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Longing for the Lost Caliphate: A Transregional History
In the United States and Europe, the word "caliphate" has conjured historically romantic and increasingly pernicious associations. Yet the caliphate's significance in Islamic history and Muslim culture remains poorly understood. This book explores the myriad meanings of the caliphate for Muslims around the world through the analytical lens of two key moments of loss in the thirteenth and twentieth centuries. Through extensive primary-source research, Mona Hassan explores the rich constellation of interpretations created by religious scholars, historians, musicians, statesmen, poets, and intellectuals.
Hassan fills a scholarly gap regarding Muslim reactions to the destruction of the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad in 1258 and challenges the notion that the Mongol onslaught signaled an end to the critical engagement of Muslim jurists and intellectuals with the idea of an Islamic caliphate. She also situates Muslim responses to the dramatic abolition of the Ottoman caliphate in 1924 as part of a longer trajectory of transregional cultural memory, revealing commonalities and differences in how modern Muslims have creatively interpreted and reinterpreted their heritage. Hassan examines how poignant memories of the lost caliphate have been evoked in Muslim culture, law, and politics, similar to the losses and repercussions experienced by other religious communities, including the destruction of the Second Temple for Jews and the fall of Rome for Christians.
A global history, Longing for the Lost Caliphate delves into why the caliphate has been so important to Muslims in vastly different eras and places.
Hassan fills a scholarly gap regarding Muslim reactions to the destruction of the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad in 1258 and challenges the notion that the Mongol onslaught signaled an end to the critical engagement of Muslim jurists and intellectuals with the idea of an Islamic caliphate. She also situates Muslim responses to the dramatic abolition of the Ottoman caliphate in 1924 as part of a longer trajectory of transregional cultural memory, revealing commonalities and differences in how modern Muslims have creatively interpreted and reinterpreted their heritage. Hassan examines how poignant memories of the lost caliphate have been evoked in Muslim culture, law, and politics, similar to the losses and repercussions experienced by other religious communities, including the destruction of the Second Temple for Jews and the fall of Rome for Christians.
A global history, Longing for the Lost Caliphate delves into why the caliphate has been so important to Muslims in vastly different eras and places.
408 pages, Hardcover
Published December 15, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 16, 2017
This book consists of two parts: one focusing on the loss of the Abbasid Caliphate following the Mongol invasions and the other on the abolishment of the Ottoman Caliphate by the Turkish Republic. I was mainly interested in this book for the latter period, but the juxtaposition of the two highlighted an interesting historical parallel. At both points of its abolishment, "Muslim civilization" was at a psychological low point, and although the two Caliphates were conceived in starkly different terms (the latter being almost a secular construct) the impetus to revive it in both eras showed that there was clearly a continuity in the institution.
While the Abbasid Caliphate was revived by being transferred to Cairo, the Muslim world was far to divided to find a new home for the institution after it was evicted from Turkey. Despite the clear anguish and longing that this decision created and the perceptible desire for the spiritual unity that the office symbolized, the various competing claims effectively nullified any prospect of its continuance. The best parts of the book are the citations of contemporary intellectuals and political leaders about the importance of the Caliphate to them as Muslims, and their sense of loss over its abolishment. The failure to reestablish it, despite the "Caliphate Conference" called in 1926 Cairo, stem largely from Arab leaders attempts to arrogate the title for themselves after Abdulmëcid's removal. To his credit, Abdulmëcid never sought to claim the throne back for himself and quietly encouraged Muslim countries to revive the office as they felt appropriate. The loss of unity centered on the institution has had profound effects, not least in Turkey where it was one of the few ties that bound Turks and Kurds together in identity. While the Turkish Republic has always suggested that the office was musty and ineffectual, it is clear that there were mass protests and uprisings over its destruction, given that the War of Independence had been sold to Turks and Muslims around the world as a war to defend the Caliph. Ataturk brutally snuffed out and opposition to his decision, whether among the Kurds, the general Turkish public or even his colleagues, thus tossing away an office that many rightly argued retained significant benefits for Turkey's global influence.
