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The Caliphate before the ISIS blitzkrieg

  • 09 July 2014

Over the last three weeks we’ve witnessed a shocking blitzkrieg in Iraq as the forces of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) swept through the north of the country. A little over a week ago ISIS announced the establishment of a Caliphate straddling both countries. With it came the implementation of a hard-line version of Islamic law and the declaration of its reclusive leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as Caliph.

On Saturday a bearded man dressed in black robes, purportedly the new Caliph, stepped out of the shadows. Video was released of him addressing men attending a mosque in Mosul in the north of Iraq. In his sermon he called on all Muslims to obey him.

For most of its history since the death of the Prophet Mohammed in 632CE the Muslim world was ruled by a Caliph. This is the Anglicised version of the Arabic word ‘khalifa’ which means successor or representative.

The last Caliphal dynasty, the Ottomans, ruled over their empire from Istanbul till the Caliphate was abolished by Kemal Ataturk in 1924 when he established the modern secular state of Turkey. Since then Muslims have been without a supreme leader.

What is the significance of the declaration of a Caliphate now, and the emergence of a new Caliph? Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf who is featured in this interview is well qualified to discuss these questions. He spoke to Eureka Street TV via Skype from his home in New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from New York City where he is based.

Imam Feisal is one of the most eminent Muslim leaders and scholars in America today. Amongst other concerns, he’s spent much of the last decade grappling with the issues surrounding what might constitute a positive Islamic state in the contemporary world.

He was born in Kuwait of Egyptian parents, raised in England and Malaysia, and for a short time in Egypt before settling with his family at the age of seventeen in the USA.

His father and grandfather were imams at mosques and Islamic centres around the world, and some ancestors were Sufi Masters, belonging to the mystical stream of Islam. After studying science at university to Master’s level, Imam Feisal succumbed to what he calls ‘genetic momentum’, began Islamic studies and became an imam himself.

He was imam at al-Farah Mosque very close to Ground Zero in New York at the time of 9/11. This thrust him into the limelight as
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