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Early Islam is a subject I know little about and I'd therefore like to pick the brains of those better informed than myself about a possible different path for Islam.

If the Rashidun Caliphate had not fragmented (let's say Caliph Uthman survives) is it possible that the early election/selection of Caliphs could persist, with the position of Caliph ultimately developing into a chiefly symbolic one that allows the Rashidun Caliphate to last, perhaps even to the present day?

I'm not suggesting the Rashidun Caliphate would hold the same territory for all of that time, that it would remain the pre-eminent Muslim power or that all Muslims would be unified. What I had in mind was more like the position of Caliph being divorced from geopolitical power, so that powerful Muslim states would nominally or symbolically be Emirs of the Caliph but would in practice be independent, and the leaders of powerful Muslim states would be satisfied with controlling/influencing the Rashidun Caliph rather than trying to take the title for themselves. Essentially the Caliph would be more like the Catholic Popes rather than the later kingly Caliphs of OTL, and the territories actually directly ruled by the Rashidun Caliphate would be akin to the Papal States.

What do you think? Possible?
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