Download PDF by Professor Cory Stephen: Reviving the Islamic Caliphate in Early Modern Morocco

Historians have lengthy grappled with the query of ways Islamic civilization - so in actual fact dominant throughout the medieval interval - may possibly fall thoroughly less than Western hegemony within the sleek age? Many Western writers resolution this query by means of referencing eu ingenuity, initiative, and transformative power by contrast with Islamic parochialism, passivity, and resistance to alter. This booklet demanding situations such assumptions by means of learning the profession of an competitive sultan in early-modern Morocco, Mulay Ahmad al-Mansur (r. 1578-1603), who dared to tackle the overseas super-powers of his day and sought to redraw the map of Islamic Africa.
Al-Mansur is healthier identified for launching a daring invasion around the Sahara wilderness to overcome the West African Songhay Empire. such a lot historians ascribe strictly financial factors for this attack, declaring that the sultan needed to seize the filthy rich gold alternate that had traveled for hundreds of years from West Africa to the Mediterranean. Dr Cory argues as an alternative that Mulay Ahmad used to be pursuing extra expansive targets than just stuffing his coffers with West African gold, as evidenced through audacious claims made on his behalf in different panegyric texts produced by means of the sultan's courtroom. via an in depth research of reliable histories, files and correspondence, writings by way of ecu observers, and architectural proof, he contends that the sultan sought to set up a Western caliphate that will eclipse the Ottoman Empire. Mulay Ahmad complex this schedule via panegyric literature, difficult courtroom ceremonies, grand buildings, gorgeous army conquests, and astute international relations with eu powers, Ottoman officers, and sub-Saharan rulers. Such assertions of common caliphal authority had now not been heavily promoted in Islam for over 300 years sooner than al-Mansur's reign. hence al-Mansur sought to maneuver his nation ahead into the fashionable age through returning to an establishment that had ruled Muslim lands throughout the fabled golden age of the Abbasid and Andalusian Umayyad caliphates. via an research of the sultan's goals and achievements Dr Cory offers new perception into the historical past of kinfolk among Muslim states and the West.