The Islamic Caliphate has played a significant role in history past, as well as in our day. It still has a role to play in the prophetic future. In a 1948 speech to the British House of Commons, Winston Churchill once said, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” It has also been said that “a text without a context is a pretext.” It is our hope that this newsletter will contribute to a deeper understanding of the historical context of the Muslim Caliphate, and how these matters are connected to fast-paced present and future developments in the Middle East.
The Caliphate was birthed in Arabia, though it later moved its capital to Syria, Iraq and Egypt. After 900 years it set up shop in what is today called Turkey – in the geographical belt which Ezekiel once called ‘the Land of Magog.’ Over the centuries, Islam’s leadership morphed from a Caliphate based on Muḥammad’s bloodline to a power consortium of Machiavellian generals-autocrats. What changed when the Caliphate sank its roots down into Turkish soil? And how will present and future developments in Turkey affect the Middle East – indeed, even the whole world?
The original Turks
Anatolia is an ancient Hellenistic name for Turkey, coming from the Greek word verb ἀνατέλλω – ‘I rise up.’ It is meant to recall the rising of the sun in the East. For Greeks, the morning sunrise broke every day from the direction of Turkish Anatolia.
At the beginning of recorded history Anatolia was called ‘the Land of Hatti.’ A non-Semitic and non-European people known as the Hattians lived there circa 2,000 B.C. Their capital city was Hattusa (near modern Boğazkale, Turkey).
About 1650 B.C. the Hittite people (see Genesis 15:20; 23:10; Exodus 3:8; Numbers 13:29; Deuteronomy 7:1; Joshua 1:4; Judges 1:26; 2 Samuel 11:3; 1 Kings 10:29; 11:1; 2 Kings 7:6; etc.) moved from the Black Sea area into north-central Anatolia/Turkey, establishing at least three sub-kingdoms. The Hittites called themselves the ‘Neša’ or the ‘Kaneš.’ Their Hittite Empire reached its peak between 1400 and 1200 B.C., at times clashing with the New Kingdom of Egypt, the Middle Assyrian Empire and the Mitanni Empire. The ‘Treaty of Kadesh’ between the Hittite King Hattušiliš III and the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II (1259 B.C.) fixed the boundaries between these two empires as being in southern Canaan. The Bible tells us that, in Solomon’s day, the Hittites had solid mercantile connections with Israel, much of it involving the trade in horses (2 Chronicles 1:17).
In 1160 B.C. Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser I defeated the Anatolian Mushki in Turkish Phrygia (probably the ‘Meshech’ of Ezekiel 38:2). The Mushki lived not far from another southern Anatolian people – the Tabal (mentioned also in Ezekiel 38:2 as the Tubal).
Another group of settler-conquerors moved into Turkey nearly 1,000 years later; these were the Galatians, a Celtic people whose origins are subject to much discussion. The Galatians came from the following regions: France (‘the Gauls’ and the ‘La Tène culture’); Germany (the ‘Hallstatt culture’); Ireland (as in the ‘Gaelic’ language); Thrace, the Balkans and Hungary. Thracian Gauls invaded the Balkans in 279 B.C., later moving into the Turkish provinces of Ankara and Eskişehir,. They gave that region the name ‘Galatia.’ Paul the Apostle’s Letter to the Galatians was addressed to Messianic Jews and Gentiles living in that area. In his ‘Antiquities of the Jews,’ Josephus connects the Galatians to another people-group from Ezekiel 38:6, Gomer: “For Gomer founded those whom the Greeks now call Galatians (Galls), but were then called ‘Gomerites.’”
Mongol and Turks
The leaders of Islam were a combination of warriors and religious authorities known as ‘the Caliphs’. Their successive administrations were known as ‘the Caliphate.’ That imperial organization morphed in stages from Rashidun to Umayyad and Abbasid manifestations. As this happened, the Caliphates mutated from being world conquerors to turning into shadows of their former ‘glory’. The cruel Arab desert warriors who (in the seventh century A.D.) ran roughshod over the Middle East and Europe, had at that time given those populations a ‘take it or leave it’ choice between decapitation, enslavement and full submission to Muḥammad’s ‘Jibrilian revelations.’ But by 1300 A.D. these Caliphs and their Caliphates ended up being more on the receiving end – bulldozed by Mongol invaders from the East who were descendants of Genghis Khan.
