 "Suleiman the Magnificent, the longest-reigning sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Photo: Wikimedia Commoms")
The Idea of the Muslim World
A Global Intellectual History
Author: Cemil Aydin
Publisher: Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2017
Pages: 293
Price: Rs 599
A caliphate was set up in Mosul in June 1994, 70 years after the abolition of this august office in Turkey by the republican government of Kamal Ataturk. Then, as now the “caliph” purports to represent the global Muslim community, the “Muslim World”, but targets millions of Muslims who do not share his narrow, rigid and violent belief-system.
This “caliph”, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, is not alone in making his universalist appeal: in 2009,
