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      Caliphate as Transnational Metaphor: A Decolonial Analysis of Caliphate Struggles

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      ReOrient
      Pluto Journals
      Caliphate, Critical Muslim Studies, Decolonial, Khilafat movement, Mappila
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            Abstract

            Framed in a Critical Muslim Studies approach, this essay will present a decolonial reconceptualisation of the concept of the Caliphate by analysing the narratives on the Khilafat movement and the Mappila rebellion (1921-1922) in India and presenting them as decolonial disruptive movements. Traditional formulations of the Caliphate privilege a view from the centre (Arab world) and contemporary discussions focus on the ontic manifestations such as structure and the requirements for the office of the Caliph rather than the what the Caliphate means. By looking at contemporary framings of the caliphate mobilisations and its methodological shortcomings, this essay will theorise how the leaders of the Khilafat movement, Mappila ulema and leaders conceptualised the Caliphate based on an ontological understanding and their mobilisation of its range of possible meanings. The essay will also look at the appropriation of such meanings by Marxist ideologues and historians to lend legitimacy to the Marxist trajectory of violence and martyrdom, and the subsequent erasure of Muslim political subjectivity from these narratives by framing it using a class analytic. This essay will present a reading of the Caliphate mobilisations as way of decolonising the Islamicate past for ‘clearing the ground’ for dreaming a future.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            10.2307/j50009694
            reorient
            ReOrient
            Pluto Journals
            2055-5601
            2055-561X
            1 April 2021
            : 6
            : 2 ( doiID: 10.13169/reorient.6.issue-2 )
            : 173-201
            Affiliations
            Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK Email id: pt16s2k@ 123456leeds.ac.uk
            Article
            reorient.6.2.0173
            10.13169/reorient.6.2.0173
            fe98aa29-6fca-4cfa-8433-e5d398de23da
            © 2021 Pluto Journals

            All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

            History
            Custom metadata
            eng

            Literary studies,Religious studies & Theology,Social & Behavioral Sciences,History,Philosophy
            Khilafat movement,Decolonial,Critical Muslim Studies,Mappila,Caliphate

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