The origins of Mongol-inhabited regions goes back to the khanates – Turkic, Mongol and Tatar-ruled tribal states populated by nomadic wanderers and invaders. The first connection between Mongols and Anatolia/Turkey was in the days of the Il-Khan khanate, established by Genghis Khan’s grandson Hülegü Khan, between 1256 and 1335 A.D. At its zenith, the core territory of this khanate included Turkey, Azerbaijan and Iran, as well as parts of Syria, Armenia, Georgia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Dagestan and Pakistan. This khanate empire controlled Anatolia/Turkey for one hundred years, slowly disintegrating by 1353 A.D.
The next conquerors of Anatolia/Turkey were Muslim nomadic tribes of Oghuz Turks, ‘Oghuz’ being a common Turkic word for ‘tribe.’ This Turkic tribal confederacy had founded the Oghuz Yabgu State back in 766 A.D., between the coasts of the Caspian and Aral Seas. The Oghuz nomads moved back and forth in the pastureland steppes between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and China.
Seljuk (Selçuk) (who died in 1007 A.D.) was an Oghuz Turk warlord living in Central Asia and leader of a tribe later called ‘the Seljuks.’ About 985 A.D. Seljuk separated from the bulk of the Oghuz Turks and converted to Islam. During that same time period, Islamic writers began to call the Oghuzis ‘Muslim Turkmens.’ By the 1100’s A.D. that name stuck with the Byzantines as well.
Seljuk’s grandsons Chaghri Beg and Tughril I led Muslim armies which invaded Persia/Iran in the 1000’s A.D., establishing their administrative center in the province of Khorasan (modern Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan). These battles included the Battle of Nisa Plains near Ashgabat in modern Turkmenistan (June 1035 A.D.), and the Battle of Dandanaqan near the city of Merv in modern Turkmenistan (May 23 1040 A.D.)
Another grandson of Seljuk, Ibrahim Inal, defeated the 50,000 strong Byzantine-Georgian armies at the Battle of Kapetron on September 10 1048, bringing back (so it was reported) 100,000 captives as slaves, as well as a vast booty on the backs of 10,000 camels. The Seljuk army (under Tughril I) moved on to conquer Baghdad, the weakened seat of the Abbasid Caliphate, in 1055. Alp Arslan, Seljuk’s great-grandson, defeated Armenia and Georgia at the Battle of Akhalkalaki in 1066 A.D., and on August 26, 1071 vanquished the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert in Muş Province, East Anatolia, Turkey, capturing the Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes. This breakthrough battle sealed the future of Anatolia, which would now undergo the dual processes of Turkification and Islamization.
Osman the Great
The last and most famous group of warrior-wanderers to settle in Anatolia were also of Oghuz Turk ethnic background. They were led by Osman I (ʿOsmān Ġāzī) son of Ertuğrul, whose dynasty-name was later Westernized to ‘Othman’ or ‘Ottoman’. Both Osman (who died in 1324 A.D.) and the Seljuks were Oghuz Turks, but from different tribes. The majority of today’s residents of Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Turkmenistan are descendants of these Oghuz Turks, and the languages they speak all belong to the Oghuz group of the Turkic language family.
At their zenith the Seljuks had established various sub-sultanates in Anatolia, one of which was the Sultanate of Rum (1077-1308 A.D.). Rum’s eventual disintegration left in its wake many smaller beyliks (Turkic sub-principalities or petty kingdoms). One of these was the Beylik of Osman or the Osmanoğlu (from the Kayi branch of Oghuz Turks). Its capital was Söğüt, in modern Bilecik Province, Turkey.
Osman’s principality gradually absorbed other beyliks under its command, like the Karasi and the Karaman. Later, the Ottoman Sultans Mehmed I, Murad II and Selim I annexed the beyliks of Ramadan and Dulkadir. The result ended up being the creation of an Islamic superpower – the Ottoman Empire – led by the Ottoman Dynasty (in Turkish, Osmanlı Hanedanı).
On May 29 1453 the 21-year-old Sultan Mehmed II (1432-1481) led his Ottoman armies in the conquest and pillaging of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. This strategic victory enabled the Ottoman Turks to wrest control over all major land routes between Asia and Europe, as well as to solidify their domination of the Mediterranean Sea.
