Forward to the Past

Abu-Bakr, caliph from 632 to 634

ISIS/ISIL recently announced that it was re-establishing a caliphate and would henceforth go by the all-encompassing moniker Islamic State. The rest of us went scrambling for our now moldy middle-school history books, as we were sure that's where and when we last heard the term caliphate. Scrounge no longer. Don't you know by now that you can find everything on the Internet?: http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/06/30/326916530/whats-a-caliphate

   In the introduction to his 2013 book The Inevitable Caliphate?, Reza Pankhurst writes, "The apparent absence of the caliphate from public consciousness for several decades and its subsequent re-emergence as part of what may be perceived as a broad Islamic revival, as well as the opening of public space for political discussion in the Middle East, raises many interesting questions. These range from what the idea means to those who propagate it, how it is used in the counter-hegemonic discourses of the Islamic thinkers and groups engaged in a struggle to wrest power from entrenched regional ruling elites, and to what extent it is adopted as a symbol of reactionary rejection of modernity and Westernization rather than as a political alternative in its own right."