The book compellingly compares the modern idea of the Caliphate to the Vatican, an office that has not existed in its current composition for that long as it turns out. One thing that struck me while reading various intellectuals ideas for a modern Caliphate is how much they seemed to mirror the existing IOC organization, albeit without the President today being deemed "Caliph". It seems that the best solution to defending Muslim-majority countries from violence while building economic and cultural ties among them would be strengthening organizations like the IOC and making them a meaningful force in global affairs. Doing so would help bring into being a modern "Caliphate" that does not violently clash with the existing world order, but rather transmutes positive m sentiments of unity and self-preservation into it. There is clearly a deep yearning to make the international system conform more with Islamic ideas of political order, sometimes expressed by statesman and sometimes by radicals like Hizb Tahrir or even, dubiously, "Islamic State". It would be better to recognize the roots of these ideas and channel them in a constructive manner rather than ignoring them. Unfortunately such projects for international unity will not be possible as long as fierce internal rivalries and continue, absent some external shock like that which helped create the IOC in the first place (the burning of al Aqsa Mosque by an Israeli settler two years after its capture).
This book is a treasure trove of primary source material which makes it indispensable in itself. However it is written in a numbingly academic style which takes a lot of the pleasure out of the subject. As such, I only recommended it to those with a deep interest in this history.
While the Abbasid Caliphate was revived by being transferred to Cairo, the Muslim world was far to divided to find a new home for the institution after it was evicted from Turkey. Despite the clear anguish and longing that this decision created and the perceptible desire for the spiritual unity that the office symbolized, the various competing claims effectively nullified any prospect of its continuance. The best parts of the book are the citations of contemporary intellectuals and political leaders about the importance of the Caliphate to them as Muslims, and their sense of loss over its abolishment. The failure to reestablish it, despite the "Caliphate Conference" called in 1926 Cairo, stem largely from Arab leaders attempts to arrogate the title for themselves after Abdulmëcid's removal. To his credit, Abdulmëcid never sought to claim the throne back for himself and quietly encouraged Muslim countries to revive the office as they felt appropriate. The loss of unity centered on the institution has had profound effects, not least in Turkey where it was one of the few ties that bound Turks and Kurds together in identity. While the Turkish Republic has always suggested that the office was musty and ineffectual, it is clear that there were mass protests and uprisings over its destruction, given that the War of Independence had been sold to Turks and Muslims around the world as a war to defend the Caliph. Ataturk brutally snuffed out and opposition to his decision, whether among the Kurds, the general Turkish public or even his colleagues, thus tossing away an office that many rightly argued retained significant benefits for Turkey's global influence.
The book compellingly compares the modern idea of the Caliphate to the Vatican, an office that has not existed in its current composition for that long as it turns out. One thing that struck me while reading various intellectuals ideas for a modern Caliphate is how much they seemed to mirror the existing IOC organization, albeit without the President today being deemed "Caliph". It seems that the best solution to defending Muslim-majority countries from violence while building economic and cultural ties among them would be strengthening organizations like the IOC and making them a meaningful force in global affairs. Doing so would help bring into being a modern "Caliphate" that does not violently clash with the existing world order, but rather transmutes positive m sentiments of unity and self-preservation into it. There is clearly a deep yearning to make the international system conform more with Islamic ideas of political order, sometimes expressed by statesman and sometimes by radicals like Hizb Tahrir or even, dubiously, "Islamic State". It would be better to recognize the roots of these ideas and channel them in a constructive manner rather than ignoring them. Unfortunately such projects for international unity will not be possible as long as fierce internal rivalries and continue, absent some external shock like that which helped create the IOC in the first place (the burning of al Aqsa Mosque by an Israeli settler two years after its capture).
