CaliphateArticle Free Pass Caliphate, the political-religious
state comprising the Muslim community and the lands and peoples
under its dominion in the centuries following the death (ad 632)
of the Prophet Muḥammad. Ruled by a caliph (Arabic khalīfah,
“successor”), who held temporal and sometimes a degree of
spiritual authority, the empire of the Caliphate grew rapidly
through conquest during its first two centuries to include most
of Southwest Asia, North Africa, and Spain. Dynastic struggles
later brought about the Caliphate’s decline, and it ceased to
exist with the Mongol destruction of Baghdad in 1258. The urgent
need for a successor to Muḥammad as political leader of the
Muslim community was met by a group of Muslim elders in Medina
who designated Abū Bakr, the Prophet’s father-in-law, as caliph.
Several precedents were set in the selection of Abū Bakr,
including that of choosing as caliph a member of the Quraysh
tribe. The first four caliphs—Abū Bakr, ʿUmar I, ʿUthmān, and
ʿAlī—whose reigns constituted