What is the method of establishing an Islamic state or Caliphate?
A Brief Description of the Question:
What is the method of establishing an Islamic state or caliphate?
The Answer:
- As it is seen in the meaning of the verse “Allah has promised, to those among you who believe and work righteous deeds, that He will, of a surety, grant them in the land, inheritance (of power) (caliphate), as He granted it (caliphate) to those before them; that He will establish in authority their religion- the one which He has chosen for them; and that He will change (their state), after the fear in which they (lived), to one of security and peace: They will worship Me (alone) and not associate aught with Me. If any do reject Faith after this, they are rebellious and wicked”(Qur’an, The Light (An-Nur); 55 (24: 55)), the term caliphate is a Qur’anic term.
- The Prophet (pbuh) also stated : “The caliphate (or the caliphate of the prophethood) is thirty years after me.” (see Abu Dawud, Sunna, 8; Tirmidhi, Fitan, 48; Ahmad b. Hanbal, 4/272; 5/220, 221). The terms caliphate/caliph were used in many hadiths like that one.
Therefore, Muslims have taken that concept seriously after the Prophet.
- Since the term “ulu al-amr (those in authority)” was also used in the Qur’an”(Qur’an, The Women (An-Nissa); 59 (4: 59))besides the term caliphate and the term “amer (the ruler)” was used in the hadiths, those terms were also used by the Muslims. It is also known that the title “Amer al- mu’mineen (the ruler of the believers)” was also used for the Rightly-Guided Caliphs.
- However, the caliphate concept is a phenomenon that takes both the worldly and the religious services on as an institutional mechanism. Especially during the last periods of the Ottoman Empire, since there had been some events making those two institutions differ from each other, the caliphate began to be an institution in charge of the religious services. After the individual caliphate ended, that mission was assigned to the Assembly. Later on, the secular structure came into prominence.
- Under the light of that information, we can say that existence of an individual caliphate in a certain country seems to be quite difficult since the caliphate represents the entire ummah(community) in our age. For, it would be only a meaningless, unauthorized, powerless name and image in that case. Indeed, in this century, since constituting committees prevail, it is important for Muslims to form institutions. Maybe a nominal caliph would exist in the “Sacred places” to which the entire ummah would respect.
In Islam, it is important to reflect the essence of the case rather than name and image.
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