It’s now nearly a month since the Islamic State group announced that it had declared a caliphate, proclaiming that its shadowy leader, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, was henceforth to be known as Caliph Ibrahim.
There’s been little evidence since of it engaging in much effort to extend its area of control in Iraq, although that could change. But it has begun making use of the weaponry captured in Iraq to launch a new offensive in Syria. One of the three Kurdish-controlled enclaves is under a fierce assault while fighting between the Islamic State group and another extremist body, the Al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat Al Nusra, has led to severe losses for the latter. There will no doubt be further developments, in which I hope the Islamic State will receive a bloody nose.
I am more concerned in this column, however, to compare the new “caliph” with those of old. What they offer, and offered, to the people within the domains they controlled is markedly different.
There is little evidence of other extremist groups rushing to declare their loyalty to the caliph, despite the exhortation in his initial public address that all should do so – and all Muslims as well.
Some other groups in Syria and Iraq appear to have done so, out of their own weakness, and perhaps as a result of fear about the well-documented practice of the Islamic State slaughtering its opponents in cold blood. There is not much sign that scholars, lawyers and others are rushing to join the new caliph.
Instead, the claim of Al Baghdadi to be the new caliph, the worthy successor of the caliphs of old, appears to have been met, for the most part, with derision among those far beyond his reach and with well-justified fear among those closer to hand.
In his public address, Caliph Ibrahim wore the traditional black robes of the Abbasid caliphs of early Islam. Perhaps, then, since he has encouraged the comparison, it’s worth comparing the state of the first and greatest Abbasid caliphs to the murderous mockery of their would-be successor.
The first Abbasid Caliph, Mansour, founded the city of Baghdad – the Medinat Al Salam, or City of Peace – in 762. It rapidly became, historians tell us, a magnificent new city where Arab and Persian Muslims, Jews, Christians and those of other faiths lived and worked together. During the reign of his grandson, Haroun Al Rashid, the palace was filled with musicians, scholars and philosophers. He sent envoys to bring back mathematical treatises from India and great books of ancient Greek learning from Byzantium the knowledge contained within them eventually making its way to Europe, where it sparked the Renaissance. He founded the legendary library, the Bayt Al Hikma (the House of Wisdom), and his realm flourished as a centre of science and culture as a spirit of religious tolerance pervaded the land. Those years marked the apogee of Arab-Islamic civilisation.
In contrast, what have we seen from Caliph Ibrahim and his black-clad, gun-toting followers? In Mosul, the largest city that the Islamic State group controls in Iraq, some mosques have been destroyed and shrines commemorating revered religious leaders, both Sunni and Shia, have been bulldozed. Crosses have been removed from churches, as thousands of members of the Christian minority, and of other ethnic and religious minorities, have fled to neighbouring Iraqi Kurdistan.
Last weekend, faced with an order to pay the jizya tax or to convert, the last Christians left Mosul. Mass executions of unarmed captives have occurred, with the scenes of their killing being posted on social media to spread terror among those remaining within the reach of the Islamic State group.
I hold no brief for Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri Al Maliki, whose Shia sectarian policies have played a major role in deepening the divisions between the country’s Sunni and Shia communities, thereby creating the conditions that permitted the Islamic State group to sweep across much of the areas of Iraq with a Sunni Arab population. His intransigence has done much to allow the current situation to occur.
Caliph Ibrahim, however, in marked contrast to the enlightened caliphs of old, offers no solution to those who adhere to the essential principles of Islam and who look back with pride on the days when the Arab-Islamic civilisation was at its height. Instead, he offers a perversion of the faith and a promise of suffering and slaughter.
He is no religious leader, but a man whose name will go down in infamy.
Peter Hellyer is a consultant specialising in the UAE’s history and culture
