We need institutions that accept our global diversity. We are Sunni and Shia, Ismaili and Ibadi, religious and secular. Back then, Iqbal argued rather creatively in favor of republicanism—democratically governed Muslim societies that gave room to ethnic groups to express their unique identities. He believed that these new governments could voluntarily affiliate with one another, and that a future caliphate would look like today’s European Union, a consensual form of affiliation whose purpose would be “neither nationalism nor imperialism,” but a multicultural democracy.
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