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2016

Format:	Book
Author:	Kennedy, Hugh (Hugh N.), author.
Title:	Caliphate : the history of an idea / Hugh Kennedy.
Publisher, Date:	New York : Basic Books, 2016.
Description:	xxiii, 309 pages ; 24 cm
Summary:	Caliphate is a grand and sweeping history of the caliphate since the death of the prophet Mohammed until the last official caliph in the 13th Century, and its modern incarnations under various Islamist groups today. Contrary to popular belief, Islamic law is not a codified set of legislations, and thus there cannot be one definition of the role of the caliph. Rather, this title has been the subject of serious debate and transformation over time. In Caliphate, historian and Middle East expert Hugh Kennedy lifts the veil on the changing and contested position of the caliph and explores the fascinating succession of various leaders of the Islamic world since the death of the Prophet in 632 until the modern day. Kennedy begins in 7th century Medina, the Prophet Muhammad's city in the Hejaz desert, in the hours following the prophet's death. In the end, Kennedy delves into the modern fate of the caliphate, as the British manipulate the 19th Century caliphs to spur dissent against the Ottomans in the Arab provinces, and Islamist leaders call for the creation of a Muslim caliphate. We witness the emergence of another Abu Bakr as "caliph" in 2014, as Kennedy untangles the twisted and distorted Qur'anic history ISIS uses to justify its barbaric acts. An authoritative new account of the dynasties of leaders who shaped the Arab world, The Caliphate reveals the legacy of one of the most potent political ideas in modern history.
Subjects:	Caliphate -- History. Caliphs -- History. Islamic Empire -- History -- 622-661. Islamic Empire -- History -- 661-750. Islamic Empire -- History -- 750-1258. Islamic Empire -- Kings and rulers.
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:	The first caliphs -- The executive caliphate : the rule of the Umayyads -- The early Abbasid Caliphate -- The culture of the Abbasid Caliphate -- The later Abbasid Caliphate -- Three authors in search of the caliphate -- The caliphate of the Shi'ites -- The Umayyads of Córdoba -- The Almohad caliphs -- The caliphate under the Mamluks and Ottomans -- The twentieth century and beyond.
LCCN:	2016029769
ISBN:	9780465094387 0465094384
Other Number:	945797023
System Availability:	2
Current Holds:	0
# Local items:	2
Control Number:	658069
Call Number:	909.09767 Kenn
Course Reserves:	0
# Local items in:	2
# System items in:	2

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	NonFiction

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Trade Reviews

Library Journal Review

Kennedy (Arabic, Univ. of London; The Great Arab Conquests) presents an overview of Islamic history through an analysis of the idea of the caliphate and its manifestation as a ruling structure within Islamic society following the death of the prophet Muhammad in 632 CE. The caliphate was essentially a religious model for how the community of believers should be ruled. As the Muslim community expanded within Asia and Southeastern Europe, the caliphate combined an aspiration toward spiritual guidance with shifting versions of political and military leadership. The author integrates religious theories reflecting the Islamic character of this vast empire with social, economic, and cultural achievements, particularly in the Abbasid Empire centered in Baghdad, but equally rich in numerous smaller dynastic states where trade and intellectual life flourished. This clearly written summary of a vast and complex past emphasizes the range of Islamic experience and concludes that the brutal and -intolerant expression of the caliphate by the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria reflects the power of the idea of the caliphate but little of its variety, creativity, or openness. VERDICT A useful and readable summary for casual readers that interweaves religious and secular developments in Islamic history inherent in the concept of the caliphate.-Elizabeth -Hayford, formerly with Associated Coll. of the Midwest, -Evanston, IL © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Kennedy (The Great Arab Conquests), a medieval historian and professor of Arabic at SOAS, University of London, follows the threads of the centuries-long debate within the wider Islamic community over how to establish a secular system of governance capable of enforcing divine law. With no blueprint in the Qur'an and little thought given during the Prophet Muhammad's life as to what would come after, early Muslims struggled to decide how rulers should be chosen, what their roles should be, and how laws should be adjudicated and applied. The various caliphates were no more nefarious or violent than any other type of government, and Kennedy's engrossing and entertaining introduction highlights their impressive diversity. Many caliphs were great patrons of the arts and intellectual pursuits. For example, Abbasid Baghdad was "the first society in the history of the world in which a man or a woman could make a living as an author." Fatimid caliph Hakim, on the other hand, "made decrees and new laws entirely on his own initiative, neither taking advice nor supporting them with traditions and precedents." The Ottoman title of caliph "was never more than a vague honorific," and its final abolition in 1924 changed little in the Muslim world, but Kennedy clearly shows the continuing power of this idea to incite controversy. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

