Introduction

The Caliphate is a vast nation, stretching from Eastern Europe right across to the Western border of China, it has swallowed up Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran and the various other nations in between. Almost every Islam-dominated country on the "world's mainland" has been absorbed into the Caliphate. Despite it's name, and the character of the nations it has taken over, the Caliphate is not an expressley Islamic entity. It merges the values of secular, liberal democracy with the brutality and efficiency of fascism. Creating a nation where everybody can be happy and free, but if they ever take an eye, the state will likely take both... and a few teeth for good measure.

History

Political System

The Caliphate is a fascist nation with a Ruling Council, a Caliph, and the Mutlaks. The Ruling Council is it's parliament, and has two houses. The People's House is elected by geographical regions, much like the present-day British House of Commons. This leads to a heavy imbalance of identities, as Jews, Coptic Christians and Zoroastrians will always be underrepresented. To counter this, there is also the Senate, in which each community is represented by just two members, elected from said communities (citizens "join" one via the census when they turn 18). There is also an "atheist community", with it's two members. This complete balance of views in the upper house ensures that nothing in the Caliphate ever really changes, ensuring political stability.

Though the Caliphate is effectively secular, it's population is almost entirely Muslim. The Quran says that the apocalyptic final battle between good and evil will occur during the reign of the fourteenth Caliph. The Caliphate has existed for far longer than this (and is a continuation of previous caliphates from ancient times). It has also seen a number of competing claims from multiple families as to who is the rightful heir to the throne. It gets around this by rotating members of these familes as Caliph. The end of the world will only occur during the reign of the fourteenth true Caliph. Though every family claims to be the true heir, none of them knows for certain, and thus every Caliph claims to be the thirteenth, and are styled as such. When the end of the world actually occurs, the sitting Caliph will be hurriedly crowned as the fourteenth. A number of officials remain in the palace, in constant readiness for the event. The Caliph otherwise functions like the British monarch, sitting as a figurehead and signing off legislation. He also claims spiritual leadership over the nation's (and the world's) Muslims... though they don't all accept it.

The Mutlaks are the important "glue" that holds the Caliphate together - and the source of it's pent-up barbarity against citizens who do not partake in the grand experiment of peaceful coexistence. They are a continuation of an ancient Middle-Eastern "police force". Their name roughly means "owned" or "property". The Mutlaks are the property of the Caliph, and answer directly to him alone (in theory, actually they answer to the constitution). Mutlaks are taken in for training at just five years old (from orphanages, or volunteered by poor parents). They live their entire childhood and teenage years inside vast fortresses, where they are constantly drilled in the laws of the Caliphate, respect for the constitution, and combat. At eighteen they are released back into society, initially as apprentices, but eventually as fully-qualified Mutlaks. By this time, the consitution and law are effectively their religion, and they function as the police force of the Caliphate. Like the characters in the British comic Judge Dredd, they can pass sentence instantly, if they witness a crime being committed. They can also stop and search, or interrogate, anybody at any time. The Mutlaks are given duties in different parts of the country completely at random, and are rotated every four months. The size of the country means they will often be moved vast distances, and will come into contact with people of a completely different race or religion. This prevents any possibility of corruption or favouritism, at least at the individual level. To further reduce the possibility, their uniform almost entirely obscures their faces and hands - preventing criminals from recognising a Mutlak as "one of them". They are also heavily indoctrinated against racism and tribalism, though. Any criminal who tries it is liable to be coughing up teeth.

Geography

The Ruling Council is based in a huge and ornately-decorated palace in the "city of a thousand mosques", Baghdad. After many decades of wars and violence, the peace bought by the Caliphate has seen this city become a beautiful centre of art and culture, and one of the world's primary tourist attractions. In time, people born on the Moon, Mars or other worlds make Baghdad their first destination, when they come to visit "the old planet". Baghdad is also the centre of the Caliphate's Arabic culture. Tehran is the hub of it's large Persian minority (and the second city) and Mecca the centre of most of it's religious life, with Jerusalem it's religious "second city" and an important location for Judaism and Christianity. Many Christians from around the world now make a Hajj-like pilgrimage to Bethlehem, a booming location for tourism and Christian culture now that it is located in a safe and stable nation.

The vast size of the Caliphate gives it a huge range of geography, which is as much a tourist attraction as it's beautiful ancient and modern architecture, vibrant religious culture and stunning museums and art galleries. While a large part of the country is desert, the north and east have incredible valleys, lakes and other scenery. Huge engineering projects have made large parts of the desert flower, and the huge farmlands of former Iran are the Caliphate's breadbasket. The Caliphate's coastlines on the Indian Ocean and Mediterrenean sea, apart from hauling in yet more tourist money (somebody once estimated the entire manufacturing industry could take a fully-paid year off and cause no more than a blip in the economy), also bring booming trade from huge container ports. These have banks of factories, steelworks and oil wells at the back of them which bring gainful employment to the billions of citizens. Vast house-sized (some even containing hotels and residential flats) trains plod slowly over the countryside, taking containers from one ocean to the other over land, reducing ocean pollution, the "headaches" ships give to Whales and other large marine life, and the price of goods moving between hemispheres. These trains run largely on power generated at large solar farms spaced along their routes. Said desert-based farms also provide clean and cheap power to the Caliphate's cities too, of course, and most buildings have their own array of panels.

Rural Areas, Small Cities

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Economy

The Caliphate has an absolutely booming economy, rivalling the huge capitalist superpowers of China and Brazil. The Caliphate does not "show" as much of this wealth, though. As it is a fascist nation, and thus fundamentally collective, this wealth primarily moves around within the country, or is traded outside only for material goods, and is not used as a leverage for "power" on the international stage.

Tourism is, as stated, a vast business in the Caliphate. It's area encompasses great buildings and cities of ancient civilisations, "restored" to a pristine "ruined" state after the vandalism, deliberate and accidental, of decades of warfare and especially the cultural and historical terrorism of the infamous Islamic State period. Archaeological digs, overseen by historians from world-class universities (and funded by generous "cultural grants" from the government), have been the basis of several new and beautifully-designed museums. These have guidance from hi-tech information panels in many languages, attracting visitors from all over the world, who can learn about the ancient basis for the world's great civilisations whilst standing on the actual spot where it all happened.

In addition to ancient culture, the freeing of the Arabic and Persian peoples from strict religious laws (which many continue to adhere to voluntarily, anyway), poverty and warfare, civil and otherwise, has seen their culture boom. The economy and safety of the Caliphate has also seen huge foreign investment, with the influx of foreigners to follow it. While most of the world sees multiculturalism as a disastrous failiure, the Caliphate is considered to have "got it right", primarily with a brainwashed-from-birth multiracial, but entirely monocultural, police force ready to unleash hell on anybody who doesn't smile happily and go about their business. This boom in modern culture does, of course, attract it's own tourists. All those museums are accompanied by art galleries equally as beautiful and diverse. The foreigners in the caliphate have all bought their own culture, which has been grabbed up by the Arabs and Persians and had their own spin put on it. Baghdad Tourism advertises on other planets with "See the Earth - see Baghdad",

Public Transport

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Society

Military

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Immigration

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Foreign Relations

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