Challenging the Caliphate

Ömer Koçyiğit is an assistant professor in the Institute of Middle East and Islamic Countries Studies at Marmara University, and a guest researcher at Leiden University. Previous publications include Kabudlu Mustafa Vasfi Efendi: Tevârîh (2016).

• Introduction; Part I. The Caliphate and its Dissenters: 1. The Caliphate: the ottoman state as the guardian of Islam; 2. Wahhabism and Mahdism: two rebellious movements; 3. Wahhabism as a local matter in the age of caravans and manuscripts; Part II. Ottoman Ideological Reactions to Wahhabism and Mahdism in the Age of Steam and Print: 4. The ideological reactions of the centre to Wahhabism; 5. The ottoman mindset versus Sudanese Mahdism; Part III. Ottoman Political Measures Targeting Two Rebellious Movements: 6. Maintaining public order: the surveillance of mobility; 7. Censoring the 'Pernicious Publications' of Wahhabism and Mahdism; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

'Scholarship on 19th century Muslim intellectual history approaches the rise of Wahhabism, Mahdism and increasing reputation of the Ottoman Caliphate as responses to Western imperial hegemony. Challenging the Caliphate corrects this misconception by highlighting Wahhabi and Mahdist movement's dissent with the crucial Tanzimat reforms championed by the Ottoman Caliph, and intra-Muslim polemics in an era of deep transformation propelled by technologies of communication and transformations. Koçyiğit's book dislodges many of the conventional assumptions about the Ottoman policies towards religious dissent and Pan-Islamic solidarity by linking histories of Ottoman Caliphate, Wahhabism and Mahdist thought.' Cemil Aydin, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill