List of Caliphs

Khalīfah (Caliph) خَليفة
Calligraphic of Abū Bakr as-Șiddīq, the first caliph
Style	Amir al-Mu'minin
Residence	al-Madīnah al-Munawwarah (Medina) al-Kūfah (Kufa) Dimashq (Damascus) Baġdād (Baghdad) Qāhirah (Cairo) Qustantiniyye (Constantinople)
Precursor	Muhammad as Islamic prophet
Formation	8 June 632
First holder	Abū Bakr as-Șiddīq
Final holder	Abdülmecid II
Abolished	3 March 1924

This is a list of people who have held the title of Caliph, the supreme religious and political leader of an Islamic state known as the Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, as the political successors to Muhammad. All years are according to the Common Era.

Due to the First Fitna which led to the sectarian division of Sunni vs. Shia Islam, the succession of Muhammad is disputed within Islam.

The only two caliphs recognized in both Sunni and mainstream Shia Islam are Ali ibn Abi Talib and Hasan ibn Ali, considered the fourth and fifth or the first two, respectively. However the oldest sect of Shia Islam, the Zaidiyyah sect, does recognise the caliphate of the first two caliphs of Islam Abu bakr and Umar ibn al Khattab.

The Hadith of the Twelve Successors states that after Muhammad there will only be twelve caliphs, all of them from the Quraysh tribe, and that there would be impostor caliphs to guard against, and that after the last of the twelve caliphs, the earth will be swallowed.

Within Sunni Islam, there were universally recognized or "ecumenical" caliphs from the 7th century until the 13th-century Mongol sack of Baghdad. After the death of Al-Musta'sim, last Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad, in 1258, there were no universally recognized caliphs until 1517, when Ottoman sultan Selim I induced Al-Mutawakkil III to formally surrender the title of caliph after defeating the Mamluk Sultanate.