“Listen to your caliph and obey him. Support your state, which grows every day,” said Abu Mohamed al-Adnani, announcing the rebirth of the Caliphate in the broad territory between Aleppo in northern Syria and Diyala province in eastern Iraq.
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The Sunni Muslim organisation that conquered almost half of Iraq in early June has changed its name.
Before, it was ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Now it wishes to be known simply as the “Islamic State” – for there can only be one such state, and it should include everywhere that Muslims have ever ruled.
ISIS propagandists have even produced a map showing the ultimate borders that their Islamic State lays claim to.
Spain and Portugal will be part of it, because they were ruled by Muslim conquerors during much of the Middle Ages.
All of India except the southern tip should be under the rule of the Caliph for the same reason.
Serbia, Croatia and Hungary must be part of the Islamic State, for the Ottomans onceconquered all the Balkans. Plus half of Africa, and Indonesia, and even southwestern Siberia.
So much for the fantasy.
What’s the reality?
A group of jihadis have seized a big chunk of eastern Syria and western Iraq and declared an Islamic State.
It is extraordinary that the 7th-century caliphate has reappeared.
To the west and east they are already at war with regimes that are either very tough (Syria) or very Shia (the south-eastern slice of Iraq).
To the south-west, however, lies more promising territory.
Jordan’s population is about two-thirds Palestinian, and even among the Bedouin tribes that are the mainstay of King Abdullah’s rule there was some enthusiasm for ISIS’s victory in Iraq.
If Jordan fell, the Islamic State would reach right up to Israel’s borders, with incalculable consequences.
But even if ISIS gets very lucky, it is unlikely to get farther than that.
Egypt blocks its expansion to the west.
Even its direct competitors in the Refound-The-Caliphate business – al-Qaeda, al-Shabab, Boko Haram and their lesser brethren – are unlikely to accept the ISIS leader as caliph.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi now styles himself Caliph Ibrahim, but the sheer extremism and intolerance of ISIS’s members make it unlikely that their project will survive unaltered for more than a year or so even in the territory that now makes up the “Islamic State”.
Nevertheless, it is extraordinary that the 7th-century caliphate has reappeared even fleetingly in the modern world.
Bush and Blair have a lot to answer for.
