Several Christian kingdoms pushed the Arabs south, finally reconquering the last remnant of the Caliphate of Al-Andalus in 1492.

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W. Madelung, The succession to Muhammad: A study of the early Caliphate.

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It was harder, you might think, for the Church of England and the Catholic establishment in France to explain their support of the caliphate.

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Although Western unease toward Morsi's Islamist politics is justified by recent experience, the existence of historical and political variation offers hope that Egypt won't become a new caliphate.

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The older parts include Hassan Mosque (started in 1184) and the Almohad ramparts and gates, the only surviving parts of the project for a great capital city of the Almohad caliphate as well as remains from the Moorish, or Andalusian, principality of the 17th century.

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Regarding the latter, the progressive, centuries-long, gradual decline of Islam as a dominant force and civilization reached its nadir in 1924, when Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) simultaneously did away with the Caliphate and the Ottoman Empire by overnight transforming the latter into a secular Turkish republic.

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