The position, authority, or realm of a calif or caliph; the religious and political territory governed by a caliph.
From Arabic khalifah (caliph) plus English -ate suffix, a standard English method for forming nouns denoting positions, ranks, or jurisdictions (like papacy, sultanate). This combines Arabic origin with English word-formation patterns.
The -ate suffix is English's favorite way to say 'the job and the place where they do it'—califate, sultanate, papacy—it's how we domesticated Islamic political vocabulary into English morphology.
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