Does the World Need a Caliphate?

Zealots at the Gate

The caliphate is the traditional form of Islamic governance. Ever since the abolition of the last caliphate in 1924, Muslim thinkers have debated the revival of an Islamic state. In this episode we talk with one such thinker. Ovamir Anjum is the Imam Khattab Endowed Chair of Islamic Studies at the University of Toledo, and in 2019 he wrote a controversial essay in which he boldly called for the establishment of a new caliphate. Needless to say, Shadi and Matt had questions.

LINKS

• Dr. Ovamir Anjum’s essay, “Who Wants the Caliphate?”: https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/who-wants-the-caliphate
• Anjum’s book, Politics, Community, and Islam in Islamic Thought: https://bookshop.org/a/65404/9781107687110
• Mohammad Fadel’s article on Islamic perspectives of salvation: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1712972
• Ummatics Colloquium, the Muslim research collective that Dr. Ovamir Anjum is part of: https://ummatics.org