The
establishment of an Islamic caliphate as actively sought by Daesh, Boko Haram, the Taliban and Abu
Sayaf today is nothing new as its first caliph was Muhammad, a.k.a. the
Prophet, who sanctioned warfare as part
of the struggle undertaken by himself and his disciples to propagate Islam by
conquest and conversion, a struggle he called jihad, or holy war, which he
succeeded in doing in Medina, his capital, and the Arabian peninsula.
The rise
and fall, by means of warfare and conquests, of several caliphates followed
Muhammad's death in 632 A.D., most notably the Rashidun Caliphate, 632 to 661 A.D,, capital
Medina and later Kufa, stretching from Tunisia in the west to Pakistan in the
east, followed by the Umayyad Caliphate, 661 to 750 A.D., capital Damascus,
stretching from Spain in the west to Iran in the east, followed by the Abbasid
Caliphate, 750 to 1258 A.D., capital Baghdad, stretching from Tunisia and Libya
in the west to Iran and Kuwait in the east, followed by the Ottoman Caliphate,
1517 to 1924 A.D., capital Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), stretching
from Serbia in the west to Iraq in the east.
Interestingly,
each caliphate was ruled by a string of successive caliphs, many of whom were
assassinated and subsequently replaced.
[source of information: Wikipedia]
[source of information: Wikipedia]
