Download or read book Caliphate written by Hugh Kennedy and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a preeminent scholar of Islamic history, the authoritative history of caliphates from their beginnings in the 7th century to the modern day In Caliphate, Islamic historian Hugh Kennedy dissects the idea of the caliphate and its history, and explores how it became used and abused today. Contrary to popular belief, there is no one enduring definition of a caliph; rather, the idea of the caliph has been the subject of constant debate and transformation over time. Kennedy offers a grand history of the caliphate since the beginning of Islam to its modern incarnations. Originating in the tumultuous years following the death of the Mohammad in 632, the caliphate, a politico-religious system, flourished in the great days of the Umayyads of Damascus and the Abbasids of Baghdad. From the seventh-century Orthodox caliphs to the nineteenth-century Ottomans, Kennedy explores the tolerant rule of Umar, recounts the traumatic murder of the caliph Uthman, dubbed a tyrant by many, and revels in the flourishing arts of the golden eras of Abbasid Baghdad and Moorish Andalucí Kennedy also examines the modern fate of the caliphate, unraveling the British political schemes to spur dissent against the Ottomans and the ominous efforts of Islamists, including ISIS, to reinvent the history of the caliphate for their own malevolent political ends. In exploring and explaining the great variety of caliphs who have ruled throughout the ages, Kennedy challenges the very narrow views of the caliphate propagated by extremist groups today. An authoritative new account of the dynasties of Arab leaders throughout the Islamic Golden Age, Caliphate traces the history-and misappropriations-of one of the world's most potent political ideas.

Download or read book Longing for the Lost Caliphate written by Mona Hassan and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-14 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Abbasid Caliphate written by Tayeb El-Hibri and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-22 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the Abbasid Caliphate from its foundation in 750 and golden age under Harun al-Rashid to the conquest of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258, this study examines the Caliphate as an empire and an institution, and its imprint on the society and culture of classical Islamic civilization.

Download or read book Hunting the Caliphate written by Dana J.H. Pittard and published by Post Hill Press. This book was released on 2019-08-27 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this vivid first-person narrative, a Special Operations Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) and his commanding general give fascinating and detailed accounts of America’s fight against one of the most barbaric insurgencies the world has ever seen. In the summer of 2014, three years after America’s full troop withdrawal from the Iraq War, President Barack Obama authorized a small task force to push back into Baghdad. Their mission: Protect the Iraqi capital and U.S. embassy from a rapidly emerging terrorist threat. A plague of brutality, that would come to be known as ISIS, had created a foothold in northwest Iraq and northeast Syria. It had declared itself a Caliphate—an independent nation-state administered by an extreme and cruel form of Islamic law—and was spreading like a newly evolved virus. Soon, a massive and devastating U.S. military response had unfolded. Hear the ground truth on the senior military and political interactions that shaped America’s war against ISIS, a war unprecedented in both its methodology and its application of modern military technology. Enter the world of the Strike Cell, secretive operations centers where America’s greatest enemies are hunted and killed day and night. Plunge into the realm of the Special Operations JTAC, American warfighters with the highest enemy kill counts on the battlefield. And gain the wisdom of a cumulative half-century of military experience as Dana Pittard and Wes Bryant lay out the path to a sustained victory over ISIS. For more information about the book, visit www.huntingthecaliphate.com.

Download or read book After the Caliphate written by Colin P. Clarke and published by Polity. This book was released on 2019-06-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2014, the declaration of the Islamic State caliphate was hailed as a major victory by the global jihadist movement. But it was short-lived. Three years on, the caliphate was destroyed, leaving its surviving fighters – many of whom were foreign recruits – to retreat and scatter across the globe. So what happens now? Is this the beginning of the end of IS? Or can it adapt and regroup after the physical fall of the caliphate? In this timely analysis, terrorism expert Colin P. Clarke takes stock of IS – its roots, its evolution, and its monumental setbacks – to assess the road ahead. The caliphate, he argues, was an anomaly. The future of the global jihadist movement will look very much like its past – with peripatetic and divided groups of militants dispersing to new battlefields, from North Africa to Southeast Asia, where they will join existing civil wars, establish safe havens and sanctuaries, and seek ways of conducting spectacular attacks in the West that inspire new followers. In this fragmented and atomized form, Clarke cautions, IS could become even more dangerous and challenging for counterterrorism forces, as its splinter groups threaten renewed and heightened violence across the globe.

Download or read book Europe Globalization and the Coming of the Universal Caliphate written by Bat Yeʼor and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2011-09-16 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Europe, Globalization, and the Coming Universal Caliphate analyzes the modern political trends and strategies that are leading to major changes in Western civilization, America included, since the OIC strategy targets America also. Learning from theEuropean experience is crucial for Americans. Moreover this evolution is inscribed in the historical movement of Islamic theology and expansionism. It is not fortuitous but it has its own theological and political structure that must be known in the Westif we wish to live in a peaceful world.

