the silsilah in relation to spiritual responsibilities and to propagate the teachings of the tariqa. Ahmadiyya Caliphate (1908–present) The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is a self-proclaimed Islamic revivalist movement founded in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, India, who claimed to be the promised Messiah and Mahdi, awaited by Muslims. He also claimed to be a follower-prophet subordinate to Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. The group are traditionally shunned by the majority of Muslims. After Ahmad's death in 1908, his first successor, Hakeem Noor-ud-Din, became the caliph of the community and assumed the title of Khalifatul Masih (Successor or Caliph of the Messiah). After Hakeem Noor-ud-Din, the first caliph, the title of the Ahmadiyya caliph continued under Mirza Mahmud Ahmad, who led the community for over 50 years. Following him were Mirza Nasir Ahmad and then Mirza Tahir Ahmad who were the third and fourth caliphs respectively. The current caliph is Mirza Masroor Ahmad, who lives in London. Period of dormancy Once the subject of intense conflict and rivalry amongst Muslim rulers, the caliphate lay dormant and largely unclaimed since the 1920s. For the vast majority of Muslims, the caliph, as leader of the ummah, "is cherished both as memory and ideal" as a time when Muslims "enjoyed scientific and military superiority globally". The Islamic prophet Muhammad is reported to have prophesied: "Kalifatstaat": Federated Islamic State of Anatolia (1994–2001) The Kalifatstaat ("Caliphate State") was the name of an Islamist organisation in Germany that was proclaimed at an event in Cologne in 1994 and banned in December 2001 after an amendment to the Association Act, which abolished the religious privilege. However, this caliphate was never institutionalised under international law, but only an intention for an Islamic "state within the state". The caliphate emerged in 1994 from the "Federated Islamic State of Anatolia" (, AFİD), which existed in Germany from 1992 to 1994 as the renaming of the Association of Islamic Associations and Municipalities (İCCB). In 1984 the latter split off from the Islamist organisation Millî Görüş. The leader of the association proclaimed himself the caliph, the worldwide spiritual and worldly head of all Muslims. Since then, the organisation has seen itself as a "Caliphate State" (). From an association law perspective, the old name remained. The leader was initially Cemalettin Kaplan, who was nicknamed "Khomeini of Cologne" by the German public. In Turkish media he was referred to as the "Dark