Are You Fearful of the Caliphate Movement?

In the words of Rodney King, can't we all just get along? Whatever happened to live and let live? Why ever do we all think our ways are best and should be the ways of everybody else?
 

A caliphate (from the Arabic: خلافة‎ khilāfa, meaning "succession") is an Islamic state led by a supreme religious and political leader known as a caliph – i.e. "successor" – to Muhammad and the other prophets of Islam. The succession of Muslim empires that have existed in the Muslim world are usually described as "caliphates". Conceptually, a caliphate represents a sovereign polity (state) of the entire Muslim faithful (the Ummah, i.e. a sovereign nation state) ruled by a single caliph under the Constitution of Medina and Islamic law (sharia).[SUP][citation needed][/SUP]

In its earliest days, the first caliphate, the Rashidun Caliphate, exhibited elements of direct democracy (shura).[SUP][1][/SUP] It was led, at first, by Muhammad's immediate disciples and family as a continuation of the religious systems he had introduced.

The Sunni branch of Islam stipulates that as a head of state, a caliph should be elected by Muslims or their representatives.[SUP][2][/SUP] Followers of Shia Islam, however, believe a caliph should be an Imam chosen by God (Allah) from the Ahl al-Bayt (the "Family of the House", Muhammad's direct descendents). From the end of the Rashidun period until 1924, caliphates, sometimes two at a single time, real and illusory, were ruled by dynasties. The first of these was the Umayyad dynasty, followed by the several other sometimes competing claimants and finally the Ottoman dynasty.

The caliphate was "the core leader concept of Sunni Islam, by the consensus of the Muslim majority in the early centuries".[SUP][3][/SUP]
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No, I am not worried because it is an unrealistic anachronism. If the Islamists succeed in establishing an Islamic state somewhere they will continue to have internal divisions between the different muslim sects who will continue to struggle for power. They will have their hands full managing even a small caliphate and then it will be less likely that they will be a problem for the rest of the world with the exception of Israel.

A dictatorship needs an external enemy and Israel would be a target that might rally the different sects behind a common cause. The west would feel obliged to render assistance, and we should if that happens. We would then be at war with the Caliphate and IMO would win an all out war.
 
I don't believe it will never happen.... what we mainly have to watch out for is our government (possibly other governments, too) or whoever the Powers That Be really are-- continue trying to PROMOTE undue fear... After all: keep the people in fear and you have them under your control...
 
There are good Muslims as well as bad just as there are good Christians as well as very nasty ones!
 
My thinking is that any form of world domination, whether it is an empire or a caliphate is very difficult to achieve and even harder to sustain. Frankly I don't see the Arabs being capable of developing a pan Arabic caliphate. This would still leave the Iranians and Turks outside the tent, not to mention Pakistan and Indonesia. I reckon there would be so much infighting that they would be kept busy for a hundred years. Of course, it would be a nuisance to the rest of the world in the same way that the competing empires of Europe were problematic.
 
Justme said:
There are good Muslims as well as bad just as there are good Christians as well as very nasty ones!
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Very true Justme...................I have 2 daughters in law that were bought up as Muslims, one has been a member of my family for twenty two years and I couldn't wish for a better daughter in law, the other one has been married to my youngest son for two years and I feel the same about her as well.
 
It's basically a theocracy with a supreme ruler, the Caliph, who is also the religious authority.
Think of Iran after the revolution when the Ayatollah first came to power.

It probably worked well in a medieval context because Islam flowered for a while when Europe was sliding into the dark ages.
Today it is a backward looking pipe dream and it would probably look more like a totalitarian regime.
Sooner or later such regimes collapse from within.
 

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