Download or read book The Caliphate written by Hugh Kennedy and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2016-07-07 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is a caliphate? Who can be caliph? And how are contemporary ideologues such as ISIS reviving - and abusing - the term today? In the first modern account of a subject of critical importance today, acclaimed historian Hugh Kennedy answers these questions by chronicling the rich history of the caliphate, from the death of Muhammad to the present. At its height, the caliphate stretched from Spain to China and was the most powerful political entity in western Eurasia. In an era when Paris and London boasted a few thousand inhabitants, Baghdad and Cairo were sophisticated centres of trade and culture, and the Ummayad and Abbasid caliphates were distinguished by extraordinary advances in science, medicine and architecture. By ending with the recent re-emergence of caliphal ideology within fundamentalist Islam, The Caliphate underscores why it is crucial that we understand this form of Islamic government before groups such as ISIS distort its practice completely.

Download or read book The Inevitable Caliphate written by Reza Pankhurst and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the Caliphate in the ideas and discourse of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb ut-Tahrir and al-Qaeda.

Download or read book The Caliphate A Post Apocalyptic Suspense Novel written by Anna Erishkigal and published by Seraphim Press. This book was released on 2016-10-30 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eisa McCarthy lives in Caliphate City under the control of the radical Islamic group, the Ghuraba. Seven years ago General Mohammad bin-Rasulullah defeated the United States in a ruthless betrayal and set up their worldwide Caliphate in the ruins of Washington, D.C. The Ghuraba's supreme holy leader, the Abu al-Ghuraba, claims Eisa's father gave him control of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, a claim bolstered by the smoldering ashes of many cities and her Syrian-born mother's testimony. But after her mother is accused of apostasy, she learns her father may not be the 'martyr' the Ghuraba claim. Do the Ghuraba really possess the launch codes for the ICBM missiles? Or did her father 'lock them out' as Colonel Everhart, the rebel commander, wants her to tell the world? If she fights, the Ghuraba will kill her little sister, but if she doesn't, eventually the Ghuraba will hack in and nuke them all. All Eisa has are a string of Muslim prayer beads and a pre-Islamic myth her father told her the night he disappeared. The fate of the world, and her little sister's life, hang in the balance as Eisa sorts through ancient myth, her Muslim faith, and what really happened the night the Ghuraba seized control.

Download or read book Building the Caliphate written by Jennifer A. Pruitt and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-01 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting exploration of how the Fatimid dynasty carefully orchestrated an architectural program that proclaimed their legitimacy This groundbreaking study investigates the early architecture of the Fatimids, an Ismaili Shi‘i Muslim dynasty that dominated the Mediterranean world from the 10th to the 12th century. This period, considered a golden age of multicultural and interfaith tolerance, witnessed the construction of iconic structures, including Cairo’s al-Azhar and al-Hakim mosques and crucial renovations to Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock and Aqsa Mosque. However, it also featured large-scale destruction of churches under the notorious reign of al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, most notably the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Jennifer A. Pruitt offers a new interpretation of these and other key moments in the history of Islamic architecture, using newly available medieval primary sources by Ismaili writers and rarely considered Arabic Christian sources. Building the Caliphate contextualizes early Fatimid architecture within the wider Mediterranean and Islamic world and demonstrates how rulers manipulated architectural form and urban topographies to express political legitimacy on a global stage.

Download or read book Islamic State written by Abdel-Bari Atwan and published by Saqi. This book was released on 2015-05-04 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on interviews with Islamic State insiders, Abdel Bari Atwan reveals the origins and modus operandi of the fastest-growing and richest terrorist group in the world. Outlining its leadership structure and strategies, Atwan describes the group's ideological differences with al-Qa`ida and why IS appear to pose a greater threat to the West. He shows how it has masterfully used social media, Hollywood `blockbuster'-style videos, and even jihadi computer games to spread its message and to recruit young people, from Tunisia to Bradford. As Islamic State continues to dominate the world's media headlines with acts of ruthless violence, Atwan considers its chances of survival and offers indispensable insight into potential government responses to contain the IS threat.

Download or read book It IS About Islam written by Glenn Beck and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-08-18 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing from the Koran, the hadith, and leaders of fundamentalist groups, identifies the core beliefs that inspire Islamic extremism while debunking commonly held notions about the religion.