On the third day after the fall of Constantinople, Sultan Mehmed II entered the pillaged Hagia Sophia cathedral. This church building was originally called ‘Μεγάλη Ἐκκλησία; Megálē Ekklēsíā; ‘the Great Church’) and had been consecrated on February 15 360 A.D. by Emperor Constantius II, the son of Emperor Constantine the Great. Mehmed approached the church altar, knocked it over and trampled on it. At that point he ordered one of the ulama (Islamic scholars) who was also a muezzin (Islamic cantor) to ascend the pulpit and proclaim the shahādah (the Islamic confession) and lead the ‘Adhan’ – the communal call to prayer which is part of the Ṣalāh al-Jumuʿa (the Muslim congregational prayer service). Mehmed pronounced the khutbah, the Islamic traditional address preceding the sermon. Hagia Sophia was then converted into a mosque.
The name of the city ‘Constantinople’ was changed at that time to ‘Ḳosṭanṭīnīye’ in Turkish, ‘al-Qusṭanṭinīyya’ in Arabic, and ‘Istanbul’ in colloquial Turkish. This Turkish word came from the Medieval Arab/Armenian ‘Stamboul’ – a shortening of the Greek original ‘kon-STAN-tino-POLis’. The letter ‘P’ is usually morphed into a ‘B’ in Arabic and Turkish by reverse assimilation (e.g., ‘Panyas’ becomes ‘Banyas’, etc.), while Turkish grammar also requires the addition of a specific -i- or -ı- prefix before an s + consonant, since Turkish syllables cannot begin with more than one consonant (e.g.: Smyrna > İzmir) The result was the Turkish word ‘Istanbul’ (in Turkish, I̋s-tán-bul) to replace ‘Constantinople.’
The jihadi crushing of Byzantine Christianity
But the Conqueror of Constantinople (who was also the desecrator of Hagia Sophia cathedral) Sultan/Caliph Mehmed II, invented another word for the city, based on an Islamic word-play. He named the city ‘Islambol’ (اسلامبول) – meaning ‘full of Islam’ or ‘abundance of Islam.’ This stressed Islam’s crushing of Byzantine Christianity, and the new role the city was to play as the capital of the Ottoman Caliphate. In the 1600’s A.D., the Ottoman explorer Evliya Çelebi noted that ‘Islambol’ was the common Turkish name of the town, and the word ‘Islambol’ was minted on coinage from 1730 during the reign of Sultan Mahmud I, and on coinage from 1774 during the reign of Sultan/Caliph Mustafa III.
A severed head claimed to be that of Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos was nailed to a column, while the Sultan, standing in front of the severed head, proclaimed in a public speech:
- “Fellow soldiers, this one thing was lacking to make the glory of such a victory complete. Now, at this happy and joyful moment of time, we have the riches of the Greeks, we have won their empire, and their religion is completely extinguished. Our ancestors eagerly desired to achieve this; rejoice now since it is your bravery which has won this kingdom for us!”
The vast majority of Constantinople’s Christians – over 50,000 – were enslaved, and more than 4,000 were immediately murdered. Thousands of women were raped. In those days these actions were considered standard behavior on the part of jihadi warriors, and such behavior has again been demonstrated in all its satanic cruelty by Hamas in its October 7 2023 murder, rape, torture and kidnapping of the civilians and farmers – pensioners, babies, children and civilians – residents of Israeli kibbutzim and towns just across the security line from Gaza.
When does a Sultan get to be a Caliph?
As the Ottoman Dynasty developed, the Ottoman capital was moved: from Söğüt to Bursa in 1326; to Edirne/Adrianople in 1363; and finally to Constantinople/Istanbul in 1453. During this time period, various sultans began to use the term ‘Caliph’ to describe their rulers. This included:
- Murad I (reigned 1362-1389) after his conquest of Adrianople/Edirne in the 1360’s A.D.
- Murad II (r. 1421-144; 1446-1451)
- Mehmed II (r. 144-1446; 1451-1481) who also used the caliphal title ‘Amir al-Mu’minin’ (‘Commander of the Believers’)
- Selim I – who ordered that the khuṭbah (invocation of the ruler’s name before public sermons are given in a mosque, as a declaration of sovereignty and suzerainty) be recited in his name as Caliph (in Tabriz 1514 and Aleppo in 1516)
Though Ottoman sultans now used the title ‘Caliph’ to describe themselves, other Islamic jurists were of the opinion that the Caliphate came to an end with the death of the last Abbasid Caliph al-Musta’sim during the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258. Within a short time, however, the entire Sunni Muslim world would accept Ottoman Caliphate authority and priority.
How does a Sultan get to be a Caliph?
