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