Download or read book The Caliph s Splendor written by Benson Bobrick and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-08-14 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Caliph’s Splendor is a revelation: a history of a civilization we barely know that had a profound effect on our own culture. While the West declined following the collapse of the Roman Empire, a new Arab civilization arose to the east, reaching an early peak in Baghdad under the caliph Harun al-Rashid. Harun is the legendary caliph of The Thousand and One Nights, but his actual court was nearly as magnificent as the fictional one. In The Caliph’s Splendor, Benson Bobrick eloquently tells the little-known and remarkable story of Harun’s rise to power and his rivalries with the neighboring Byzantines and the new Frankish kingdom under the leadership of Charlemagne. When Harun came to power, Islam stretched from the Atlantic to India. The Islamic empire was the mightiest on earth and the largest ever seen. Although Islam spread largely through war, its cultural achievements were immense. Harun’s court at Baghdad outshone the independent Islamic emirate in Spain and all the courts of Europe, for that matter. In Baghdad, great works from Greece and Rome were preserved and studied, and new learning enhanced civilization. Over the following centuries Arab and Persian civilizations made a lasting impact on the West in astronomy, geometry, algebra (an Arabic word), medicine, and chemistry, among other fields of science. The alchemy (another Arabic word) of the Middle Ages originated with the Arabs. From engineering to jewelry to fashion to weaponry, Arab influences would shape life in the West, as they did in the fields of law, music, and literature. But for centuries Arabs and Byzantines contended fiercely on land and sea. Bobrick tells how Harun defeated attempts by the Byzantines to advance into Asia at his expense. He contemplated an alliance with the much weaker Charlemagne in order to contain the Byzantines, and in time Arabs and Byzantines reached an accommodation that permitted both to prosper. Harun’s caliphate would weaken from within as his two sons quarreled and formed factions; eventually Arabs would give way to Turks in the Islamic empire. Empires rise, weaken, and fall, but during its golden age, the caliphate of Baghdad made a permanent contribution to civilization, as Benson Bobrick so splendidly reminds us.

Download or read book Caliphate Redefined written by Hüseyin Yılmaz and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-08 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the Ottomans refashioned and legitimated their rule through mystical imageries of authority The medieval theory of the caliphate, epitomized by the Abbasids (750–1258), was the construct of jurists who conceived it as a contractual leadership of the Muslim community in succession to the Prophet Muhammed’s political authority. In this book, Hüseyin Yılmaz traces how a new conception of the caliphate emerged under the Ottomans, who redefined the caliph as at once a ruler, a spiritual guide, and a lawmaker corresponding to the prophet’s three natures. Challenging conventional narratives that portray the Ottoman caliphate as a fading relic of medieval Islamic law, Yılmaz offers a novel interpretation of authority, sovereignty, and imperial ideology by examining how Ottoman political discourse led to the mystification of Muslim political ideals and redefined the caliphate. He illuminates how Ottoman Sufis reimagined the caliphate as a manifestation and extension of cosmic divine governance. The Ottoman Empire arose in Western Anatolia and the Balkans, where charismatic Sufi leaders were perceived to be God’s deputies on earth. Yılmaz traces how Ottoman rulers, in alliance with an increasingly powerful Sufi establishment, continuously refashioned and legitimated their rule through mystical imageries of authority, and how the caliphate itself reemerged as a moral paradigm that shaped early modern Muslim empires. A masterful work of scholarship, Caliphate Redefined is the first comprehensive study of premodern Ottoman political thought to offer an extensive analysis of a wealth of previously unstudied texts in Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Turkish.

Download or read book Shatter the Nations written by Mike Giglio and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unflinching dispatches of an embedded war reporter covering ISIS and the unlikely alliance of forces who came together to defeat it. The battle to defeat ISIS was an unremittingly brutal and dystopian struggle, a multi-sided war of gritty local commandos and militias. Mike Giglio takes readers to the heart of this shifting, uncertain conflict, capturing the essence of a modern war. At its peak, ISIS controlled a self-styled "caliphate" the size of Great Britain, with a population cast into servitude that numbered in the millions. Its territory spread across Iraq and Syria as its influence stretched throughout the wider world. Giglio tells the story of the rise of the caliphate and the ramshackle coalition--aided by secretive Western troops and American airstrikes--that was assembled to break it down village by village, district by district. The story moves from the smugglers, traffickers, and jihadis working on the ISIS side to the victims of its zealous persecution and the local soldiers who died by the thousands to defeat it. Amid the battlefield drama, culminating in a climactic showdown in Mosul, is a dazzlingly human portrait of the destructive power of extremism, and of the tenacity and astonishing courage required to defeat it.

Download or read book Black Banners of ISIS written by David J. Wasserstein and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction: the Islamic State -- Caliphate -- Administration -- Revenue -- Religion -- Women, and children too -- Christians and Jews and ... -- Apocalypse now -- Conclusion

Download or read book Far from the Caliph s Gaze written by Nicholas H. A. Evans and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-15 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do you prove that you're Muslim? This is not a question that most believers ever have to ask themselves, and yet for members of India's Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, it poses an existential challenge. The Ahmadis are the minority of a minority—people for whom simply being Muslim is a challenge. They must constantly ask the question: What evidence could ever be sufficient to prove that I belong to the faith? In Far from the Caliph's Gaze Nicholas H. A. Evans explores how a need to respond to this question shapes the lives of Ahmadis in Qadian in northern India. Qadian was the birthplace of the Ahmadiyya community's founder, and it remains a location of huge spiritual importance for members of the community around the world. Nonetheless, it has been physically separated from the Ahmadis' spiritual leader—the caliph—since partition, and the believers who live there now and act as its guardians must confront daily the reality of this separation even while attempting to make their Muslimness verifiable. By exploring the centrality of this separation to the ethics of everyday life in Qadian, Far from the Caliph's Gaze presents a new model for the academic study of religious doubt, one that is not premised on a concept of belief but instead captures the richness with which people might experience problematic relationships to truth.