During the reign of Sultan Selim I (1470-1520), huge conquests were made by the Ottoman Empire. By 1510 A.D. Selim I had occupied Iran, Azerbaijan, southern Dagestan, Mesopotamia/Iraq, Armenia, Khorasan and Eastern Anatolia/Turkey. By 1517 he had defeated and annexed the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, Syria, Israel, Tihamah (the Red Sea Coast from Aqaba to Bab el Mandeb), and the Hejaz/Saudi Arabia (including Mecca and Medina). Selim then took upon himself the Islamic title ‘Ḫādimü’l Ḥaremeyn aš -Šarīfayn’ (‘The Servant/Custodian of The Two Noble Sanctuaries’).
The actual physical possession of Mecca and Medina by the Ottoman Dynasty led to the perception among many Muslims that the Ottoman claim to be the leaders of the Islamic world was a reasonable one. Did they not control Mecca and Media? Were they not one of the strongest empires in the world? The Ottomans realized that defining themselves as a Caliphate would have a number of benefits: it would hold their empire together; it would lend an Islamic ‘kosher seal of approval’ to their dynasty; it would strengthen the Sultan’s authority politically and militarily.
The decision had been made. On June 2 1517 Selim I brought the last Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil III to Constantinople/Istanbul as a prisoner. According to a later tradition, at that point al-Mutawakkil transferred the caliphate authority to Sultan Selim I in a ceremony. Whether or not this actually transpired, soon afterwards Ottoman sultans started using a new title ‘Halife-i Uzma’ (‘Great Caliph’) in official documents. Defenders of the new Ottoman Caliphate argued at the time that the Ottomans could justly claim to be caliphs, since they combined in themselves the “principle of the maintenance of faith with justice, command of the good and prohibition of evil, and general leadership.”
The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was in all respects the chief capstone of a hierarchical system. He had absolute authority in political, military, judicial, social, and religious capacities. He was was seen as responsible only to allah and to Islamic shari’a law. Two of the Arabic titles that Sultans began to use were ‘Caliph of the face of the earth’ (Ḫalife-i rū-yi zemīn; خلیفه روی زمین ) and ‘shadow of allah on Earth’ (ẓıll allāh fī’l-ʿalem; ظل الله في العالم). Any legal decree he issued was called a firman or fermān. The Sultan-Caliph was considered the supreme military commander of the realm and possessed the official title to all land in the Ottoman Empire.
After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed II (1432-1481), Ottoman sultans began to describe themselves as ‘successors’ (i.e., caliphs) of the Roman Empire, as seen in their occasional use of the titles ‘kayser-i Rûm’ (‘Caesar of Rome’), ‘fasiliyus’ (from Latin ‘basileus’ or king), ‘Emperor of the Romans’ (‘padişah-i Rûm’) and ‘Emperor of Constantinople’ (‘padişah-i Kostantiniye’).
A state-of-the-art tradition was then developed for newly enthroned Ottoman rulers. Rather than having their top followers swear an Islamic bay’ah or oath of allegiance to the incoming Caliph, a novel ritual – an ‘Ottoman equivalent’ of European coronation ceremonies – was created using one of the nine ‘traditional swords’ of Muhammad. In this case ‘Ma’thur al-Fijar’ (Turkish: Osman’ın Kılıcı, or the ‘Sword of Osman’ which is now stored in Istanbul’s Topkapi Museum) was used. That ceremony was deemed essential for validating the enthronement of each new Caliph. The Ottoman jurist Ebussuud Efendi called both Suleiman I ‘the Magnificent’ (1520-1566) and his son Selim II (1566-1574) “caliphs to the apostle of the lord of the worlds” – a claim to Muhammed-based succession and authority for the Ottoman Caliph. The use of a sword in these ceremonies was highly symbolic, showing that the Ottoman Caliph was being inducted into a leadership role that was first and foremost that of a warrior.
A Caliphate sealed in blood
The Ottoman Caliphate continued Muhammad’s ancient Islamic tradition of violent jihad against ‘unbelievers’ and against those who crossed swords with appointed leadership or approved teachings. This included murderous attacks on Shi’ites, Alevis and Alawites – all of them civilians living in the Caliphate.
