Caliph Obama?

“The Nation,”  Pakistan’s most prominent English-language newspaper, reported last week  that that country’s State Minister of Industry, Dr. Ayatullah Durrani, “has urged US President Barack Obama to offer Eid prayers at Ground Zero Mosque  and become the `Ameer-ul-Momineen’  [sic] of Muslim Ummah.”   Eid al-Fitr is the feast at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and occurs this year on September 10.  According to Durrani, “the coming Eid would expectedly be observed on 9/11” which would be “a golden opportunity for President Obama to…become Amir-ul-Momineen or Caliph of all Muslims. In this way, all the problems of Muslim world [sic] would be solved….”  Dr. Durrani, like many Muslims, believes that the Islamic world is “in ‘dire need’ of a Caliph” and that “the elevation of President Obama to Muslim’s [sic] Caliphate would be the ‘key to success.’”

Amir al-Mu’minin means “commander of the believers [Muslims]” and soon after Muhammad’s death became synonymous with khalifah, “successor” to him as ruler (but not as prophet).  Interestingly, while the title of caliph was taken by many Islamic rulers over the centuries (including the Sunni Umayyads, Abbasids and Ottomans, as well as the Shi`i Fatimids), it would not be until five centuries after Muhammad’s death that a non-Arab would dare to take the title amir al-mu’minin: Abd al-Mu’min, the right-hand man of the Moroccan Mahdi,  Ibn Tumart, did so in 1132.  The last Islamic rulers to claim the caliphate were the Ottoman sultans, until the position was abolished in 1924 by the Turks.

If Durrani is serious, as he seems to be, about “Mullah Barack Husayn Obama” assuming the caliphate (I have emailed  Durrani and the leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party, to which he belongs, but have not yet received a reply), then a number of interesting issues arise:

1. Why must Obama pray at Ground Zero in order to make his caliphal claim?  As I pointed out in my previous blog here, because it would represent the final triumph of Islam over the Americans’ largest city, begun in 1993 with the failed bombings and of course spectacularly continued with the 9/11 attacks.  Does this make Dr. Ayatullah Durrani a “reactionary, right-wing [Christian] bigot?”
2. Remember just a few weeks ago, when conservatives were being pilloried because 18% of Americans  believe that Barack Husayn Obama is a Muslim?  It’s rather difficult to blame Rush Limbaugh for the apparent belief by a prominent Pakistani politiican that Obama is not only a Muslim but worthy of being put in charge of the entire (Sunni) Islamic world!
3. And what do the original modern caliphists—members of Hizb al-Tahrir, the “Party of Liberation” that wants to re-establish the caliphate—think about this?  They reported the story sans commentary on their website, but some of the comments thereupon were telling. A number mocked Durrani for “stupidity;” but several  said that the problem really was that Obama is a murtadd, or “apostate”—that is, a “fallen-away” Muslim.  Again, it’s rather difficult to blame Fox News or other American “right-wing” media for foreign Muslims convinced that the President of the United States is, or at least was at one time, Muslim—as  Edward Luttwak predicted in his 2008 article “President Apostate?”  

My book The Caliphate: Threat or Opportunity? should be out next year—I guess I’ll have to include a chapter on President Obama’s suitability for the office.