This book is a treasure trove of primary source material which makes it indispensable in itself. However it is written in a numbingly academic style which takes a lot of the pleasure out of the subject. As such, I only recommended it to those with a deep interest in this history.
August 4, 2017
I have to admit it up front: This book by Mona F. Hassan was a difficult one for me. It seems to presume roughly ten times the familiarity with the minutiae of late Abbasid and Ottoman politics as I actually possessed. Nor was it written in very user-friendly prose. And the final conclusion (paraphrased: "Muslims reacted to the loss of caliphate both times in similar but also different ways because of context") came across as not only anticlimactic somewhat insipid. But Hassan nevertheless ably parallels the (brief) abolition of the Abbasid caliphate in 1258 and the (more enduring) abolition of the Ottoman caliphate in 1924, citing and discussing the reactions of a range of Muslim thinkers to each.
It took several re-readings of the latter chapters for me, but any attentive reader could glean an immense store of knowledge of the ways in which Muslim thinkers handled the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate: Mohammed Barakatullah wanted to restore the caliph as a purely spiritual and apolitical figure, like what the papacy had become. Inayatullah Khan al-Mashriqi wanted an international Islamic conference to function corporately as caliph. Shakib Arslan wanted to restore the last Ottoman caliph, Abdülmecid, as caliph based in Yemen, keeping the caliphate and sultanate separate for now. Rashid Rida hoped for a healthier system in which a fully qualified new caliph could be elected. Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri sought a temporary balance of power between a religious body (an Organization of Religious Affairs, with representatives from each Islamic nation) and a political one (an Eastern League), which eventually would share a single president who would be acclaimed as caliph. (Any foreshadowing of the OIC you may detect here is no coincidence.) Ísmail Şükrü insisted, contrary to Barakatullah, that the caliph should be primarily a political leader. Mehmed Seyyid Çelebizade ("Seyyid Bey") considered the caliph not merely God's deputy but the community's deputy, who could therefore be deposed; and, since no one after Ali ibn Abi Talib was really a caliph anyway in Seyyid Bey's view, the whole nation could deputize itself and function as its own caliph. Ali Abdel-Raziq, meanwhile, denied that the caliphate had ever been good; argued that Muhammad never founded a state; and said that even the Rashidun Caliphs were purely political leaders. Muhammad al-Khidr Husayn rebutted Abdel-Raziq and compared the caliphate to a constitutional monarchy. Mustafa Sabri suggested that any faithful Islamic government could be a caliphate, and so there could be many simultaneous valid caliphates, each claiming the rightful allegiance of their respective portions of the ummah. Said Nursi thought that Abdülhamid II was the last real Ottoman caliph, but Nursi eventually gave up on reviving a political caliphate, focusing on preserving faith in a materialistic age; but he still got in trouble, because his descriptions of the coming Dajjal (loosely, 'Antichrist') sounded very suspiciously like Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Hasan al-Banna, distressed by the caliphate's abolition, wanted to restore it as a political-and-spiritual power; and his Muslim Brotherhood maintains a gradualist and accommodationist approach to this goal. Hizb ut-Tahrir, meanwhile, sees Western influences like democracy, capitalism, and nationalism as obstacles to this same goal, but prefers revolutionary non-violent methods; whereas modern Salafi jihadists drop the non-violence and want a militant restoration of the caliphate, which ISIS has claimed to have already accomplished.
Hassan is very thorough in charting all this out, and to anyone interested in this facet of Islamic political history and thought, Hassan's book is a valuable read for those who persevere therein.
