A person considered a religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad (Muhammad ibn ʿAbdullāh) and a leader of the entire Muslim community would have used what financial institution?
Caliphate A caliphate (Arabic: خِلافة‎ ‎ "khilāfa") is a territory under the leadership of an Islamic steward known as a caliph ( , Arabic: خَليفة‎ ‎ "khalīfah ",    ), a person considered a religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad (Muhammad ibn ʿAbdullāh) and a leader of the entire Muslim community. Historically, the caliphates were polities based in Islam which developed into multi-ethnic trans-national empires. During the medieval period, three major caliphates existed: the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) and the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258). The fourth major caliphate, the Ottoman Caliphate, established by the Ottoman Empire in 1517, was a manifestation whereby the Ottoman rulers claimed caliphal authority. During the history of Islam, several other Muslim states, almost all of them hereditary monarchies, have claimed to be caliphates.
Muhammad Ahmad Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah (Arabic: محمد أحمد ابن عبد الله; August 12, 1844 – June 22, 1885) was a religious leader of the Samaniyya order in Sudan who, on June 29, 1881, proclaimed himself the Mahdi, the messianic redeemer of the Islamic faith. His proclamation came during a period of widespread resentment among the Sudanese population towards the oppressive policies of the Turco-Egyptian rulers, and capitalized on the messianic beliefs popular among the various Sudanese religious sects of the time. More broadly, the Mahdiyya, as Muhammad Ahmad's movement was called, was influenced by earlier Mahdist movements in West Africa and other forms of Islamic revivalism that developed in reaction to the growing military and economic dominance of the European powers throughout the 19th century.