Rashidun Caliphate (Principia Moderni IV Map Game)

The Rashidun Caliphate (Arabic, اَلْخِلَافَةُ لرَّاشِدَةُ al-Khilāfah ar-Rāshidah) is a theocratic, elective nation located in the Middle East, North and East Africa. After the Abbasid Caliphate had been overthrown in the Sixth Fitna in 1599, the Ulema (or Council of Senior Scholars) took full control over both the nation and the religion of Islam. Rather than installing a new dynasty, the Ulema created a system of non-dynastic, elected Caliphs expanded from the former office of Grand Vizier. This system was heavily based on the Old Rashidun Caliphate, the original dynasty to rule Islam from 610-668 AD.

The Caliphate is generally remembered for bringing Islam into the modern world, particularly by uniting the sects of Sunni and Shia. Since its founding, the Caliphate is also the primary forefather of most representative government outside of Europe.

The Caliph
The name Rashidun derives from the Arabic word الراشيدة ("Rashida")  which literally means "Rightly-Guided" or "Wisely-Guided". The original Rashidun Calipahte, which ruled from 622-661 AD, was a period of non-dynastic Caliphs that ruled over the early, primordial period of Islam. The name was reused officially in 1600, the 1000th anniversary of the Conquest of Mecca, as a way of describing the new form of elected Caliphs, reportedly as a more formalized version of the original dynasty. The Tables of Government and the Kitaab Al-Kabir stand as the founding documents and constitution of the Caliphate, outlining all the government described here.

The Caliph is an elected office that reigns for life. When the Caliph dies, a delegation of the Ulema is appointed by the Maktab Al-Qudds, which is the secondary authority over religious affairs. This delegation of scholars then vote among themselves in absolute secret who will succeed as Caliph. Once the new Caliph is elected, there is a coronation ceremony that invests the successor with the seal and mantle of Muhammad, as well as the Three Treasures of Egypt. A unanimous vote among the Ulema may remove the Caliph from office as well; however, the Caliph emeritus returns to his former post, and can be re-elected if necessary.

Initially, the Rashidun Caliphs held prestige by being related to the founder of the nation, Khalid Abdul Hamid Salih. The House of Hassan-Salih, reaching back to the first Grand Vizier Mehmed Hassan in the Abbasid Caliphate, were the primary forces to end the Abbasid Dynasty in the Sixth Fitna and invest power to the Ulema. However, the culture of the Rashidun was generally opposed to the idea of hereditary rule, and in 1607 the Ulema voted to remove Ahmed Ibn Harb Salih from power. Since then, it is an unsaid rule that no Caliph can be elected who is related to any previous Caliph.

Other Offices
The Caliph is the head of the government, and has executive authority over both religious and secular offices. For most decisions over the state, legislative power is held by the Council of Senior Scholars, or the Ulema. The Caliph has authority to organize the military and executive policies, as well as appoint offices, but these can be revised or superseded by the Ulema. However, the Caliph has the ability to make unilateral orders over religious organization, as well as appoint religious offices without the Ulema's approval, although he can delegate this power if necessary.

The members of the Ulema is limited to 72 members. It constantly evolves to be the most respected religious scholars at any time. However, as the population of the Caliphate grew, many dozens of auxiliary councils of the Ulema also existed as part of the government. Candidate new members of the Ulema are appointed by the Caliph and approved by the remaining members. However, there is much preference towards scholars within the Middle East proper, namely in Syria and Mesopotamia.

Both the Caliph and the Ulema meet at the Citidel of Damascus as the central capital of the empire. The former Abbasid residence of the Qamar Al-Rahim is kept as personal property of the Ulema, but no one lives there.

Under the Ulema, the government is divided between the Maktab Al-Qudds ("The Holy Office") and the Shay Al-Nass ("Thing of the People"). The Maktab Al-Qudds is the head of religious affairs, and is the highest religious office above the ecclesiastical hierarchy created by the Abbasids. The Maktab Al-Qudds also has the job of electing new Caliphs. The Shay Al-Nass is the highest secular court, and makes administrative decisions over secular authorities. Starting in 1616, the Rashidun Caliphate created a full judicial system using jury by ten peers to judge guilt.

The Rashidun retained the same Millet system and administrative structure of the Abbasids before them. In fact, many hereditary nobility within the Caliphate still retained relation to the Abbasid Dynasty. Enclaves of nomadic groups exist in the Middle East as well, primarily within the Arabian peninsula. After the Unification of Arabia, the Bedouin tribes of the empty quarter were given nominal autonomy to retain their culture.

