Caliphal succession

al-Mujadid meant the Caliphate of Seville to be a hereditary monarchy, like contemporary France or England at the time. Because his designated son Ahmad went blasphemously insane, that didn't work out, and Umayyad Seville never did manage to sort out a succession system before al-Mahdi was forced into exile in 1792.

Caliph Yusuf I, significantly, didn't leave directions for the process himself, beyond specifying in no uncertain terms that there would never be a Caliph Sufyan. The original idea was probably that the Caliph of New Andalusia would appoint his successor (possibly naming him the Abdallah), who on his death or resignation would be acclaimed by the Maxaha and ascend to the throne accordingly. Once again, that didn't work out. Unlike Seville before it, though, the UCNA has evolved a formal (if mostly unwritten) policy for handling caliphal successions. This is how it works.

Step 0: Qualification

European-style succession was never in the cards for the UCNA. Sufyan was disqualified from the succession because he had so many children; Yusuf saw him as a mid-century succession crisis waiting to happen. He also saw Sufyan as mad - and while he wasn't noticeably so, the House of Umayya is infamously prone to madness.

• From this comes one of the few hard-and-fast rules of Umayyad caliphal succession: every caliph must be an adult.
• Each caliph has the right to name a favored heir. This is no guarantee that the heir will be chosen as an immediate successor (Caliphs have a bad habit of dying well before their favored heir is a legal beneficiary of the Household), but it does matter, especially if the Caliph makes their favorite known.
• Unofficially, porphyrogeniture has become the order of the day. It's no guarantee that the Abdallah will actually benefit from the Household, but no son to date has benefited without it.

When a caliph dies in the UCNA, the Caliphal Household is left without a beneficiary, and its administrator is tasked with appointing either a new beneficiary or a custodian while a more valid beneficiary comes of age.

• That's how it works in theory, at least. During the deposition of Caliph Ilyas [details?], the administrator [who?] brought Don Musa in on the conspiracy; Don Musa first proposed the guy [who?] that ultimately became Ilyas's successor. Don Musa also proposed the successor's successor; by the time he died, the Caliphal Secretary had become the de facto kingmaker, with the administrator reduced to formally announcing it.

Don Ibrahim's continued this policy to the present day. While it's not official, the UCNA can't remember a time when this wasn't how things worked.

Step 1: Nomination

Step 2: Acclamation in the Maxaha

Unlike the nomination process, the Caliphal Charter of 1805 did specify how the acclamation process was supposed to work.

• Between the fall of Ilyas and the rise of the Demotists [details?], acclamation in the Maxaha was a rubber stamp.
• Most recently, the Believers did something unprecedented in counter-nominating, proposing the guy who became Caliph Yusuf III.

Step 3: The acclamation tour

The acclamation tour: Once the Maxaha has acclaimed the Caliph as their own, the most arduous part of the acclamation begins: the acclamation tour.

• The exact scheduling of the acclamation tour has always been shaped by politics. Ilyas's first stop, for instance, was Cuba, as was his successor's. After the capital was moved to New Toledo, and for the rest of Don Musa's secretariat, the Northern Wars meant that Cuba fell to the bottom of the list.
• The Caliphal aborigines are usually invited to meet at specific spots. (It's considered extremely rude to make the Caliph come to them.) Some of them, especially ones who plan to make demands of the new caliph in the near future, make a point of showing up first.

This is a work in progress. It will be expanded upon.