Definition of "caliphate" [cal•i•phate]

• The office or jurisdiction of a caliph. The last caliphate was held by Ottoman Turkish sultans until it was abolished by Kemal Atatürk in 1924. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "And while Bush himself has not actually used the term caliphate, he's essentially described it last week when declaring that the terrorists are seeking to establish "a totalitarian Islamic empire that reaches from Indonesia to Spain.""
• "The term "caliphate" refers to a governance system based on sharia law as formerly used by successive Islamic empires."
• "To slur the word caliphate is to insult the chief function of the caliph, to defend the lands of Islam against foreign invaders."