Joel Richardson: What The New Caliphate Means For The World Is “Absolutely Profound”

“Another significant reality now that the caliphate has been restored is that it is actually mandatory for the caliphate to engage in perpetual jihad until there are literally no non-Muslims left throughout the world, or they submit to being subjected peoples.” Sounds a little like something that a man named John once described about 2,000 year ago. Are we witnessing before our very eyes the fulfillment of the second Beast that will ultimately be destroyed forever by the Lord Himself as prophesied by Daniel? It certainly looks that way today. As such, “let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober” …

Revelation 13:15-18, “The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate [‘psēphizō’ – reckon] the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is χξς.”

By Joel Richardson, WND – “Two weeks ago, our illustrious President Obama stood in the White House and made the following statement:

‘[T]he truth of the matter is that for all the challenges we face, all the problems that we have, if you had to be – if you had to choose any moment to be born in human history, not knowing what your position was going to be, who you were going to be, you’d choose this time. The world is less violent than it has ever been. It is healthier than it has ever been. It is more tolerant than it has ever been. It is better fed then it’s ever been. It is more educated than it’s ever been.’

On Sunday afternoon, my Twitter account lit up, as the various radical Muslims I follow erupted with jubilant declarations that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS) had officially declared a caliphate – an Islamic state ruled by Islamic Shariah. No longer is it ISIS, but simply the Islamic State (IS). After an official meeting of ISIS’ shura (religious) council, they named their shadowy leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, to be the Emir al-Mu’minin, or the commander of the faithful – the first ‘caliph’ in roughly 90 years. The caliph is essentially a Muslim pope, president and general all rolled into one.

The potential implications for the world are absolutely profound. First, according to Islamic jurisprudence, once a caliph has been declared, it is mandatory upon all Muslims to make a pledge of allegiance to the sitting caliph, known in Arabic as the bay’ah. The bay’ah translated is as follows:

‘I pledge my allegiance to the Commander of the Faithful, to hear and obey, in hardship and in blessings, to establish the religion of Allah, and to enforce Allah’s Shariah, and to expand the order of Allah, to establish the global Islamic state.’

According to various hadith (Muslim sacred traditions found outside of the Quran), if one does not make the pledge, he will die the death of jahiliyya, or as a non-Muslim, and should be treated as a non-Muslim:

‘[W]hen he stands before Allah on the Day of Judgment, and one who dies without having bound himself by an oath of allegiance (to an Amir) will die the death of one belonging to the days of Jahillyya.’ (Abu Muslim 20: 4562)

Already, there have been numerous tribal leaders and jihadi groups that have pledged their allegiance to the caliph with their lives. What groups will follow? What might it look like if various groups such as Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabab in Somalia and Kenya, al-Qaida in Yemen, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, and perhaps even segments of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and throughout the world begin swearing allegiance to the caliph? The dangers of a snowballing trend is profound. Rather than having an Islamic State spanning segments of Syria and Iraq, there could be smaller segments of the Islamic State in numerous other nations.

Consider the fact that even here in the United States, Mohamed Elibiary, one of three senior fellows on President Obama’s Homeland Security Advisory Council, is an open supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, the goal of which is the re-establishment of the caliphate.” Read more.

Self-Declared ‘Caliph’ Wants To Rule World And ‘No One In Iraq Or Any Neighboring Country Will Be Safe From These Plans’ – “Based on recent battlefield victories in Iraq and Syria, the Iraqi militant and his followers believe that the world’s Muslims are going to flock to their cause… [but] while many kings and rulers styled themselves as caliphs, they didn’t have the religious authority that implied… Time will tell if Baghdadi’s grab for power will allow him to hold on to a piece of Iraq and Syria… The Ottoman Sultan declared himself a caliph in 1880, partly in the hopes that Indian Muslims would turn on the colonial British administration there. It didn’t work … The Taliban’s Mullah Omar tried the caliph gambit too. In 1996, shortly after after conquering Kandahar and on the verge of controlling Afghanistan, he wrapped himself in a cloak purported to have been worn by the prophet Mohamed and declared himself the leader of the world’s Muslims. Today, Omar lives in Pakistan.” Read more.