External Territories
After consolidating the internal state after the Sixth Fitna, the Rashidun Caliphate did very little towards expanding the core territory of the nation. Rather, the Rashidun formalized the Abbasid vassalization system, and established an extensive system of external state administration. In the first 20 years of the Caliphate, the Rashidun established over a dozen external governments across the world from China to Laurentia (OTL South America).

In this external system, states are arranged in three categories: colony, vassal, and protectorate. A colony has no local administration or military, but is used as outpost for nearby states. Vassals can raise their own military, but their government is integrated as part of the Rashidun government, and their economy is controlled by the Rashidun. Protectorates are more autonomous, but still is subservient to the Ulema and pays tribute to it.

Different regions were acquired under different circumstances. Pontus had been approaching the Caliphate for protectorate since the late Abbasids, but the Sixth Fitna delayed the protectorate from being established until the Treaty of Tbilisi in 1604. The Golden Jihad from 1602-1605, that destroyed the Empire of Aryavarta, established Gujarat as a vassal of the Caliphate, as well as the colonies in Lakhadshweep, Chittagong, and Andaman Islands. Subsequent to this expansion, the Sultanate of Aceh was made a vassal in 1611. In Persia, the Shahdom of Iran had been gradually influenced by the Caliphate ever since the Cloaked Jihad in the 1520s. In 1624, the electors of Iran named Caliph Al-Qarnayn the honorary title of Shahanshah, or Emperor of Persia. In 1631, Iran formally became a protectorate of the Calipahte. In 1661, the Jin Dyansty of China leased the port of Gulangyu to the Rashidun, being the farthest territory east ever controlled.

Many external territories are large enough that they have dependencies of their own. Iran owns the Emirate of Sindh as vassal, and the Ottoman Empire owns Pontus as its colony. Oman holds its own colonial empire across the Indian Ocean as far as Mauritius and Qamar (Madagasgar). Finally, Morocco has its own colonial empire across the Atlantic Ocean in parts of Africa and Laurentia.

Military
Knowing the Abbasid Caliphate was famed for their armies, the Rashidun kept all the same military structure and technology as it was used in the Sixth Fitna. As the military recovered from the civil war at the beginning of the 17th century, it was heavily upgraded to utilize the flintlock gunpowder technology, for both long range and short range weapons. Mortars and other heavy artillery were upgraded as well. The rest of the army, including the cavalry, infantry, and Kilab Al-Rub were kept identical to the former dynasty.

Expanding influence into the Indian Ocean, as well as the Atlantic Ocean, the Rashidun Caliphate expanded the navy to the largest extend of any Muslim dynasty. This work of expansion was primarily done by Admiral Reis Al-Nasser, possibly the greatest admiral of Muslim history. Al-Nasser worked for the Ulema in almost every naval campaign from the end of the Abbasid dynasty all the way into the height of the Rashidun. His memoirs document how he pioneered naval technology during the invasion of India in the Golden Jihad. He founded the naval academy of Aden in 1619, and there developed innovated technology for ships, such as the placement of mortars on galleys. In the 1620s, Nasser was the first to fit all ships with log tables, utilized for calculating maximum trajectory using calculus. The only navy that could rival the Rashidun was that of the Sulanate of Oman, which was then crushed at the Unificaiton of Arabia.

During the Great Turkish War, the Ottoman general Ismail Pasha took careful note of the more rigid formation and line infantry of the Tsardom of Belka. Ismail escaped from the disastrous Battle of Bayzapan in 1638, he reported to the Ulema in Damascus all of his findings, publishing the book Akher Al-Harb Al-Qadeem, or in English, "the End of Ancient Warfare". This completely revolutionized the military in the Caliphate, ultimately utilized to prevent Belka and the Crusaders from winning the war. At the Battle of Antifakh that ended the war, Pasha also developed battling in trenches as used by Salman Al-Fars in the original Rashidun Calipahte. After the Great Turkish war, Rashidun armies have been built for block formations per company, with line infantry fire.

Religion
As a theocratic state at the head of Islam, organization of religion is extremely significant to the Rashidun Calipahte. The Rashidun considered themselves in the same way as the Papal States in Italy, as merely the personal property of the religious head. Caliphs would equally make legislations in religious matters as in secular ones. The most prolific occasion of this was Caliph Al-Ruqayya, who made many changes to the Friday liturgy while accommodating the Council of Basra. The Rashidun always saw themselves as the spiritual successor of the original Rashidun of the 7th century, and gave the appearance of conducting religion in the manner of that period. In 1601, Caliph Salih took special note of the 1000th anniversary of the conquest of Mecca in 630 AD.

Although Sunni Islam is important in that regard to the Caliphate, the Rashidun are most famous for their great enlightenment and openness of many different philosophies, due to the elective, participatory approach the Rashidun system offered. This is especially apparent in relation to the Shia factions. As the Shia-Sunni split, in effect for almost 1,000 years, was always a contention over the succession of Muhammad, the elective system made that succession a moot point.

Caliph Al-Ruqayya, in the Grand Council of Basra, formally offered the unity between Shia and Sunni. This was finalized after Ruqayya's death in 1615, when Caliph Ajead of the Ziyadi scholars was elected Caliph of Sunni Islam. This helped to further grow influence in Iran, as in 1634 Zarathustra was declared by the Ulema to be a prophet of the pre-Islamic period. Starting in 1638, Muslim scholars gleaned wisdom from the Avestan literature of Zoroastrianism, allowing that faith to grow in the far eastern provinces.

As with the Abbasid Dynasty, the Rashidun Caliphate considered Hinduism a mortal enemy, and continued the earlier Hindu-Muslim Wars started by Aryavarta to a whole new level. The Golden Jihad from 1603-1605 brought every Muslim nation to bear against the pagans in the Indian heartland, to the point of reviving the Indian Myth from medieval Musilm propaganda. Further east, the Caliphate managed to settle communities in southeast Asia for the proliferation of Islam, particularly in Malaya and southern China. The genocide of the Hui people under the Tan and Jin dynasties continued to hold a wedge between Islam and the Chinese traditional religion, but not to a significant level.

Christianity
The Coptic Church became very significant in the Rashidun dyansty. After the Arab-Ethiopian War, the Coptic population greatly increased in East Africa throughout the 16th century, and helped to take down the Abbasid dynasty in the Sixth Fitna. For this reason, the Rashidun Caliphate tried to remain on good terms with the Coptic papacy, and gave increased tolerance for it. As time progressed, more Amharic people from Ethiopia became more nomadic people across Egypt, a period known as the "Amharic Sojourn". This led to the Coptic Church creating a more complex hierarchical system to directly administrate over the Churches across Africa.

Greek and Armenian Orthodoxy, especially within the Ottoman Empire, always caused a point of contention within the nation, especially during the western schism of the Hitlerite Wars. Other Christian communities within the Rashidun were given the same tolerance as they had within the Abbasids. For this reason, the Rashidun Caliphs reached out to grow closer to the Roman Pope, in order to balance the influence the Patriarch of Vasiligrad had on the Pentarchal Churches. In 1615, the Caliph sent the holy relic of the Pot of Abraham to the Pope, and in 1617 the Conference of Alexandria started a dialogue between the two faiths. This relation collapsed with the Great Turkish War, especially as the invading Belkan army brutally executed thousands of non-combatant Muslims. This earned the Orthodox as the expression of "Belkan Beasts".

Economy
The economy of the Rashidun Caliphate was largely inherited from the Abbasid Dynasty. The Bank of Cairo still held the largest share of finances, with a large emphasis placed on trade and exportation. Domestic products of export mostly include coffee, gold, and silver bullion, as well as cotton and perfumes. More manufactured products include works of art and tapestry. More exact products vary between markets exported to. Agriculture was also the backbone of the economy just as it was in previous dynasties. The Rashidun kept the same 'iqta system of taxation the Abbasids used. Cotton was first imported from India after Gujarat was vassalized in the Golden Jihad. By the mid 17th century, cotton was fully planted in Egypt as a local domestic product.

Indian Ocean
The Rashidun Caliphate envisioned a goal to completely dominate the Indian Ocean, as the Gurkani Sultanate did in their time, and monopolize trade across between Africa, Europe, and Asia. The Arab-Indian Company continued in the same way it did before, as well as trade across the seas as far as China and Korea. In fact, the sea trade to the far east was so massive by this point, that the former Compact of Beyrut (based on overland trade) was completely abandoned.

One of the main exports unique to the Indian Ocean trade was based on African slavery. Slavery had been a large part of the Muslim dynasties for thousands of years, but from the very beginning of the Rashidun Caliphate they worked towards its complete abolition. The beginning of the 17th century showed a gradual transition towards the French model of contracted servants, until all exports were stopped in 1608. In 1617, after the Unification of Arabia, the practice was formally made illegal. This completely stopped the slave trade across North Africa until the late 17th century. However, by 1624 Swahili and Oman began resuming the trade outside of the Calipahte's control.

