Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

130 t CHAPTER SIX
ruled the oasis. There was what appears to have been a rather
secular and political debate on the relative merits of the two
groups. We do not know what settled the matter, though expedience
suggests itself, but in the end it was agreed that the senior
Migrant Abu Bakr should assume leadership of the umma. All
present took an oath of allegiance, Bedouin fashion, to the new
caliph.
If we are unsure how or precisely why Abu Bakr was chosen, we
are equally uncertain about how the succession was viewed. The
title chosen for Abu Bakr comes from khalifa, used in the Quran of
Adam and David as God’s “deputies.” But Abu Bakr, far from
deputizing for God, seems not even to have acted in that capacity
for the departed Muhammad, at least in any prophetic or charismatic
sense. From what we can gather from his acts—he decided
to send an army out against the Arabian Bedouin who at Muhammad’s
death signaled their opportunistic withdrawal from the
umma—he seems to have succeeded Muhammad merely as head
of the umma. Thus Muhammad’s charismatic leadership possessing
both spiritual and executive powers was routinized in the form
of a chief operating officer. As one of the subsequent early caliphs,
Umar II (r. 717–720), put it: “There is no Prophet after ours and
no Holy Book after ours. What God has ordered or forbidden
through our Prophet remains so forever. I am not one who decides
but only one who carries out, not an innovator but a follower.”
Clearly the caliph was not above the law—in the umma’s case,
God’s Law—nor its maker. Indeed, Abu Bakr and his successors
were closer in function to another title used of the early caliphs,
Commander of the Faithful (amir al-muminin). They appointed
and removed political subordinates. They decided military strategy
and served as commander (amir) of the armies of Islam. The caliph
was the chief judge and chief fiscal officer of the new regime. Most
of the caliph’s military, judicial, and fiscal responsibilities were
soon delegated to others, however; the community was actually a
number of armies on the march far from the centers of power, and
though decisions might be made in the name of the caliph, they
were increasingly made by others.
If the caliph and his delegates could decide, they could not or did