Caliphate

Newsweek When President George W. Bush starts using fifty-cent words in press conferences, one has to wonder why, and on Wednesday, during his Rose Garden appearance, he used the word “caliphate” four times. The enemy, he said—by which he clearly meant the Islamic terrorist enemy—wants to “extend the caliphate,” “establish a caliphate,” and “spread their caliphate.” Caliphate? Really? Many people live long, fruitful lives without once using the word caliphate.

Before 9/11 I would have agreed with you, but since then we have learned about the desires of the Islamic Terrorists.

Almost no one, with the exception of our president and some of his advisers, uses it as a pejorative.... Simply put, the caliph is Islam’s deputy to the world

And the ultimate objective of the Calipate is world domination.

.... In fairness, Bush isn’t the first person in recent history to appropriate the word caliphate and use it as a weapon. Osama bin Laden did it himself, most notably three years ago, in his statement to the United Sates via Al-Jazeera. “Baghdad, the seat of the caliphate, will not fall to you, God willing,” he said

He should know better than Newsweek what his objectives are. Iran thinks it will be the center of the caliphate, Islamists in Pakistan think it will be. I suspect there are some in the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt that see Egypt as being the head of the global caliphate.

LGF blogged After asserting that there’s nothing negative about a “caliphate” (which is, of course, the Islamic domination of the world), the authors of this piece, amazingly, proceed to tell us that Osama bin Laden uses the term as a “weapon.” Well, I suppose that’s not technically a “pejorative.”

Reuters reported Activists of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) vowed to establish a global caliphate, beginning with Pakistan. In a rally attended by thousands of activists of the banned group to commemorate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) on Friday, leaders of the SSP called for an Islamic theocracy in Pakistan. “The concept of nation state is an obstacle in the way of the establishment of Khilafat. We will start the establishment of Khilafat in Pakistan and then will do so across the world,” said Zaheerul Islam Abbasi, a former general who was sacked and arrested in 1995 for trying to topple the government of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

A commenter to Daniel Pipes said I posted two links relating to newspaper articles relating to the activity of radical Muslims in Australia. The message from these radicals is that they want to establish the caliphate and introduce the Sharia law.

Forem 18 News Service reported Hizb-ut-Tahir, which is widespread in Central Asia, has told Forum 18 that it aims to introduce a worldwide Caliphate and ban all faiths apart from Islam, Judaism and Christianity, all religious practice being regulated by Sharia law. Buddhism, Hinduism, the Hare Krishna faith and what the party sees as sects within Islam would all be banned. Hizb-ut-Tahir members also explained to Forum 18 that the party would give all non-Muslim states a choice between either joining the Caliphate under Sharia law, or paying a tax to the Caliphate. Failure to pay the tax would be punished by military attacks.

IslamistWatch says While Islamists have many goals, the ultimate one is establishing a worldwide Caliphate (Islamic state): to overthrow and destroy democratic governments accross the globe and replace them with a single Taliban-style Islamic fundamentalist theocracy. There would be one all-powerful head of state, the Caliph. Individuals would be governed by strict Shariah Law, religion would be for Allah alone, and personal liberty limited by Islamic jurisprudence.

Israel National News reported Sheikh Ismail Nawahda, preaching to Moslem masses on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Friday, has brought it out into the open: the call to restore the Moslem Khalifate, or, "Genuine Islamic Rule." A plan for the "Return of the Khalifate" was published secretly in 2002 by a group called "The Guiding Helper Foundation." The group explained that it wished to "give direction to the educated Muslim populace in its increasing interest in the establishment of Islam as a practical system of rule." This past Friday, Feb. 24, however, the plan went public. Sheikh Nawahda called publicly for the renewal of the Islamic Khalifate, which would "unite all the Moslems in the world against the infidels."