What is the caliphate?

ما الخلافة؟

The caliphate is the leadership of the community after the Prophet ﷺ. It was held by the Rightly Guided caliphs, then by the Umayyad, Abbasid and Ottoman states, until its abolition in 1924.

Depth

At a glance

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Worship and the pillars

Overview

The caliphate is the leadership of the community after the Prophet. It was held by the Rightly Guided caliphs, then the Umayyad, Abbasid and Ottoman states, until it was abolished in 1924. 1

People and things also explored

The ruling on one who abandons prayer· Ada' (performance of an obligation within its time)· Adhan (the call to prayer: its ruling, wording, conditions, recommended features and the muezzin)· Bone (adhm): purity, use and retaliation· The adornment of desires and the goods of this world· The people of the bench (ahl al-suffa)· The earth made a place of prayer and purity· Spending in the way of God (infaq)

Sources

  1. Wikidata
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islam.museum contributors. “What is the caliphate?”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/questions/what-is-khilafa/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-22.

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Related

The ruling on one who abandons prayer

Al-Sallabi quotes Ali: whoever does not pray is an unbeliever. He then reports from al-Nawawi the dispute over one who neglects prayer while believing it obligatory: the majority (Malik, al-Shafi'i) hold him a sinner to be asked to repent, others hold him an unbeliever, a view ascribed to Ali; Abu Hanifa and the Kufans hold him not an unbeliever but to be disciplined.