Abstract
The Ahl al-Sunnah wal- Jamāʿah or Sunnī (i.e., largest Muslim sect followed by the Shīʿah sect) discourse of a legitimate Khilāfat or Caliphate (i.e. Sunnī theocracy) primarily centres around arguments of limited political leadership scope for non-Qurayshite males and complete female prohibition across the socio-political spectrum. These arguments are mainly based on aḥādīth that supports the notion of a Qurayshite hereditary political leadership, prohibiting the ascension of non-Qurayshite males to leadership roles. Arguments in support of the prohibition of socio-political leadership of females are based on aḥādīth recorded by Muḥammad bin Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārῑ (d. 810) and Q 33: 33, reinforced by other similar aḥādīth and qurāʿnic-verses. For example, The Islāmic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) argues that a legitimate Caliphate can only be installed by a Qurayshite male (Kamolnick 2017: 87-89). Similarly, the Ṭālibān declared Mullah Muhammad Umar as a Caliph despite being a non-Arab – let alone Qurayshite – (Rashid 2002: 222; Matinuddin 1999: 222-226; Ӧzcan 1997: 45-52) and Al-Qāʿidah pledged allegiance to ISIS based on its (i.e., ISIS) claim of Sunnī political leadership legitimacy and a legitimate Caliphate (Stenersen 2017: 70-90; Byrne, Krzyzaniak & Khan 2015: 3). First, I will scrutinise the Islāmophobic perception of Islām reflected in the naming of the Tālibān, Al-Qāʿidah and ISIS’ viz.: “Jihadism, Islāmic Fundamentalism and Islāmism”. Second, I will examine the notion of Sunnī political leadership legitimacy and lack-thereof of Qurayshite males and those of non-Qurayshite males and females. Through this examination, I will analyse the political legitimacy claims of the Tālibān, Al-Qāʿidah and ISIS’ along with their perception of the aforementioned Sunnī dominant claims, sharῑʿah and warfare methods of establishing a Caliphate in light of race, genealogy and gender. I will use the ʿaṣabiyyah conceptual framework of Abū Zayd ʿAbdul Raḥmān bin Muḥammad bin Khaldūn (1332- 1406) to explore the notion of a legitimate Sunnī theocracy. I will also
use Michel Foucault’s discourse analytical tools to probe various social and geopolitical links connected to the Tālibān, Al-Qāʿidah, and ISIS’ perception of the two apparently contradictory ahādīth, their interpretation of the sharīʿah and criteria for selecting a Caliph.