After the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the institution of the “caliph” – the “successor” of the prophet – was formed, the purpose of which was to ensure that the Muslim community correctly carried out the word of Allah and did not deviate from the right path. The collapse of the caliphate as a result of the Mongol invasion in 1258 shook the Islamic world and forced the ummah to face new challenges. Among these challenges was the consolidation and political organization of Islamic society in order to withstand external attacks, which raised the question of whether the restoration of the caliphate was mandatory and whether the mulk was permissible, since the restoration of the caliphate was practically impossible under the existing historical and political circumstances, and the only force more or less capable of restoring the unity of the ummah and confronting its enemies was the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt. In this regard, the thoughts and views expressed by a prominent representative of the Hanbali school Ibn Taymiyyah on the institution of the caliphate are extremely interesting, and they are still relevant today, due to the activation of the Islamic factor in Muslim social developments and the widespread dissemination of ideas about the creation of a caliphate guided by sharia law by Islamic extremist groups. In order to understand Ibn Taymiyyah’s views on the discussed issues and to shed light on existing opinions on them, we have examined the Islamic jurist’s approaches to the terms “caliph” and “caliphate.”
In this article, we have examined the works of Ibn Taymiyyah, while simultaneously reflecting on the sometimes contradictory interpretations made by some researchers.