In 1514 Selim I attacked Persian Shi’ite Shah Isma’il I’s kingdom to counter Shi’ism seeping into Ottoman territories. On his march to face Ismā’il at the Battle of Chaldiran in northwestern Persia/Iran, Selim’s forces rounded up and executed all the Shi’ites/Alevis they could find on the way and beheaded most of them – up to 40,000 in total – as enemies of the state. The massacre was the largest in Ottoman history up to the end of the 19th century. In the Turkish historical record ‘Selimşâh-name’, the following is recounted:
- “The omniscient Sultan Selim I sent accurate writers all over the country to take note of the supporters of the group called ‘Qizilbāshs’ [i.e. Turcoman Shi’ites/Alevis] part by part and name by name. It has been ordered by Divan [a senior executive institution of the Ottoman Empire] to retrieve records to Divan on everyone from age seven to seventy and the names of forty thousand persons were noted in those registers, old and young. Then officials brought the registers to the administrators of all regions [of the country]. The places they went, they killed more than forty thousand by sword in these areas.”
In 1517 Selim I obtained an Islamic religious ruling (a fatwa) permitting jihad against ‘infidel’ Alawites. According to contemporaneous historical sources: “Sultan Selim I summoned some Sunnite religious men and obtained from them a fatwa to fight the ‘infidel Alawis’. It is estimated that 9,400 Shiite men assembled in Aleppo. All were maliciously murdered by the order of the Ottoman Sultan on the sanction of the Sunnite religious leader.”
There were many other mass murders instigated by the Turkish Caliphate against religious and ethnic minorities over the centuries, but limitations of space prevent further discussion here. It should be mentioned that toward the end of the Ottoman Caliphate, between 1915 and 1923, over 2 million Christian Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians were cruelly murdered in genocidal attacks in Eastern Turkey and Azerbaijan, carried out for the most part by Ottoman forces.
‘The sick man of Europe’
In September 1833 Tsar Nicholas I of Russia was having a discussion with Klemens von Metternich, Prince and Chancellor of the Austrian Empire in Mnichovo Hradiště (Münchengrätz), then Austria-Hungary. Nicholas described the Ottoman Empire/Turkey as “the sick man of Europe,” referring to the economic, social and military decline of the Caliphate in terms of the balance of power in Europe.
Whereas at one time in European history, the thought of Muslim invasion caused national leaders to shake in their boots (consider the Siege of Vienna in 1529, and the Battle of Vienna in 1683), things had changed by the 1774 Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji (Küçük Kaynarca). In that treaty the Ottoman Empire ceded territory and religious rights to the Russian Empire. For the first time in Ottoman history, a foreign power assumed a measure of direct responsibility for the fate and welfare of the Ottoman Empire’s Orthodox Christian subjects.
A rising tide of nationalism (especially in the Balkans), numerous revolts and wars of independence, repeated mini-invasions by Russia, France and Britain into Russian-controlled territories, and significant economic shakings – all of these contributed to a shrinking of Ottoman borders and a growing disdain for the influence of the Turkish Caliphate among world powers.
- The Islamic world, represented by its Ottoman Caliphate masters, was no longer a force to be feared. Jihad was no longer an issue on the agenda. Western colonizers viewed Ottoman influence as collapsing, giving way to a hoped-for ‘Christian’ expansion across North Africa, the Levant, the Middle East, and even parts of Asia. The Islamic dream of conquering the Jewish, Christian and pagan world seemed to have faded. A resurgence of jihadi victories was no longer a realistic ‘Weltanschauung’ – a philosophic perspective or worldview – for the rapidly collapsing Caliphate. For Islam, such hopes would have to wait for another day and another century.
How shall we then pray?
- Pray for revelation and courage to be given to Israel’s leaders in political, intelligence and military spheres – to understand and counteract strategies against Israel, the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8) – as Turkey-backed Islamic State/al Qa’eda armies gather at our borders.
- Pray that enemy strategies against the Jewish people and their state, against Middle East Christians and other minorities – will be confounded, and that a great harvest would take place in all of these areas!
- Pray for the protection of Israeli and Jewish people from the assaults of jihadi terror organizations and Western fellow-travelers
- Pray for the return of the Jewish people to both the Land and the Messiah of Israel
- Pray for the physical rescue of the approximately 44 to 50 living Israeli hostages (including babies) kidnapped by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and PFLP/PLO. At this moment some of these hostages are being tortured, raped and starved (this based on testimonies of recently released hostages). Sadly, over 100 of all Israeli hostages are dead; Hamas is holding on to their corpses as cold-storage bargaining chips
- Pray for the raising up of Ezekiel’s prophetic Jewish army throughout the earth
Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do.
In Messiah Yeshua,
Avner Boskey
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