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.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations and Maps ix Acknowledgments xi Note on Transliteration and Dates xv Introduction 1 Early History of the Caliphate 5 The Abbasid Caliphate 6 The Ottoman Caliphate 9 Diachronic Reflections on Symbolic Loss, Destruction, and Renegotiation 13 1 Visions of a Lost Caliphal Capital: Baghdad, 1258 CE 20 Mapping an Islamic Cultural Discourse 22 al-Subki's Living History: An Enduring Sense of Loss 27 Channeling Muslim Memory through History 30 Loss of the Abbasids 33 Bodily Desecration 37 Literary Dimensions of Religious Rites 44 An Altered Landscape 46 Eschatological Endings 57 The Consolation of Prophetic Transmissions 64 2 Recapturing Lost Glory and Legitimacy 66 Remembering and Recreating a Glorious Past 67 Going Beyond Baghdad 69 Commemorating the Caliphate 71 Contesting Caliphs 75 Embracing Communal Continuity 83 Enduring Salience 88 3 Conceptualizing the Caliphate, 632-1517 CE 98 Classical Articulation of the Islamic Caliphate as a Legal Necessity and Communal Obligation 99 al-Juwayni's Seminal Fifth/Eleventh-Century Resolution 103 Post-656/1258 Theorists of the Caliphate 108 Ghalabah, the Sultanate, and the Caliphate in Ibn Jama'ah's Tahrir al-Ahkam (1241-1333) 108 Ibn Taymiyyah's Views on the Caliphate (1262-1328) 111 Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi's Polemical Treatise on the Grand Imamate (1274-1348) 115 Taj al-Din al-Subki and the Restoration of Blessings (1327-70) 118 The Inter-School Polemics of Najm al-Din al-Tarsusi (1310-57) 120 Ibn Khaldun's Political Entanglements and Ideals (1332-1406) 123 The Mamluk Chancery Contributions of al-Qalqashandi (1355-1418) 126 al-Shirazi's Metaphysical Exaltation of the Abbasid Caliph in Cairo (1386-1457) 131 Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti's Devotional Love of the Prophet's Family (1445-1505) 136 4 Manifold Meanings of Loss: Ottoman Defeat, Early 1920s 142 Notions from Afar 145 The Turkish Republic 155 The Levant 171 5 In International Pursuit of a Caliphate 184 An Internationalist Era 186 Promoting an International Conference 188 Imagining the Global Community and Its Leadership 192 A Spiritual Body 194 A Caliphal Council 199 A Traditional Caliph 202 A Global Electorate 204 Dampening Hopes 205 Unexpected Continuities 212 6 Debating a Modern Caliphate 218 Ismail Sukru (1876-1950) 218 Mehmed Seyyid Celebizade (1873-1925) 220 'Ali 'Abd al-Raziq (1888-1966) 225 Muhammad al-Khidr husayn (1876-1958) 233 Mustafa Sabri (1869-1954) 236 Said Nursi (1876-1960) 244 Epilogue The Swirl of Religious Hopes and Aspirations 253 Notes 261 Bibliography 341 Index 373

About the Author :
Mona Hassan is an assistant professor in the departments of Religious Studies and History and the International Comparative Studies program at Duke University.

Review :
"Winner of the 2017 Award for Excellence in Religion Historical Studies, American Academy of Religion" "After a brief review of the institution of the caliphate, this exceptional monograph explores how Muslims viewed the caliphate after the Mongol destruction of the Abbasid caliphate. . . . The role of the caliph in the Ottoman Empire has also been underappreciated. Hassan explores this role but focuses her attention on how the dismissal of the caliphate in 1924 with the rise of Ataturk and Kemalism affected Muslims not only in Turkey but also in other parts of the Muslim world. She concludes her book with an examination of current movements that seek to restore the caliphate, such as ISIS and Hizb al-Tahrir." "This book is an excellent study that represents a significant contribution to our understanding about the caliphate, and Hassan’s use of memory in the study of religion provides a methodological model of inquiry for scholars to follow."---Susan Gunasti, Critical Research on Religion "Hassan is a gifted writer and does a wonderful job of evoking the melancholy and sadness attendant to loss. . . . In all these and other ways, Hassan’s book is a commendable effort to rescue the caliphate from the crass and often obtuse analysis on offer in the contemporary West and to identify it properly as one of the more significant and consequential cultural symbols in the history of human civilization."---Khurram Hussain, Journal of the American Academy of Religion "Hassan’s specialized work is highly rewarding"---Simon Wolfgang Fuchs, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies