Revival of the Caliphate

Recently the number of people in Pakistan who are in the favor of the Islamic system of Khilafat/Caliphate has risen significantly, probably due to the failure of democracy to serve the nation. They want the restoration of a central Islamic government that will unite all Muslim countries under one flag and merge the people of all Muslim states as a single nation. Many believe that as long as there was caliphate in the Muslim world, they were invincible and the most progressive nation. They think that restoration of a central leadership will revive their past glory and will strengthen them as their main weakness is their division.

But how practical this idea is and how can Muslims unite themselves under a single leadership keeping in view their numerous differences?

Everyone among the Muslims knows that they are now divided as never before. Not only sectarian differences, but ethnic and linguistic differences have also overcome their commonness of religion and basic believes. How practical is it for a Sunni Muslim to pledge his allegiance to a caliph who is Shi’ite, or how practical is it for an Iranian to pledge his allegiance to a caliph who is an Arab? Why would a Black Muslim follow a white caliph? Of course Islam discourages all these differences, but unfortunately these differences have become as important for Muslims nowadays as religion itself. According to Islam superiority has nothing to do with race or color. It only depends upon piety. That means the criterion to be the caliph of Muslims is to be the most pious person among them. The problem is who’s going to determine who is pious? Even piety has lost impartiality in today’s Muslim world. Can a Salafi Muslim admit that a Sufi Muslim is more pious? Some of them don’t even consider each other Muslims in the first place. People say it shouldn’t be so difficult for the caliphate to be reestablished for it was once established. But the time when caliphate was first established was a different age. There were fewer divisions and more people eligible to be the caliph. Now there are more divisions and few eligible people.  

Some narrow minded Muslims are convinced that as its quite a job to settle the disputes among different sects of Islam, why not go for the establishment of an Islamic governance system for their own sect. This approach might be useful in countries where a certain sect has overwhelming majority like Iran or Saudi Arabia. Still, this won’t result in the creation of an actual caliphate because caliphate has all the Muslim world under its rule, not a certain country alone. As for the countries where different sects of Islam coexist, such an effort will create rift between the adherents of different sects and might result in a secular revolution instead of an Islamic one. Thus any approach that neglects the unification of Muslims simply can’t succeed.

So, does this mean that one shouldn’t strive for caliphate at all, as it is something impractical in today’s world?

As a matter of fact, one should. Every Muslim is supposed to live in an Islamic community. Europeans and Americans fear a ‘Muslim Europe’ and ‘Muslim America’ because some of them are aware of the fact that one of the fundamental ideologies of Islam is to live under the Islamic  jurisprudence or Sharia, and under an Islamic leadership or Ameer/Caliph. They fear that the Muslim immigrants will someday grow stronger and will force their Sharia over them. But Islam isn’t a religion of ‘force’, this means Muslims can’t force their believes on others who are not willing, they are only supposed to preach and convince, and they can only create an Islamic society once they are in majority, that means as long as the number of non-Muslim Europeans is greater than Muslims, they shouldn’t be afraid of anything. But where Muslims are in majority, it is their obligation to create an Islamic society and of course Islam ensures complete freedom for the non-Muslims living within.

Apart from other problems that have been mentioned earlier, a major obstacle to the creation of an Islamic society or restoration of caliphate is that even Muslims are afraid of Sharia. All they see is people getting punished for not having beard, for love marriages, for having a difference of opinion and many other things which are a part of their personal freedom. The Sharia that was implemented by Taliban in The Swat valley has scared many Pakistanis. Of course no one would like a system to be forced on them that deprives them of their personal freedom and forces opinions into their minds that they don’t agree to. Such a system is itself UnIslamic, and calling it ‘Sharia’ is like making fun of Islam.  So, the first step for the restoration of an Islamic system would be to redefine Sharia under the supervision of the most competent and learned scholars belonging to all Islamic schools of thought in order to settle as much differences as possible and optimizing Sharia for this era. This is an exceptionally tough job, but that’s how Muslims can take a step towards an Islamic government, and this step can take decades to be accomplished, because to produce such scholars who are also familiar with other sciences so that they are able to maintain the compatibility of Sharia with this era, and considerate enough to settle disputes among themselves, and intelligent enough to understand the most intelligent religion, Muslims will first have to develop a new generation of religious institutions. Most of the religious institutions in Pakistan are currently producing the most dogmatic, illiterate and inconsiderate type of ‘Mullahs’. These are the type of Mullahs who opposed Allama Iqbal and Jinnah and declared them infidels. They are only making people hate Islam and will cause a secular uprising instead of any Islamic revival in the country. Of course there are good institutions as well, and there are some good scholars as well, but they are too small in number to bring any change in the overall religious environment.

The optimization of Sharia by the ‘new generation’ of Islamic scholars might not lead to a consensus on every dispute among the Muslims of different sects, but at least it will create an understanding among the scholars that will ultimately result in the decline of sectarian hatred and intolerance. Once this hatred slowly vanishes, path will be paved for the establishment of an Islamic system. So, anyone who is interested in the revival of caliphate and Islamic  jurisprudence should spend his energies on creating new religious institutions that can produce the kind of Islamic scholars that is required for the revival of Islam in this era.

Another way is to establish small Muslim communities of likeminded people. An ‘Ameer’ is chosen by the people and Islamic jurisprudence is practiced without breaching the laws of the country in which the community exists. This won’t of course create any central caliphate but it gives space to the devout Muslims who want to live in a purely Islamic society. This idea is already being followed by some people who have established some MuslimVillages. Muslims from around the world who want to live a life under Islamic jurisdiction and in an Islamic environment move to the Muslim villages. Success of these projects depends on the interest of Muslims and the energies they spend on it, because an isolated village can’t survive without putting in some extra effort.

Establishment of an Islamic system and revival of caliphate is a tough job and if someone is really serious about it, he’ll have to devote his whole life to the cause and gather more likeminded and sincere people around him and then he might just get a chance to turn his dream of a central Muslim government into reality.