[mean lunch lady]

This may be a dumb question, but what exactly is a caliphate?

[nopardons]

The rule over a nation/s.

[Cacique]

ping

[dufekin]

The caliphate is the religious and temporal authority headed by a caliph, a successor to Muhammad the Prophet. Caliphs generally can trace their ancestry back to the Prophet. Remember that Muslims traditionally regard women as somehow less than fully human, so all caliphs are male. There are no caliphates presently, although one might suggest that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan does descend from the Prophet.

In the early days of Islam, the caliphate divided, but it generally passed through Spain, Cairo, and Baghdad. The Mongol and Turkish invasions ultimately destroyed the splintering caliphate.

[oceanperch]

I don't know. I am as remedial as they come in history but this article spelled it out in a way that it showed me exactly what and why we are where we are today.

A wonderful history lesson IMO for those of us that are not buffs ect..

[rob777]

"This may be a dumb question, but what exactly is a caliphate?"



The "caliphate" is a supreme leader over a unified Islamic empire who combines the functions of Prophet, Priest and King. Muslems like Bin Laden view the loss of the caliphate as the primary reason for the downfal of classical Islamic civilization. The main goal of those who believe this is to re-establish a unified Islamic empire under the rule of a single caliphate. They see the western tradition, with its separation of political and religious authority, as their primary obstacle.

[Celtman]

mean lunch lady:
but what exactly is a caliphate?

      Not exactly exact, but a rough equivalent is "emperor."  Bear in mind that to Islam, separation of church and state just does not compute, so for the shias especially the caliph also has a connotation roughly corresponding to pope. 

      The shias regard the caliphate as hereditary; for the sunnis, the caliphate is elective, and does not depend on heredity.  The last important caliph, the head of the Ottoman empire, was sunni.  For an outline of the Shia and Sunni, see Sunni, Shia, and Sufi Islam. 

[katana]

The Caliph (or "Khalifa" in Arabic) is the heir, in both religious and political terms, to the "prophet" Mohammed. Over the centuries a number of dynasties in the Middle East have claimed that theirs is the one and true Caliphate and their leader is the Caliph. It was also, I believe, one of Saddam's claims for himself.