Introduction

From the time of Prophet Muḥammad's death in 632 CE (11 HA) until the present, the correlation between divine and mundane authority has dominated theological, political and cultural contention in the Muslim world. Central to it has been the notion and scope of authority in the original sources of Islam and its subsequent regional interpretations and modifications by ʿulamāʾ (Islamic scholars) and fuqahā’ (Islamic jurists) on the one side, and Muslim political and military leaders represented by amīrs, sulṭāns, shāhs, khāns and, subsequently, kings, presidents and other contemporary rulers on the other. Throughout history, deviation by various Muslim rulers from the idea of ‘true’ Islamic governance has been among the key drivers of the social and political mobilization towards the recreation of Prophet Muḥammad's religious and political ummah (Islamic community) based on the Qur’ān and Sunnah (precedents based on Muḥammad's behaviour and sayings). In a similar way, from the late eighteenth century, jihād (Islamized struggle) by Prophet Muḥammad and his Companions against their opponents and the quest for the revival of Islam have been invoked by leaders of anticolonial struggles in the Middle East, West Africa, South and Southeast Asia as well as Muslim Eurasia. The most recent upsurge of Islamic revivalism and Islamized political activism was triggered by the end of the Cold War, which epitomized the global confrontation between the doctrinal anchors of secularism – capitalism and communism. The removal of the socialist counterbalance to capitalism has reawakened among some Muslim thinkers and activists the caliphate ideal as the ideological alternative to the globalized capitalism spearheaded by the United States. In 1999, the idea of the caliphate was enacted in the form of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shām (ISIS, also known by its Arabic-language acronym Dā‘ish/Daesh) which was created on the territory of present-day Iraq and Syria, corresponding to the heartland of the caliphates of the Umayyads (al-‘Umawīyah, 661–750 CE) and Abbasids (al-‘Abbāsīyah, 750–1258). At its height Daesh territory had over eight million people, including foreign jihādīs (Islamized militants) who numbered between 80,000 and 200,000 from over 80 countries. Over 15,000 of them came from Muslim Eurasia, primarily from the North Caucasus and Central Asia.