A large part of establishing control over the Indian Ocean was creating colonial possessions in India. The ongoing Hindu-Muslim Wars came to a head in 1602, when Aryavarta broke the peace of India to take the Andaman islands from Burgundy. The resulting Golden Jihad completely pushed Aryavarta from the coastlines of India, and seized all their possessions in the Indian Ocean. Aryavarta would continue to fight back in subsequent wars as well, but this was the main turning point of Muslim dominance on the seas.

The strait of Malacca, situated between Malaya and Sumatra, was therefore extremely important to maintain this connection. Although Malaya was a protectorate of Burgundy, the combined colonies of Sumatra, Aceh, Andaman, and Chittagong helped to establish tight control over the straits. In general, the Kingdom of Burgundy remained the largest rival to the Caliphate for control over Southeast Asia, as well as influence in East Asian economy.

During the Unification of Arabia in 1615, the rouge Omani navy loyal to the exiled Nabhani Dynasty in Qamar waged a war at sea against the Rashidun navy, turning into pirates. After Oman was re-unified as a Rashidun vassal, the Qamarid Pirates continued to become a staple as well as a thorn of trade in the Indian Ocean. However, starting in 1618 the pirates were employed as privateers by Oman and the Rashidun to reek havoc for Burgundy.

Mediterranean
Trade through the Mediterranean sea was also very important to the Rashidun Caliphate, as it was carried over from the Abbasids. Exported goods to the west mainly goes to the older allies of the Caliphate, namely France and Belka. Smaller trade also existed for Iberia and Venice, but these were more sporadic depending on Europe's political situation. The Treaty of Tunis, which had leased the Gibraltar peninsula to Iberia for 99 years after 1525, was renewed in 1614, in order to keep peaceful relations there. In general, after the age of exploration killed the Silk Road, the Rashidun was much less concerned about directly trading with Europe as previous Egyptian dynasties had done. Rather, the Caliphate focused on its Indian colonies and expanded trade pushing eastward to China.

Because of this, the Rashidun allowed its vassals of Morocco, Cyprus, and Turkey to keep control over the trade in the White Sea. Morocco was the source of Barbary pirates harassing the states of Iberia and Italy. The Ottomans, in the middle of the remaining Orthodox nations, controlled trade in the Black sea with its own colony of the Crimean Khanate, until that was given to the Kingdom of Pontus. Cyprus remained the largest source of Mediterranean trade, and in the Great Turkish War it succeeded to defend the eastern White Sea against multiple attempted attacks by Belka.

After the naval campaigns in the Sixth Fitna and Golden Jihad, the Rashidun resumed construction of the Fatha Al-Farun in the Sinai peninsula, which had been abandoned by the Abbasids. The canal was finished construction in 1611, but it remained under the direct control of the Caliph with restricted access to a small selection of ships from Europe. At the Conference of Alexandria, the Roman Pope was personally given permission to utilize the canal.

Atlantic Ocean
Starting in 1601, the Sultanate of Africa centered at Morocco began sending expeditions to colonize the new world, specifically Laurentia. This was mainly done to match the wealth and influence Arabia had over the Indian Ocean by having its own path to Asia. The largest colony Morocco possessed was the Tajamanid Emirate, located on the most southern tip of the continent. This was created by colonizing and vassalizing the native Ona people of the Bonapaarta straits. The second largest colony owned by Morocco was the Oyo Emirate, a section of coast of West Africa taken during Benin's civil war.

Morocco had acquired various other smaller ports across the Atlantic Ocean and West African coast as well, but these were frequently exchanged as the economy permitted. At one period in the 1630s, the Kingdom of Arawaka in Brazil was made a protectorate of Morocco, and its population converted to Islam.

The Zulu empire formed in the 1610s offered a native African nation to accept trade from the Rashidun Caliphate. In the 1630s, Shaka Zulu toured the Caliphate to acquire more technology and open diplomacy. From 1639-1646, the explorer Salah Ibn Tulun circumnavigated the globe by journeying westward through the Bonapaart Straits, across the Pacific Ocean, then through the strait of Malacca to enter the Indian Ocean back to the Caliphate. Ibn Tulun proved that he could encircle the globe without ever leaving the Caliph's domains.

Culture
Literature

The Rashidun Caliphate kept a culture based on enlightenment and diversity, which ultimately became a mixture of the Old Abbasid Caliphate and the Fatimid Caliphate in its cultural basis. In the 1620s, the Ulema pushed to update the Library of Alexandria and the House of Wisdom in Baghdad to hold copies of all books around the world up to the latest science and technology. One symbol of this cultural shift was the adoption of the fez, a traditionally Turkish headdress, which quickly replaced the turban as the main head covering within the first decade of the 17th century. Beyond being the most popular hat, the fez quickly became a cultural icon of the Rashidun Caliphate and its society in general.

