Caliphate (Kalifat)

The Swedish thriller drama Caliphate (Swedish title Kalifat) was made for Sveriges Television. It premiered on SVT on 12 January 2020 and ended on 9 February 2020, becoming the most-viewed series ever on SVT Play. It was released worldwide as a Netflix Original on 18 March 2020 and removed from the service on 1 September 2025. The single season has eight episodes of about 46 minutes.

The story draws on the case of the Bethnal Green trio, three teenage girls from London who met jihadist recruiters at their school and left for Syria in February 2015. The series follows several strands at once. Fatima is a Swedish Security Service (Säpo) agent who receives a tip that an attack is being planned in Sweden. Pervin is a young Swedish woman lured to Syria who lives in Raqqa inside the Islamic State and plans to flee with her baby; she is played by Gizem Erdoğan, and Aliette Opheim is also in the cast. Sulle is an outspoken teenager at a school in Sweden who is drawn in by a recruiter.

Goran Kapetanović directed all eight episodes. Wilhelm Behrman and Niklas Rockström wrote the scripts. Filming took place in Stockholm and Jordan. The series explores Islamic extremism, terrorism, tensions within Islam and among Muslims, women's rights and human rights.