When Muhammad died, he had not yet designated his successor. This gave rise to the problem of relations between Sunnis and Shiites. The former, followers of Abu Bakr, sought an heir who would be a good administrator, while the latter, followers of Ali, believed they must follow blood kinship. The Sunni caliphates followed one another, and the incumbent chose his seat in turn in Damascus, Baghdad, and Istanbul, where the Ottomans would reign for five hundred years. Then, at the end of the First World War, the Ottoman Empire collapsed and the Caliphate disappeared. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk abolished the caliphate on March 3, 1924. It was reestablished by Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi on June 29, 2014.
