On June 29, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani al-Shami, the official spokesman for the Islamic State (IS, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS), announced the establishment of the “Islamic caliphate” in the lands the organization controls in Syria and Iraq. On July 4, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his first public appearance at the Great Mosque in the city of Mosul, and led Friday prayers under the name of Caliph Ibrahim, emir of the faithful in the Islamic state.
In his sermon Friday, Baghdadi called on all Muslims in the far-reaching points of the world to join the recently formed IS, to support it in extending its authority over all Muslim territory. Previously, his group had announced a map for an Islamic caliphate, to include large areas from India to southern Europe, and expressed its plan to seize this region within five years.
Various parts in the Muslim world have witnessed demonstrations in support of the establishment of the Islamic caliphate, from Jordan — which neighbors the area — to Indonesia and the Philippines in the far east of the Muslim world. Protesters pledged allegiance to the caliph and expressed their willingness to immediately support him when demanded. Moreover, large groups affiliated with Jabhat al-Nusra, which competes with the IS, declared their allegiance to the caliphate after the establishment of the IS was announced. This was coupled with Syrian and Iraqi tribes that rushed to pledge allegiance to the Islamic caliphate in IS-controlled areas.
In another context, the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, denounced the IS' announcement of the caliphate in a statement issued on July 4. However, he stressed that restoring the caliphate is an original Islamic principle that “we are all eager to [achieve] and we all think about with all of our minds, and our hearts beat with passion for it. We all dream of an Islamic caliphate upon the prophetic example, and we wish for it to be established sooner rather than later from the bottom of our hearts.” It is worth mentioning that Qaradawi is a spiritual leader and theoretician of the Muslim Brotherhood, which shares the basic fundamentalist principles with jihadist Salafist groups, although they have different doctrines.
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