Category:Islamic Caliphate

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Revision as of 12:47, 14 June 2010

In 2000, the Arab nations suffered from a variety of factional divisions: city-dwellers against Bedouin, oil-wealthy nations against poor ones, Sunni against Shi’ites, Western allies against anti-Western states. The contradictions often limited Arab effectiveness in world affairs, as Arab states who were nominally allied against the West came to blows among themselves. The Gulf Wars of 1992 and 2013, the Egyptian-Libyan war of 2017, the constant struggle against Israel . . . all of these sapped the strength of the Arab states.

To be effective in the modern world, Arab civilization needed unity. The first promise of that unity came in the late 2030s, when a Muslim religious leader named Ali al-Rashid attained prominence in Saudi Arabia. Al-Rashid’s teachings seemed contradictory at first hearing. He preached devotion to the puritanical Wahhabi sect, but also embraced science and technology as the key to Arab success. He denounced the evil and degeneracy of Western civilization, but also taught that the proper Arab response was to teach morality by example.

Al-Rashid was blessed with great charisma and a fiery oratorical style that won many converts. By 2040 he was the most prominent Sunni religious leader in the world, openly acclaimed as the Mahdi by millions of Arabs. He had no direct political power of his own, but in 2043 he made an alliance with the House of Saud. The combination proved irresistible. Over the next few years, the Saudis used al-Rashid’s influence to strengthen their formal partnerships with other Muslim nations. During this period, they even managed a reconciliation with the anti-monarchist regimes of Iraq and Syria. Soon the Saudi alliance system took in all the Arab nations around the Persian Gulf.

In 2049, the allies agreed to set up a permanent council (the Presidium of the Arab League) in the holy city of Medina. The new council would serve as a focal point for the coordination of foreign policy and economic development. Ali al-Rashid was named Chairman of the Presidium, a purely honorary position which nonetheless gave him a unique position of moral influence. Meanwhile, the House of Saud attained effective control of the new council through typically pragmatic statesmanship.

The first action of the new Presidium was to grant Ali al-Rashid a long vacant title: that of Caliph. This made him a recognized successor or agent of Mohammed, and therefore the foremost religious and political leader in the Muslim world. Finally, the Arab states had a rallying point for constructive action in the world community, with the Caliph to provide moral leadership and hard-headed Saudi statesmen to manage the everyday business.

Although Ali al-Rashid died in 2081, the Caliphate remains in existence today. It has not always been successful in preventing strife among Muslims, but it has done much to moderate Arab radicalism and promote Arab economic development. Many powerful Islamic nations remain outside the alliance, particularly Iran, Pakistan, and the Arab states of northern Africa. The Caliphate is outwardly cool to the West, but it can usually work with Western nations where its interests permit.