How Islamic is the Caliphate?

The title above might sound silly to some readers. Because the Caliphate (or the “Successorship” to Prophet Muhammad) is certainly an “Islamic” institution if by that we mean the fourteen centuries of Muslim experience. Since the first Caliph, Abu Bakir, the majority of Muslims have regarded the institution as an integral part of their faith, until its abolition by the Turkish Republic in 1924.

Meanwhile, to add a side note, the overwhelming majority of the same Muslims today see the “caliphate” declared by the notorious ISIS (“Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,” or simply IS) as an abomination. The ISIS is simply too brutal and fanatic even for al-Qaeda, which itself is too brutal and fanatic for most Muslims.

Yet I want to take a step further and want to ask whether Muslims should have any caliph at all -- or, at least, whether their religion really demands this from them.

When we question the issue from this perspective, we will see something interesting: The Qur’an, the basis of Islam, has no reference to any “caliph.” The term does exist in the Muslim scripture, but in a quite different meaning: In chapter 2 verse 30, God says to angels -- right before the creation Adam, the first man -- that he will create a “caliph” for himself on Earth. The term has been often translated as “vicegerent,” and interpreted as the blesssing of freewill given to mankind. In this sense, all human beings are “caliph”s; they possess the God-given faculty to act according their own will.

When we look at the Prophet Muhammad and his tradition, or “Sunna,” we again do not find a clear basis for the caliphate as a political institution. During his lifetime...