The idea of the restored Caliphate has a powerful impact on Muslims across the Islamic world:


The point can be argued, and has been,4 that the caliph was not only the temporal and spiritual (meaning able to head worship services and conduct religious ceremonies and rites) ruler, he was also God’s Deputy on Earth and thus was qualified to comment on, or more importantly, reinterpret Sura, Hadith and Sunna. Therefore, the caliph also had scholarly authority, could exercise religious authority and revise or establish religious doctrine. If the caliphate is restored, the potential struggle to define these differing interpretations would be critical not only to the US but to all Muslims.

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Yet there are those today who seek to re-establish a caliphate, say that they want a caliphate or point out that a caliphate is the goal of Islamism. Also, there remains an undeniable ‘longing’ by many Muslims for a caliphate, based on views of a not necessarily ‘Golden Age’ of Islam. In a 2007 poll conducted by the University of Maryland of 4,384 Muslims in four nations (Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan and Indonesia), over 65 per cent interviewed answered positively to the question: ‘To unify all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state or caliphate.’9 Further, 65.5 per cent of the respondents said yes when asked if: ‘To require a strict application of Shari’a law in every Islamic country.’10 In fact, an electronic ‘Caliphate OnLine’ site has been established in Great Britain which seeks to raise awareness about a new
caliphate and has even drawn up a tentative organizational chart of how a modern caliphate would be organized politically.11
Unfortunatley, there is not an open link to the article. Here is the cite:
Vernie Liebl (2009) The Caliphate, Middle Eastern Studies, 45:3, 373-391, DOI:
10.1080/00263200902853355