The extremists who have taken over parts of Iraq and Syria say they want to restore the caliphate — but they really don’t get what that means. Here’s how, from Caliphornian wine to cultural melting pots.
I understand you wish to restore the caliphate in Iraq and Syria. But are you sure this is really what you want? As a secular, liberal Arab living in the 21st century, I'm not keen on turning back the clock in this way, but I think I'm better prepared for it than you.
Judging by your brutal and bloodthirsty behavior and the twisted rulebook you've released, I have this sneaking suspicion that you have no idea what bringing back the caliphate actually means or involves. Let me give you a clue, it would entail thriving in diversity, penning odes to wine, investing in science, patronizing the arts … not to mention appointing a gay court poet.
For your benefit and other jihadist novices, here is my guide to how to build a successful caliphate – or "bring back glory of the Islamic Caliphate", to quote you – in half a dozen simple steps:
Caliphornian wine and Caliphornication
Painting by Yahyâ ibn Mahmûd al-Wâsitî / Via Yorck Project
In spring if a houri-like sweetheart
Gives me a cup of wine on the edge of a green cornfield,
Though to the vulgar this would be blasphemy,
If I mentioned any other Paradise, I'd be worse than a dog.
Omar al-Khayyam (translated by Karim Emami)
ISIS has banned alcohol, as well as drugs and cigarettes, in the domain under its control. But what these fanatics seem to misunderstand is that alcohol may be prohibited religiously (haram) in Islam, but there was plenty of full-bodied Caliphornian wine around, as the above verse by Omar al-Khayyam illustrates, which follows in the tradition of khamariyat, or wine poetry.
"Commanders of the faithful" they may have been but Caliphs were known to indulge in the unholy grape. These included the Umayyads and the Abbasids. Even Harun al-Rashid, who is regarded as the most "rightly guided" of the later caliphs, is reputed to have drunk. And even if al-Rashid himself did not partake, his court did, as mythologised in many stories of the 1,001 Arabian Nights, especially his gay court poet Abu Nuwas, who definitely preferred wine to girls.
Don't cry for Leila and don't rejoice over Hind
Instead drink to the rose from a rosy red wine.
A glass which, when tipped down the drinker's throat,
Leaves its redness in both the eye and the cheek.
Camp, outrageous, irreverent and witty, Abu Nuwas was considered the greatest poet of his time and is still up there among the greats, despite the more puritanical age we live in, where his odes to male love would make a modern Muslim blush.
Come right in, boys. I'm
a mine of luxury – dig me.
Well-aged brilliant wines made by
monks in a monastery! shish-kebabs!
Roast chickens! Eat! Drink! Get happy!
and afterwards you can take turns
shampooing my tool.
Owing to the apparent jealousy of his mentor in Harun al-Rashid's court, Ziryab, the Sultan of Style, fled to the rival Umayyad court in Cordoba, where, among other things, he taught Europeans how to become fashion slaves. The Cordoba mosque itself also influenced later European architecture.
Strength in diversity
The Cordoba mosque, which incorporates Roman and Gothic elements within a uniquely Islamic whole.
