John Green is the New York Times bestselling author and he gives his thoughts on the Understanding of Islam. “Let’s begin with the headlines in 2014. ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIL and Islamic State and many other things, they declared a Caliphate in the territory that the group controls, prompting many Americans to wonder what a caliphate is. Well, the caliphate is an Islamic state modelled on the original Islamic community that was founded by the Prophet Mohammed in the seventh century. Now, Mohammed was not a Caliph because the word means his successor and they were the successors to Mohammed. But the first four Political Leaders who led the community and turned it into an Empire have come to be known as the Four Rightly Guided Caliphs. And when groups like ISIS that are trying to re-establish this kind of government, look back on it, they see it as being kind of the Golden Age. This was a time not just of Growth for the Islamic Empire, but also of Political Stability and Unity, which as it happens, it really wasn’t like even under the four rightly guided caliphs, the Islamic world was Tremendously Diverse and had Huge Disagreements. I mean, of the four rightly guided caliphs, Three were Assassinated.”