Early Caliphate and its Characteristic Features The rule of...

Early Caliphate and its Characteristic Features The rule of the early Caliphs that followed the Prophet was founded on the foregoing principles. Each member of the community, brought up under the guidance and care of the Prophet of God, knew what kind of government answered the demands and reflected the true spirit of Islam.

Although the Prophet had bequeathed no decision regarding the question of his successor, the members of the community were in no doubt that Islam demanded a democratic solution of the issue. Hence, no one laid the foundations of a hereditary government, used force to assume power, or tried to have himself installed as Caliph. On the contrary, the people, of their own free will, elected four persons one after another to this august office.

Elective Caliphate Abu Bakr was proposed Caliph by ‘Umar, and accepted by the inhabitants of Medina (who for all practical purposes represented the country) of their free will and accord, and they swore him allegiance. Abu Bakr, nearing his end, wrote a will in favour of ‘Umar, then, collecting the people in the mosque of Medina, he addressed them thus, “Do you agree on him whom I am making my successor among you?

God knows I have racked my brain as much as I could, and I have not proposed a relation of mine to succeed me, but ‘Umar, the son of Khattab. Hence, listen to him and obey.” Upon this the people responded, “Yes, we shall listen to him and obey.”[^10] In the last year of ‘Umar’s reign a man declared during the pilgrimage that when ‘Umar died he would swear allegiance to so and so.

Abu Bakr’s installation, he said, had also been so sudden, and succeeded well enough.[^11] When ‘Umar came to learn of it, he resolved to address the people about it and “warn them against those who designed to impose themselves upon them.” Alluding to it in the first speech he made on reaching Medina, he gave a lengthy account of what had transpired at Banu Sa‘idah’s Meeting House and explained how in the exceptional circumstances which then prevailed he had suddenly risen to propose Abu Bakr’s name and offered allegiance to him.

“If I had not done so,” he said, “and we had dispersed that night without settling the issue, there was a great danger that people might take a wrong decision overnight, then it would be difficult for us to accept it, and equally difficult to reject it.” “If that was successful,” he continued, “let it not be made a precedent.