Toward a virtual caliphate

Toward a virtual caliphate

Peter Mandaville
Yale Center for the Study of Globalization
Arlington, Virginia

The recent Zawahiri- Zarqawi Letter -- purportedly a missive
on strategy and tactics from al-Qaeda's to their man in Iraq --
once again raises the question of bin Laden's capacity to inspire
and animate Islamist radicalism across borders and continents.
All the more so when considered in light of the July bombings in
London and renewed attacks in Bali, Indonesia.

While questions persist about the authenticity of the letter,
it nevertheless provides an opportunity to reconsider the larger
question of how Islamic religious authority functions in a
globalized world. While many hold up the specter of al-Qaeda as a
de-territorialized "brand name" seeking to rally the masses of
the umma (the world community of Muslims) around militant
religious radicalism, al-Qaeda is not the only game in town in
terms of the transnational forces competing for Muslim hearts and
minds. Indeed, it is possible today to point to an emerging
infrastructure -- on the internet and satellite television, in
widely-circulated books, through major international conferences
and research centers -- of a countervailing effort by mainstream
Islamic scholars to challenge al-Qaeda's global rhetoric.

In Islam's Sunni tradition, to which approximately 90 percent
of the world's Muslims adhere, there is no formal or centralized
structure of religious authority, as in the Catholic Church.
Instead, a variety of local religious scholars and specialists in
sharia (religious law) compete with regional and -- increasingly
-- global voices of religious authority.

Historically, Muslim states and dynasties have often relied on
cadres of co-opted religious scholars for political legitimacy.
At other times, religious scholars have played important civil
societal roles in checking the excesses of state power. Until
1924, however, there was in the Sunni tradition a nominal global
figurehead in the person and office of the caliphate.

The caliph ("successor" to the Prophet Muhammad) was
understood to be the worldly guardian of a divine moral order.
Not in any sense a cleric, the office of the caliph -- whose
theoretical jurisdiction extended to all lands under Muslim rule
-- is better understood as fulfilling the executive branch
function of implementing and preserving the law.

The issue of the caliphate provides a valuable space in which
to explore the question of contemporary globalization and
religious authority. This is not only because a number of Islamic
political movements (al-Qaeda among them) aim to re-establish
caliphate institutions, but also because wider debates about the
waning influence of the nation-state under globalization may
render such models of transnational religious polity more
attractive.

Perhaps most interesting, however -- but certainly least
noticed -- is a diverse body of "superstar" religious scholars
whose efforts might serve as a more metaphorical embodiment of
the caliphate. For this group, the caliphate is not so much a
political institution attached to sovereign territory, but rather
an ideal of pan-Islamic ecumenicism -- a moderate and relatively
inclusive form of lowest-common-denominator orthodoxy. In their
minds, this community of shared knowledge and religious
interpretation is explicitly designed as an antidote to bin Laden
and the radical jihadis. Given the means of its establishment and
propagation, such a tendency might perhaps best be thought of as
a "virtual caliphate."

The figure at the forefront of this movement is Yusuf al-
Qaradawi, a Qatar-based Egyptian religious scholar who trained at
the venerable institution of Al-Azhar in Cairo -- the Oxford of
the Islamic religious sciences. In recent years, he has sought to
articulate a more cosmopolitan understanding of Islam that speaks
to the unique problems of the modern world while remaining firmly
grounded in the traditions of Islamic law and scholarship.

Qaradawi became a household name in the Arabic-speaking world
during the 1990s through his popular al-Jazeera program Islamic
Law & Life, in which he directly engaged issues such as medical
technology and sexuality. His approach also gained him a strong
constituency outside the Arab world; in the last five years,
translations of his books have consistently been top sellers in
Islamic bookstores around the world.

Qaradawi's greatest contribution lies not in his ideas, but
rather in the institutions he has created and the cross-national
collaborations he has fostered among Islamic scholars. Qaradawi
has helped to develop a sustainable infrastructure for the growth
and propagation of cosmopolitan traditionalism through a global
network of websites (such as the popular Islam Online) and
regionally based research and outreach centers (of which the
European Council for Fatwa and Research in Ireland is the best
known). He played a key role in the establishment of the
International Association of Muslim Scholars, a network of
leading representatives from various Islamic schools of thought,
orthodox and heterodox alike, seeking to counter radical
Islamists who claim to monopolize authentic Islam.

But what is the actual content of this new approach? What are
its goals? Its pronouncements and fatwas underscore the
importance of emphasizing the similarities, rather than
differences, among Islamic schools of thought. Likewise, the
scholars have also condemned attempts by radical groups to
declare Muslims who do not agree with them to be apostates to the
faith.

And it is here that many of his critics would claim that
Qaradawi and his associates do not go far enough. They want to
see, for example, stronger denunciation of terrorism and the
rejection of threats against Jews and non-Muslims -- and perhaps
also a stronger emphasis on the need for Muslims to co-operate
with the West.

In doing so, however, they miss the point. The simple fact is
that policymakers in the West -- and progressive liberals more
generally -- are not always going to agree with the opinions of
Qaradawi et al. Even very open-minded followers of orthodox
scripturalism in Islam will often tend toward social
conservatism, meaning that there will continue to be tensions
regarding homosexuality and the role of women.

It will also be difficult to find complete agreement with the
West on more immediate political and security issues.

Viewed in the big picture and over the longer term, one has to
wonder whether U.S. goals and those of the emergent "virtual
caliphate" might not overlap more than they diverge. After all, a
vote for Qaradawi is a vote against Zarqawi. While increased
recruitment into the Qaradawi camp will not by any means produce
a generation of Muslims favorably predisposed to U.S. foreign
policy, it will represent a consolidated, critical mass of
influential and respected Muslims with whom meaningful dialogue
with the hope of tangible progress can take place.

The writer, Director of the Center for Global Studies and
Associate Professor of Government & Politics at George Mason
University, is the author of Transnational Muslim Politics:
Reimagining the Umma. The themes in the present piece are more
fully explored in his forthcoming book Global Islam.