America’s Decline and the Resurgence of the Concept of Khilafah (Caliphate)
(Translated)

Al-Rayah Newspaper - Issue 557 - 23/07/2025 CE

By: Advocate Hatem Jaafar (Abu Awab) *

Donald Trump returned to government, facing a heavy deluge of crises, both domestically and internationally, with major challenges confronting America, and the foremost among them is the shaking of its global standing. Yet Trump, a stubborn and self-confident man, skilled in struggle and confrontation, and never one to give up, intimidated his rivals and imposed himself as the party leader. He now returns to the White House for a second term in a strong comeback, armed with a sweeping victory over the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris. He is backed by major capitalist corporations, including the traditional capitalist sector represented by oil, arms, and railroad companies, who constitute core supporters of the Republican Party, as well as by the tech capitalist giants of Silicon Valley like Meta, Apple, Amazon, and others, which had supported Kamala Harris in the election, but then quickly joined Trump’s camp, with most of them donating a million dollars each for Trump’s inauguration ceremony.

This time, Trump comes to government armed with the ideas and plans of the conservative right, a political movement that emerged with America's founding, and took clearer shape in the 1950s as an influential force advocating for white Protestant male leadership, and a return to family values. One of its most well-known political figures was President Ronald Reagan.

One of the most distinctive features of American presidents is the speed with which their policies change, as they rely heavily on studies from think tanks and research centers. In Trump’s current presidential term, his policies are primarily influenced by the Heritage Foundation, a research and educational institution founded in 1973, with an annual budget of around 80 million dollars. It is considered one of the most prominent conservative right-wing think tanks, and was established in response to the emergence of several liberal think tanks, such as the Brookings Institute. The Heritage Foundation’s studies played a significant role in President Reagan’s victory in the Cold War during the 1980s.

Trump’s current policies are based on a research study published by the conservative Heritage Foundation in 2023, known as the “Project 2025: Presidential Transition Project.” The project’s plans were compiled into a book containing political recommendations entitled, “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.”

This study, which cost $22 million to produce, and is now being translated into action through Trump’s policies, allegedly aims to dismantle the deep state, return power to the people, resolve America’s political divide in favor of the conservative right, repair domestic fractures, and address the federal debt, which has reached $36.2 trillion. On the international front, it seeks to reinforce America's global standing.

The overarching theme that governs Trump’s foreign policy is cutting spending, lackmail, and exploiting others.

As for the Muslim lands, Trump’s policy is to fight the return of Islam, especially the Khilafah (Caliphate), which is the practical method to implement Islam in the form of a state. For this reason, America has made preserving its forward military base in our lands, the Jewish entity a top priority.

As for the methods and approaches, Trump relies on the use of hard power or the threat of it, completely disregarding the far more destructive force of soft power. This is why he commits genocide in Gaza in front of the cameras, aiming to empty Gaza of its people, by using his proxy the Jewish entity, and shows no regard for the feelings of Muslims or the open-minded people of the world. He even uses his aircraft to strike Iranian nuclear reactors, blatantly disregarding international law, and the very institutions America created to assert its global leadership.

Moreover, he seeks to drag more countries in the region into the Abraham Accords to normalize ties with the Jewish entity, which he wants to appoint as the “big brother” over the agent rulers of the fragile statelets. Al-Arabi TV reported Trump saying, “There are many countries that want to join the Abraham Accords, and Iran was the problem.”

There is no doubt that Trump, intoxicated by the thrill of power, and the submission of world leaders to his dictates, is ignorant of two fundamental realities:

First: The reality related to America and its domestic politics, namely:

That America has already traveled far down the path of decline, and that the policies Trump is pursuing are in fact a strategy of weakness, through which he is attempting to “Make America Great Again,” as his MAGA slogan proclaims. American society is suffering from deep domestic fractures, sometimes based on politics and power struggles between the state and the deep state, and at other times along racial lines, between whites and people of color. Trump’s policies only deepen these divisions, as he seeks to return power to the white man according to the vision of the conservative right. All of this signals a weakening, of both society and the state.

Furthermore, the America that emerged from World War II presenting itself as a beacon of freedom and high values, a nation that was once a colony of several European powers, has now had its ugly reality exposed. People around the world have come to see it as the number one colonialist power, an empire of absolute evil, devoid of any real value, much like the Mongols and Tatars who ravaged the world. Thus, America has lost all legitimacy to lead the world except by brute force.

Second: The reality related to Islam and the Muslims, namely:

That Islam is the true Deen, revealed by the All-Wise, All-Aware, Allah (swt), to set human affairs right in this worldly life; and that the elevated Muslim is a servant of Allah (swt), Who is his Master and Protector. Allah is the All-Powerful, the Almighty, Possessor of All-Might and All-Dominion, before whose greatness all creation submits. Allah (swt) grants victory to His believing servants in this life and in the Hereafter. Allah (swt) said,

[إِنَّا لَنَنصُرُ رُسُلَنَا وَالَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا وَيَوْمَ يَقُومُ الْأَشْهَادُ]

“Indeed, We will support Our messengers and those who believe during the life of this world and on the Day when the witnesses will stand.” [TMQ Surah Ghafir: 51].

Such a Muslim, who ascends to the rank of servitude to the One, the Supreme Judge, relies upon Allah (swt), drawing strength and aid from Him, thus pays no regard to America’s power nor to its alleged greatness and history is the best witness to that.

The immense tragedies that have crushed the Ummah over the past decades, and continue to do so have shaped its way of thinking. They have drawn its attention to its glorious past and miserable present, leading it to realize the profound truth in the saying of Al-Farooq ‘Umar (ra), نحن قوم أعزنا الله بهذا الدين فمهما ابتغينا العزة في غيره أذلنا الله “We are a people whom Allah has honored through Islam, and if we seek honor through anything else, Allah will humiliate us.”

The Ummah has come to understand that this Deen will not be alive in their lives, solving its crises and problems, except through its state, the Khilafah (Caliphate) upon the Method of Prophethood. Thus, the concept of the Khilafah has reemerged, and continues to rise throughout the Muslim lands, thanks to the efforts of the sincere. It has even become a public opinion among the Muslims. So much so that the colonialist disbeliever, led by a declining America, could do nothing but try to place obstacles in the path of this concept.

However, this is to no avail. The Khilafah lives in the hearts of the Muslims and is crystalized in the minds of the sincere, who carry the blueprint to establish it rightly-guided upon the Prophetic method. It proclaims the inevitability of its return, the Shariah obligation to support the oppressed Muslims women, children, and the elderly in Gaza and elsewhere, the crises of Muslims living without Islamic systems, the urgent need for Muslims to be one unified Ummah, the betrayal of rulers of Muslims, who have led the Ummah to disgrace, and the plundering of Muslim wealth, while they die of hunger in Gaza and the edges of Darfur, Sudan.

All of this makes the return of the Khilafah a necessity and explains the resurgence of its thought, a thought rooted in a living, dynamic Aqeedah (creed), carried by an Ummah that is the best nation ever brought forth for humanity,

[كُنْتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللهِ]

“You are the best Ummah produced for humanity. You enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah.” [TMQ Surah Aali Imran: 110].

* Member of the Hizb ut Tahrir Wilayah of Sudan