The Caliphate and Global Islamic Politics

The world witnessed the events of the Arab Spring in 2011, when Arab civil society's hope was renewed by these events. With Libya and Syria descending into civil war and chaos, the success of civil society in carving out a space for itself remains questionable. The fall of seemingly entrenched authoritarian regimes did little to benefit civil society, but political Islamist movements took advantage of the vacuum to establish bases and launch operations to implement their ideology.

Several years after the first protests, Islamist groups are making a strong comeback in some Middle Eastern and North African countries (in Syria, Iraq, towns in Libya, and some areas of Lebanon). Groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Ansar al-Sharia, and other groups are declaring the establishment of caliphs in the areas they control, in an attempt to achieve the political Islamist goal of establishing a "global Islamic caliphate" encompassing the entire Islamic world.

This book presents the author's perspective, and that of the Western world in general, on political Islam, as well as an assessment of the Islamic state and its challenges to concepts, realism, and logic. The book focuses on the relationship between Islam and democracy.

Obeikan Publishing