After the Prophet Muhammad died in 632 AD, leadership of the Islamic community became the charge of a list of successors to the prophet called caliphs, a largely political office. A century after Muhammad's death, the early caliphate had created an empire that would stretch from Spain to the western boundary of China. Though an act of conquest, imperial expansion was exceptionally tolerant of the different religions practiced by the conquered, especially—but not limited to—Christianity and Judaism. As the late historian William Cleveland points out in his standard text, "Forced conversions played only a small part in the Arab conquests...."
2. Given this tolerance, the array of diverse cultures that came under Islamic rule, instead of being destroyed, were allowed to carry on and intermingle. "Out of this combination," says Middle East historian Arthur Goldschmidt, "would grow a new civilization matching those of Greece and Rome."
3. Though by the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922) the title of caliph existed mostly in name only, the Ottoman system itself represents a time in Middle Eastern history when the region's people were, despite being Turkish subjects, basically left alone and allowed to conduct their own affairs. And while something less than a paradise, life under the Ottomans was characterized by autonomy and stability.
Polls revealing regional popular support for combining the different Arab states into a unified system modeled on the caliphate come as no surprise; the nation-state experience has been a negative one. When we add to this the polling data repeatedly showing that Arab Muslims very much support the principles of liberalism, the picture doesn't change, it merely becomes more detailed. In short, the people of the Middle East desire self-determination and freedom from foreign and domestic oppression.
As stated by one interviewee in the BBC article who supports the reestablishment of the caliphate:
"When people talk about a caliphate ... they are talking about a leader who's accountable, about justice and accountability according to Islamic law," he says. "That stands in stark contrast to the motley crew of dictators, kings, and oppressive state-security type regimes you have, which have no popular legitimacy at all."
And a professor from Leeds University:
"We right now have a growing gap of legitimacy in most governments that rule the Muslim peoples—and that gap isn't closing ... One way of thinking about the caliphate is really a quest for Muslims to have autonomy. The idea that you should have capacity to write your own history becomes very strong and for Muslims I think the caliphate is the instrument for trying to write their own history."
Both quotes are talking about politics, not religion. The grievances in the region are specific, secular, and legitimate, and would be shared by anyone living under similar circumstances. Recollection of a better time is understandable—if not an instinctive human trait. It is little wonder that the earlier periods of Arab history get looked back upon with a sense of nostalgia.
