Forget the Pope—We Need a New Caliph!

[cbayer]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/6988/forget_the_pope_we_need_a_new_caliph_/

April 1, 2013
But how to make the choice? We have a few ideas.
By WAJAHAT ALI AND HAROON MOGHUL


Apart from his lack of precise familiarity with Qur'anic teaching, Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan has many Caliph-like qualities.

The selection of the new pope made everyone stop, tweet, and stare at St. Peter’s as a non-European was finally chosen to don the papal garb. It made us realize Muslims could also benefit from genuine suspense and good news about their own religious leadership. Ever since secular Turkish general Mustafa Kemal Ataturk undid the Caliphate and ended the Ottoman Empire in 1924, the Muslim world, or at least the Sunni Muslim world, hasn’t had a Caliph; literally a ‘successor’ (to the Prophet Muhammad.)

That’s a long time to be alone. In light of America’s re-election of a Muslim President and the successful infiltration of hummus and halal Butterball turkeys into the once-sacred territory of Safeway, we think the time is ripe for a new Caliphate.

But who could be Caliph? How can the best choice be made? We’re proposing a Caliph-off: a March Madness for Islam’s highest office. With the power vested in us by ourselves, we have chosen ten candidates in the hopes that one of them will win popular acclaim and restore glory to a throne too long left empty.

(I) Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey

The Good: The most influential leader of Turkey has done the impossible: he’s outmaneuvered a dictatorial secular minority and changed the Turkish landscape by making religion acceptable again. Recently Erdogan sidelined the military, has overseen a booming economy that has experienced a 300% rise in GDP in the last ten years, repaired relations with Israel, and the latest news suggests he’s even worked out a peace deal with the Kurds. If Erdogan can make Turkey a truly multicultural democracy, he’ll have resurrected the best characteristics of the Ottoman Empire, which last held the Caliphate, conveniently enough in modern Turkey.

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