Another cultural icon was the Pan-Islamic Games, a series of competitions loosely based on the Olympics held at the city of Mecca. The Islamic Games thrived on the vast geographic expanse of the Rashidun's influence, picking up athletes from as far away as Laurentia and Busan. However, it was actually only held once in 1618 and never formally organized.

Delving back into its Semitic roots of oral tradition, works of ballads and poetry was very important to the Rashidun Caliphate. Sonnets, the distinctive poem of 14 lines, was brought from England starting in 1600. The various wars of expansion conducted by the Rashidun also included their own ballads. The most famous example of this was the Ballad of Bahla, romanticizing how general Mustansir Al-Obied fought bravely against the Rashidun forces during the Unification of Arabia. Various other stories exist within the Rashidun romanticizing the lives of Al-Ankhabut, Ibn Tulun, and Al-Najm the Great.

The most famous works of prose were generally about military service and the expansion of Islam. During the Golden Jihad from 1602-1605, the old anti-Hindu propaganda was exemplified in the popular dissertation Wars of Pagan India. During the war itself, the Admiral Reis Al-Nasser composed his personal memoirs detailing the style and conditions of fighting in that region. This was later complemented by Ismail Pasha's work during the Great Turkish War, The End of Ancient Warfare.

Chronicles and other works of history were also extremely famous during the Rashidun era. In 1617, the Tarikh Al-Farun (History of the Pharaohs) compiled a complete history of Pre-Achamenid Egypt utilizing the sources compiled during the Abbasid dynasty. Ancient Egyptian history was best understood by the Rashidun era due to the translation of Hieroglyphs generations earlier. After Persia became a vassal in 1630, archaeological expeditions into the nation uncovered much more information of the Empire's history, discovering what is believed to be the grave of Zoroaster in 1633. In 1635, a complete history of the Mamluk Sultanate was compiled to remember the era that founded the modern Caliphate. In 1667, these previous histories were combined as source material to compile a complete history of the Caliphate from 1400 to the present day, a total of 267 years.

Science and Technology
Stemming from the enlightenment culture of the Rashidun era, there also grew a desire for more education and scientific advancement. Education for both elementary and advanced levels were expanded on a national scale starting in 1601, and the emphasis continued until the 1620s. This took off much faster when the Tomb of Al-M'ustasim II, the last Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad, was discovered in 1603. His great store house of books greatly contributed to the base of the Rashidun. Printing became very significant for the proliferation of knowledge, as the first scientific journal was published in 1626.

Mathematics were one of the first significant developments of the new generation. The most significant of these mathematicians, Mahmud Al-Msr, flourished from about 1614-1618. He developed the system of mathematics started by Al-Babil to formally establish the mordern system of calculus. In 1617, he invented the function of logarithm which was instrumental to naval technology. In 1618, he publihsed his findings related to caluclus and geometry in Al-Owelaid ("The Principles") in Alexandria. In the 1620s, this formed the basis of Euclidean philosophy that restructured education and the scientific method. In the new system, ideas are all scrutinized using a system of previously-proven ideas similar to Euclidean geometry.

Astronmy was also greatly developed during this time. Astronomy had continued to be developed since the Abbasids, but it wasn't until 1620 that the telescope was introduced to the Middle East. Simultaneous to this was the adoption of the heliocentric model of the universe, replacing centuries of geocentric ideas. In 1621, Al-Msr's calculus was applied to astronomy to create mathematical models for planetary motion. In 1622, the first proposal was made that the universe is inifinite in size, which is still a matter of controversy in the Caliphate to this day. Later in the 1620s, the planets of Uranus and Neptune were discovered with the telescope.

Develops of both biology and chemistry came later than these first achievements. The Ulema authorized the dissection of corpses for the use of science in 1613. Since the Abbasid plagues in the late 16th century, cholera was a cosntant threat under the Rashidun Caliphate. In the 1620s, the biologist Khalid Al-'Ab took special note of the use of shellfish in relation to outbreaks of cholera. Using these observations, Al-'Ab eventually perfected a system of innoculation which is the basis of modern vaccines. This revolutionized the field of medicine in the Caliphate, who proliferated the technology across its trade partners in Africa. In the field of chemistry, the original concept of four elements related to Platonic solids was abandoned starting in 1620. Throughout the next decade, new elements were isolated and added to the growing list, including chlorine, platinum, and bismuth.