Birth Pains of the New Caliphate

It's been a couple of years since I've seriously broached this topic. The recent riotous uprising in Egypt, categorized by the usual American media suspects as attempts at "democracy", bring the topic clearly back to relevancy. In actuality, the topic has always been relevant, but it always takes something major to wake up the American public.

For the great unwashed, and for those media talking heads who nearly lost their own heads this past week at the hands of these alleged democracy-loving demonstrators, let's do a quick refresher on just what exactly is the Islamic "caliphate", and why we all should be concerned about it.

A very long story begins in the first half of the 7th century A.D. with the birth of Islam under it's founder, Muhammad, a man believed by followers of that faith to be the greatest and final messenger of God. Muhammad first spread this new faith by peaceful preaching and teaching, but he and his followers eventually turned to violent and forcible means.

In the aftermath of Muhammad's death in 632, physical and spiritual battles arose for control of Islam by two groups who we continue that struggle today, 1,500 years later -  the Sunni and the Shiites. The Sunni were larger and stronger, and overall Islamic power was centralized under a leader who was known as the 'Caliph', the successor to Muhammad. The lands and peoples over which the Caliph held control became known as the Islamic Caliphate.

For centuries this Caliphate spread by conquest known as 'Jihad' throughout the lands of the Middle East, across northern Africa, and into both Spain and eastern Europe. By the end of the 17th century, just before the emergence of America as a nation and culture, the Caliphate controlled an area as large as the old Roman Empire.


The end finally began to come for the Islamic Caliphate on the eve of the American birth when, in 1774, it surrendered large portions of control to the emerging Russian nation. Then the Ottoman Empire, which controlled the Caliphate over it's final four centuries, went into World War I on the side of the Axis powers, the losing side.

In the aftermath of defeat in World War I, secular power took charge in Turkey, and the Caliphate was formally abolished. Ever since that time, various religious and military leaders have vowed to return the Caliphate to power, most notably the Muslim Brotherhood. That has been and remains the goal of the worldwide movement known to many today as "radical Islam", to take control first of the Middle East, and then begin to spread the Caliphate around the region, to neighboring nations, and eventually around the entire world.

The Muslim Brotherhood is at the very core of the troubles in the Middle East today. The Brotherhood has for decades been sparking, fomenting, and supporting uprisings through it's creations such as al Qaeda and Hamas among dozens of others. Their stated goals are: the reestablishment of the Caliphate, the reunification of their nation (the Ummah), the institution of strict Islamic religious law (Shariah), and the spread of the Caliphate around the world.

They are behind the uprisings that have taken place recently or are currently taking place across the Arabic world from Egypt to Jordan, from Tunisia to Syria, from Libya to Lebanon. While these alleged "popular uprisings" for "democratic reforms" topple various types of secular institutional governments, make no mistake about what the new replacement governments will become. They will become Islamic theocracies, either outright or by proxy control.

As the Muslim Brotherhood exercises and expands it's control by whipping up tens of thousands at the grass-roots level to violently demonstrate and forcibly coerce change, the results will not be anything like American or even European democracy. What we are seeing in Egypt and across the Middle East, and will continue to see there, in Africa, and will see at some point in every nation of the world during this century, are the birth pains of the new Caliphate.

Millions of Americans will be glued to their television sets for hours this weekend to watch a football game. They will gorge on tons of food and snack treats, scarf down alcoholic and carbonated beverages by the truck load, and gamble away hard-earned money on pools and bets. Meanwhile, a much bigger, deadlier, and far more important game will be playing out on the other side of the world.

Americans who continue to consider a few weeks, months, or even a couple years of largely quiet times in the struggle against radical Islam as anything other than a lull in the storm are kidding themselves. More than that, they are passively ignoring the struggle that will be one of the most vital across their world as they age. It is the struggle that will define the world in which their children and grandchildren live out this century. It is one that will be forced upon them by the Caliphate now in the struggles of it's own rebirth.

Islamism Series: The Olympics

This is the continuation of my regular feature
'Islamism Series'. At the bottom of this entry, you can click on the label of that name to read the prior entries.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics began yesterday with the Opening Ceremony, and will continue on through August 24th. For the next two and a half weeks, the athletic dramas of this Olympiad will play out under it's theme "One World, One Dream". But as we have learned in previous installments of the 'Islamism Series', the radical Islamofascists have their own vision of 'One world, one dream' that runs counter to that on display this month in China. The radical Islamists want the world united as one Caliphate under the banner of Islam, run by the Caliph, with everyone either believing in or subjecting themselves to the rule of the Islamists. To this end, every major event held around the world becomes a tempting target for them to flex their muscles, to show that they can and will influence world events by inserting their violent vision into the proceedings if allowed. Particularly since 9/11, every major public event has properly seen a dramatic increase in the scope and cost of the security surrounding those events. From the Super Bowl to political conventions, and everything in between, security is stepped up, and convenience and personal liberties are sacrificed thanks to the terrorists of Islamofascism. Already there have been threats and plots against these Olympics. In an attack that the Washington Post described as being done only by the "ethnic Uighur minority", these terrorists killed 16 police officers and injured dozens of others this week by driving a dump truck into a group of officers who were out for a training jog, then tossing grenades into the police compound. This 'ethnic minority' is Islamic, by the way. The mass media has once again buried this fact from your knowledge under their banner of political correctness. The Uighur militant Islamic group known as the Turkistan Islamic Party released a video coinciding with the Olympics Opening Ceremony in which they showed a burning Olympic logo, an image of one of the Olympic venues exploding, and which included a warning to all Muslims to stay away from Olympic and Beijing-area venues. Among the warnings were calls for Muslims to avoid taking public transportation, and pleas for Muslim peoples to not allow their athletes to attend the games. According to a report by the Bloomberg news organization, China has deployed a 100,000-person strong anti-terror unit for the Olympics, and equipment that includes fighter jets, helicopters, naval vessels, and even anti-aircraft launchers at the main Olympic stadium. Back in January, Chinese officials uncovered a plot to attack the Olympics and confiscated "guns, homemade bombs, training materials and extremist religious ideological materials" during a raid that resulted in the death of two terrorists and arrest of a dozen and a half more. The Chinese government is Communist, and politically repressive, so the show that they are putting on this month with the Olympiad largely masks a host of human-rights problems that should make opponents of America's detainee policy at Guantanamo Bay cringe. But all that the Radical Islamists want is to replace one repressive regime with another, simply changing the ideology from Communism to Islamofascism. So while you are watching the basketball, soccer, track & field, swimming, diving, volleyball, baseball, gymnastics, boxing and other incredible displays of athleticism, and while your chest swells with pride over emerging American Olympic heroes and other human interest stories that emerge, there is another side. Behind the scenes, hundreds of thousands of Chinese and others are working long and hard in an attempt to secure these Olympics from terrorist attacks that have been and are being plotted. Let's wish them the best in that effort against the radical, terrorist Islamists.

Islamism Series: Return of the Caliphate

This is the continuation of my regular feature 'Islamism Series'. At the bottom of this entry, you can click on the label of that name to read the prior entries.

So what exactly do they want, these radical Islamists, these terrorists? Why don't they just live their lives, and let us live ours? Why can't they just leave us alone? Those are just a few of the many natural, normal questions that the typical, uneducated American usually asks themselves about the radical Islamists. Why are the terrorists blowing up themselves and others, cutting people's heads off, and hating Israel, the United States, and western culture so much? The answer lies in understanding one simple concept: the Caliphate. Radical Islamists want to overthrow and eliminate western governments and culture, and reinstall the rule of the Caliph over first the traditional Muslim lands of the Middle East, and eventually the entire world. So what is this 'Caliphate', and what is a 'Caliph'? Let's take a quick trip back in history, to the late 7th century. Muhammad is the key personality in Islamic history, but we will save a more full treatment of him for another day. For now, let's just preface things with the fact that he was inspired to, founded, and spread the Muslim faith during his lifetime. In 632 A.D., at the age of 62, Muhammad died, and control of the Muslim world was debated and fought over. One group, who became known as the Sunni's, believed that Muhammad's successor should come in the way that tradition dictated at that time: through election, appointment, or consensus. Another group, who became known as the Shiite's, believed that the successors should come from Muhammad's family. He had a family member by the name of Ali, and Shiite supporters felt that Ali should be the successor, and then his descendants down through time. The Sunni's were by far the larger, more powerful group, and their idea of succession through election/appointment took control of the largest portion of the Muslim world under an appointed leader known as a 'Caliph'. The word finds its origins in the old Arabic words halifa (successor) and halafa, meaning 'to succeed'. The Muslim lands ruled over by the Caliph became known as a Caliphate, and this ruling authority spread the rule and control of the Muslims to dominate much of the known world including the entire Middle East, westward into Europe, and eastward into India. Then around the year 1300 A.D., the Ottoman Turks first came to power, and the Ottoman Empire spread the rule of the Caliphate further into the east and west. This rule of the Caliphate would basically remain continuous in one form or another for almost 1,300 years until World War I. For one of the few times, the Muslim world got involved in an outside dispute at that point, joining the war effort on the side of the Germans, the Axis power, ultimately the losing side. In the aftermath of World War I, secular (non-religious) government came to power in the Middle East, and the new leader of Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, abolished the Caliphate. For the first time in 13 centuries there was no central religious leadership in the Muslim world, and religious control fell to the local Imams and clerics in each country, where it remains today. So what do the radicals want? Ultimately what they want is the return of the Caliph to power over the Muslim world, and the expansion of control of the Caliphate to again occur throughout the Middle East, the hemisphere, and ultimately the entire world. That is their ultimate goal. Major obstacles to this goal include the presence and influence in the Middle East of the non-Islamic government and society in places like Israel, the financial and cultural influence of the west as led by the United States, and ideas and concepts like democracy and capitalism, which are wholly anti-Islamic in their view. Bottom line is, they demand that you and I, our government and societies sure, but we as individuals also, do one of three things. First, we can do what they really want: convert to Islam and be a good Muslim. If we don't want to do that, we can pay a tax to the Muslims, which they call the Jizya, and submit ourselves under their rule and 'protection' as second-class citizens. Failing conversion or submission, we can fight. That's it, there is no 'live and let live'. There is no 'you do your thing, I do my thing, and let's leave each other alone'. There is no peace treaty or deal to be cut. They want your conversion, submission, or physical destruction. Period. So now you know what the radical Islamists want: the return of the Caliphate, which includes your conversion or submission. Is that what you want? If not, you have only one choice, the same choice that faced our forefathers who fought the similar ideology of Nazism in World War II: fight them until their influence is completely destroyed. If we 'bring home the troops' from Iraq and Afghanistan, only one side will have quit the war, because they will continue it, that much is guaranteed. So we can have the fortitude to stay and fight them until their influence is eliminated, or we can continue to deal with their terrorism, attacks, destruction, and hatred throughout the world. Your choice.