Download PDF | God’s Caliph_ Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam , By Patricia Crone, Martin Hinds. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
162 Pages
Introduction
What was the nature of the early caliphate? lslamicists generally believe it to have been a purely political institution. According to Nallino, no caliph ever enjoyed religious authority;' according to other lslamicists, some caliphs did lay claim to such authority, but only by way of secondary development and only with limited success1.1n what follows we shall challenge this belief. It is of course true that religious authority was the prerogative of scholars rather than of caliphs in classical Islam, but we shall argue that this is not how things began.
The early caliphate was conceived along lines very different from the classical institution, all religious and political authority being concentrated in it; it was the caliph who was charged with the definition of Islamic law, the very core of the religion, and without allegiance to a caliph no Muslim could achieve salvation. In short, we shall argue that the early caliphate was conceived along the lines familiar from Shi'ite Islam. The conventional Islamicist view of the caliphate is that enshrined in the bulk of our sources.
Practically all the literature informs us that though the Prophet was God's representative on earth in both political and religious matters, there ceased to be a single representative in religious matters on the Prophet's death. Political power passed to the new head of state, the caliph; but religious authority remained with the Prophet himself or, differently put, it passed to those men who remembered what he had said. These men, the Companions, transmitted their recollection of his words and deeds to the next generation, who passed it on to the next, and so forth, and whoever learnt what the Prophet had said and done acquired religious authority thereby.
In short, while political power continued to be concentrated in one man, religious authority was now dispersed among those people who, owing their authority entirely to their learning, came to be known as simply the 'ulama', the scholars. As it happened, however, the first three caliphs (Abu Bakr, 'Umar, 'Uthmiin) were themselves Companions, so that in practice religious and political authority continued to be united, if no longer concentrated, in the head of state, and during this period the caliphs could and did issue authoritative rulings on law. But though the fourth caliph ('Ali) was also a Companion and moreover a kinsman of the Prophet, he failed to be generally accepted, and on his death the caliphate passed to men who had converted late and unwillingly (the Umayyads), so that the happy union of religion and politics now came to an end. Caliphs and 'ulamii' went their separate ways, to be briefly reunited only under the pious 'Umar II. Most Shi'ites disagree with this view. According to the Imiimis and related-sects, the legitimate head of state ('Ali) inherited not only the political, but also the religious authority of the Prophet.
In practice, of course, the legitimate head of state after 'Ali was deprived of his political power by his Sunni rivals, so that he could only function as a purely religious leader of his Shi'ite following; but in principle he was both head of state and ultimate authority on questions oflaw and doctrine in Islam. Modem Islamicists however generally regard the Shi'ites as deviant. Some take them to have started off as adherents of a political leader who was not, at first, very different from that of their opponents, but who was gradually transformed into a religious figurehead. 3 Others believe them to have elevated their leader into a religious figurehead from the start, but to have done so under the influence of foreign ideas, their model being the supposedly charismatic leadership of pre-Islamic south Arabia.' Either way, it is the Shi'ites, not the Sunnis, who are seen as having diverged from the common pattern. It certainly makes sense to assume that Sunnis and Shi'ites started with a common conception of the caliphal office; and given that we owe practically all our sources to those who were in due course to become the Sunni majority, it is not surprising that we automatically assume this conception to have been of the Sunni rather than the Shi'ite type. There is, however, much evidence to suggest that this is a mistake.
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