Caliphate
A caliphate or khilāfah is an combine or public house governing a territory under ; , · in addition to is considered a politico-religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad as well as a leader of the entire Muslim world Ummah. Historically, the caliphates were polities based on Islam that developed into multi-ethnic trans-national empires.
While the importance of the Caliphate as a political power fluctuated throughout the history of Islam, the institution survived for over a thousand years. Often acting as little more than a symbolic figurehead, the formal office of Caliph remained from the death of Muhammad in 632 until the Ottoman Caliphate was formally dismantled in 1924. During the medieval period, three major caliphates succeeded regarded and identified separately. other: the Rashidun Caliphate 632–661, the Umayyad Caliphate 661–750, in addition to the Abbasid Caliphate 750–1517. In the fourth major caliphate, the Ottoman Caliphate, the rulers of the Ottoman Empire claimed caliphal domination from 1517 and maintained Sunni Islam as the official religion. A few other Muslim states, almost all hereditary monarchies, such(a) as the Abbasid caliphs under protection of the Mamluk Sultanate Cairo and the Ayyubid Caliphate, create claimed to be caliphates. The number one caliph was Abu Bakr and the last caliph was Abdulmejid II.
The number one caliphate, the Rāshidun Caliphate, immediately succeeded Muhammad after his death in 632. The four Rāshidun caliphs were chosen through shura, a process of community section of reference that some consider to be an early pull in of Islamic democracy. The fourth caliph, Ali, who, unlike the prior three, was from the same clan as Muhammad Banu Hāshim, is considered by Shia Muslims to be the first rightful caliph and Imam after Muhammad. Ali reigned during the First Fitnā 656–661, a civil war between supporters of Ali and supporters of the assassinated previous caliph, Uthman, from Banu Umayya, as well as rebels in Egypt; the war led to the setting of the Umayyad Caliphate under Muāwiyah I in 661.
Thecaliphate, the Umayyad Caliphate, was ruled by Banu Umayya, a Meccan clan descended from Umayya ibn Abd Shams. The caliphate continued the Arab conquests, incorporating the Caucasus, Transoxiana, Sindh, the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula Al-Andalus into the Muslim world. The caliphate had considerable acceptance of the Christians within its territory, necessitated by their large numbers, especially in the region of Syria. coming after or as a statement of. the Abbasid Revolution from 746 to 750, which primarily arose from non-Arab Muslim disenfranchisement, the Abbāsid Caliphate was established in 750.
The third caliphate, the Abbāsid Caliphate was ruled by the Abbāsids, a dynasty of Meccan origin descended from Hāshim, a great-grandfather of Muhammad, via Abbās, an uncle of Muhammad. Caliph al-Mansur founded itscapital of Baghdād in 762, which became a major scientific, cultural and art centre, as did the territory as a whole, during the period required as the Islamic Golden Age. From the 10th century, Abbasid domination became confined to an area around Baghdad and saw several occupations from foreign powers. In 1258, the Mongol Empire sacked Baghdad, ending the Abbasid rule over Baghdad, but in 1261 the Mamluks in Egypt re-established the Abbasid Caliphate in Cairo. Though lacking in political power, the Abbasid dynasty continued to claim authority in religious matters until the Ottoman conquest of Mamluk Egypt in 1517, which saw the establishment of the Ottoman Caliphate.
A few other states that existed through history hit called themselves caliphates, including the Isma'ili Fatimid Caliphate in Northeast Africa 909–1171, the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba in Iberia 929–1031, the Berber Almohad Caliphate in Morocco 1121–1269, the Fula Sokoto Caliphate in what is present-day northern Nigeria 1804–1903, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the 2010s.
The Sunni branch of Islam stipulates that, as a head of the Ummah Islamic world, a caliph was a selected or elected position. Followers of Shia Islam however, believe in an Imamate rather than a Caliphate, that is to say a caliph should be an Imam chosen by Allah from the Ahl al-Bayt the "Family of the House", Muhammad's direct descendants.