It took several re-readings of the latter chapters for me, but any attentive reader could glean an immense store of knowledge of the ways in which Muslim thinkers handled the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate: Mohammed Barakatullah wanted to restore the caliph as a purely spiritual and apolitical figure, like what the papacy had become. Inayatullah Khan al-Mashriqi wanted an international Islamic conference to function corporately as caliph. Shakib Arslan wanted to restore the last Ottoman caliph, Abdülmecid, as caliph based in Yemen, keeping the caliphate and sultanate separate for now. Rashid Rida hoped for a healthier system in which a fully qualified new caliph could be elected. Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri sought a temporary balance of power between a religious body (an Organization of Religious Affairs, with representatives from each Islamic nation) and a political one (an Eastern League), which eventually would share a single president who would be acclaimed as caliph. (Any foreshadowing of the OIC you may detect here is no coincidence.) Ísmail Şükrü insisted, contrary to Barakatullah, that the caliph should be primarily a political leader. Mehmed Seyyid Çelebizade ("Seyyid Bey") considered the caliph not merely God's deputy but the community's deputy, who could therefore be deposed; and, since no one after Ali ibn Abi Talib was really a caliph anyway in Seyyid Bey's view, the whole nation could deputize itself and function as its own caliph. Ali Abdel-Raziq, meanwhile, denied that the caliphate had ever been good; argued that Muhammad never founded a state; and said that even the Rashidun Caliphs were purely political leaders. Muhammad al-Khidr Husayn rebutted Abdel-Raziq and compared the caliphate to a constitutional monarchy. Mustafa Sabri suggested that any faithful Islamic government could be a caliphate, and so there could be many simultaneous valid caliphates, each claiming the rightful allegiance of their respective portions of the ummah. Said Nursi thought that Abdülhamid II was the last real Ottoman caliph, but Nursi eventually gave up on reviving a political caliphate, focusing on preserving faith in a materialistic age; but he still got in trouble, because his descriptions of the coming Dajjal (loosely, 'Antichrist') sounded very suspiciously like Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Hasan al-Banna, distressed by the caliphate's abolition, wanted to restore it as a political-and-spiritual power; and his Muslim Brotherhood maintains a gradualist and accommodationist approach to this goal. Hizb ut-Tahrir, meanwhile, sees Western influences like democracy, capitalism, and nationalism as obstacles to this same goal, but prefers revolutionary non-violent methods; whereas modern Salafi jihadists drop the non-violence and want a militant restoration of the caliphate, which ISIS has claimed to have already accomplished.
Hassan is very thorough in charting all this out, and to anyone interested in this facet of Islamic political history and thought, Hassan's book is a valuable read for those who persevere therein.
April 5, 2021
A very academic piece which is heavily referenced. Whilst this may appeal to some, it made reading it as a layman quite difficult. Like previous reviews, I was more interested in the recent loss of the Ottoman Caliphate and the response of the Muslim countries and scholars. One thing I learnt from this book is the Caliphate was like any system of government. Prone to periods of greed as well as times of glory. The Caliphs seem to become more like figureheads as time went by. Kemal Ataturk's reputation takes a bit of a battering. I found it fascinating that he proposed to someone of Ottoman lineage and was refused. Was his destruction of the Caliphate the work of a jilted soul, twisted by rejection?
July 16, 2021
If you're interested in classical as well as modern ideas of the Caliphate I can think of no better introduction than this. Mona Hassan has written an outstanding introduction to caliphate's historical, conceptual, legal resources as well as it's emotional resonances. It outlines updated introductions to its major thinkers, and yet it conveys not only it's legal demarcations but also the tragic in the discussion of its demise thereby locating the Caliphate in the Muslim imaginary. The prose is a delight, the scholarship is exemplary, just going through footnotes is a joy. One imagines this will inspire tens of PhDs just by rifling through the footnotes. An outstanding achievement.
July 24, 2019
Very good research and references work
November 25, 2019
I picked this book up expecting a survey of history and analysis surrounding the fall of the caliphates in the 13th and 20th centuries, but in reality this is an art and literature survey. Hassan quotes a host of works that lament the destruction of the Abbasid and Ottoman caliphates, and in between we get short bursts of actual history. If art and literature are your thing, maybe you'll like this. I didn't.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews