Episode 66: Sunni side up

Succession planning presented a sporadic problem for the caliphate. The great fitna was the last disaster spawned by ill-conceived designs, and it proved absolutely ruinous to the state. Al Mutawakkil’s arrangement was so bad that it became the first to snare the caliph himself i ...  Show more

It’s difficult to overstate the impact al Mutawakkil’s usurpation had on the political reality of the caliphate. Not only did it completely hijack control of the state, but it also had decisive implications for the nature and locus of official authority. We’ll kick off our journe ...  Show more

In the 7th century, the world saw the rise of one of the most important religious and political forces in history: Islam. Springing forth from the Arabian Peninsula, within a matter of months, the Islamic Caliphate had become one of the largest empires on Earth. Much of that grow ...  Show more

Since the demise of the Ottoman Caliphate, the Muslim world has moved from one crisis to another. The parlous state of the ummah is now the subject of many discussions and numerous Islamic groups have attempted to find the magic formula to reverse this decline. Invariably and cor ...  Show more

Is diversity a problem, or a blessing?

For centuries, the Ottoman Empire was arguably the most diverse polity in the history of the world. But as the Ottoman crescent began to wane, the pressures of modernity forced the High Porte to reevaluate the benefits of its hetero ...

Religion and empire are often intertwined. Regarding Muslims there are well known dynasties like the Umayyad, the Abbasid, the Fatimid, the Ottoman, and many others. But the empire governing the largest Muslim population was, of course, the British. In Imperial Muslims: Islam, Co ...  Show more