Osama bin Laden's Dream Lives On

Osama bin Laden, whose al-Qaeda terror group was behind the devastating Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, has been dead for almost two years. But his dream lives on, and we see this being played out in headlines across the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.

What dream is that? It's the dream of forming an Islamic caliphate —a worldwide body of Muslim believers, transcending all national borders, united under Islamic sharia law and the rule of a caliph —a successor to the founder of Islam, Muhammad, who died in A.D. 632.

But the caliphate isn't an end in itself. Islam's holy book, the Koran, tells Muslims that Allah sent Muhammad "with guidance and the True Faith [Islam], so that he may exalt it above all religions" (Surah 61:9, Dawood translation). Thus the purpose of the caliphate is to be a stepping-stone to Islamic world domination.

Bin Laden himself praised the 9/11 attacks, in which almost 3,000 Americans were killed, as "a great step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the righteous caliphate, Allah willing."

Bin Laden's late deputy and head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (best known for the videos posted online of him beheading Western prisoners), outlined the group's master plan in seven phases, the last four of which he described as the overthrow of moderate Arab regimes such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia, the declaration of an Islamic caliphate, the "fight between the believers [Muslims] and non-believers [non-Muslims]," and the final stage of "definitive victory" for Islam.

Although it's seldom reported in Western media, establishing an Islamic caliphate is a powerful motivation among key players behind the so-called "Arab Spring" and much of the current unrest in today's very divided Islamic world.

For example, leaders of some of the rebel groups battling to overthrow Syrian president Bashar al-Assad openly state their desire for a caliphate. The Muslim Brotherhood, which recently gained control of Egypt after the overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak, was founded in 1928 with an Islamic caliphate as one of its primary goals (the Muslim Brotherhood also spawned the terror groups al-Qaeda and Hamas, which rules Gaza).

In May 2012, Egyptian cleric Safwat Hegazy warmed up thousands at a rally for Mohamad Morsi, later elected as Egypt's president, by saying: "We can see how the dream of the Islamic caliphate is being realized, [Allah] willing, by Dr. Mohamed Mursi . . . The capital of the caliphate—the capital of the United States of the Arabs—will be Jerusalem, [Allah] willing." Taking the stage, Morsi agreed: "Jerusalem is our goal. We shall pray in Jerusalem, or die as martyrs on its threshold."

The dream of an Islamic caliphate means nothing to most of those of us in the West, but it means everything to those raising havoc in an arc of instability stretching 4,500 miles from Morocco on the Atlantic Ocean to Pakistan on the Indian subcontinent.

Islamist gains in elections following the Arab Spring uprisings have actually been referred to by a number of analysts as "electoral Bin Ladenism." Indeed, Osama bin Laden's dream is alive and well, and reshaping the world before our eyes.