CHOICE Review

Caliphate is a complicated book. It is first a rejoinder to recent, and frequently militant, interpretations of Islamic governance advocated by groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS). But it is also a sweeping, yet deeply researched, history of popular and scholarly efforts--from the mid-seventh century to the present day--to define the role of the caliph in relation to the Muslim community. As such, the book should be attractive to both scholars and an educated general readership. However, it must be read with care. As Kennedy (Arabic, SOAS, Univ. of London) himself notes, the work is "quietly polemical." And its thesis--that the mutability of the caliphal tradition is what has lent it its staying power--is a direct challenge to many modernist interpretations of the caliph's role. Moreover, there is a provocative ideological commitment underpinning the research--an insistence not only that liberal interpretative methods are more effective than other interpretive methods, but that Islamic governance lends itself, via these methods, to a coherent narrative of appropriate versus inappropriate leadership. The book is thus extraordinarily important, but rather as a basis for discussion, almost more than as a "history of an idea." Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries. --Ruth Austin Miller, University of Massachusetts Boston

Kirkus Review

A mostly nonpolemical survey of the history of caliphates since the death of Muhammad in 632.British scholar Kennedy (Arabic/SOAS, Univ. of London; The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In, 2007, etc.) concisely defines the caliphate as it has evolved through the ages from one Islamic court to the next, including the Ottoman ascendancy as protector of the Muslim people and todays Islamic State group, which looks back to caliphal examples and a romantic view of early Islamic warfare. The title of caliph was essentially a spiritual designation, either as a deputy for Muhammad or for Allah himself; over the centuries, there has been considerable tension regarding the role. The first four caliphs after Muhammads death were considered Orthodox: the leader (always a man) should come from the powerful merchant tribe the Quraysh, the prophets own extended clan. However, should the successor be Muhammads close associate Abu Bakr or a hereditary successor, his cousin and son-in-law, Ali? The reign of Ali (Shiite), especially, would be identified with the interests of the deprived and excluded in Muslim society, those who felt that their rights had been ignored or trampled on by dominant elites (Sunnis). From the founding four, Kennedy delves chapter by chapter into the successful rule of, among others, the Umayyads, who helped to spread the Arabic language and wondrous architecture; the cultured Abbasids, who held together a multicultural Muslim world that lasted until the defeat by the Mongols in 1258; and the splinter Shiite caliphse.g., the Fatimids in Tunisia and Egypt. In the last chapter, the author touches on the misappropriations of the current caliphate established by the Islamic State group in 2014. Enlisting significant Arab-language scholarship, Kennedy provides a carefully calibrated, timely chronicle for nonacademic readers. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Summary

From a preeminent scholar of Islamic history, the authoritative history of caliphates from their beginnings in the 7th century to the modern day

In Caliphate , Islamic historian Hugh Kennedy dissects the idea of the caliphate and its history, and explores how it became used and abused today. Contrary to popular belief, there is no one enduring definition of a caliph; rather, the idea of the caliph has been the subject of constant debate and transformation over time. Kennedy offers a grand history of the caliphate since the beginning of Islam to its modern incarnations. Originating in the tumultuous years following the death of the Mohammad in 632, the caliphate, a politico-religious system, flourished in the great days of the Umayyads of Damascus and the Abbasids of Baghdad. From the seventh-century Orthodox caliphs to the nineteenth-century Ottomans, Kennedy explores the tolerant rule of Umar, recounts the traumatic murder of the caliph Uthman, dubbed a tyrant by many, and revels in the flourishing arts of the golden eras of Abbasid Baghdad and Moorish AndalucÃ Kennedy also examines the modern fate of the caliphate, unraveling the British political schemes to spur dissent against the Ottomans and the ominous efforts of Islamists, including ISIS, to reinvent the history of the caliphate for their own malevolent political ends.

In exploring and explaining the great variety of caliphs who have ruled throughout the ages, Kennedy challenges the very narrow views of the caliphate propagated by extremist groups today. An authoritative new account of the dynasties of Arab leaders throughout the Islamic Golden Age, Caliphate traces the history-and misappropriations-of one of the world's most potent political ideas.

Table of Contents

	Maps	p. viii
	Introduction	p. xiii
1	The First Caliphs	p. 1
2	The Executive Caliphate: The Rule of the Umayyads	p. 33
3	The Early Abbasid Caliphate	p. 63
4	The Culture of the Abbasid Caliphate	p. 99
5	The Later Abbasid Caliphate	p. 129
6	Three Authors in Search of the Caliphate	p. 161
7	The Caliphate of the Shi'ites	p. 173
8	The Umayyads of Córdoba	p. 205
9	The Almohad Caliphs	p. 229
10	The Caliphate under the Mamluks And Ottomans	p. 247
11	The Twentieth Century and Beyond	p. 267
	Acknowledgements	p. 277
	Glossary	p. 279
	List of Caliphs	p. 283
	Notes	p. 287
	Further Reading	p. 291
	Index	p. 295

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