The transformation of the caliphate into royal authority

Royal authority is the natural goal of group feeling. It results from group feeling, not by choice but through (inherent) necessity and the order of existence, as we have stated before.

All religious laws and practices and everything that the masses are expected to do requires group feeling.

Only with the help of group feeling can a claim be successfully pressed, as we have stated before. 288

Group feeling is necessary to the Muslim community. Its existence enables (the community) to fulfill what God expects of it. It is said in (the sound tradition of) the Sahih: “God sent no prophet who did not enjoy the protection of his people.“289

The Propeht Muhammad censured group feeling and urged us to reject it and to leave it alone. He said:

“God removed from you the arrogance of the pre-Islamic times and its pride in ancestors. You are the children of Adam, and Adam was made of dust.”

God said:

“Most noble among you in God’s (eyes) is he who fears God most.”

Muhammad censured royal authority and its representatives. He blamed them because of their enjoyment of good fortune, their senseless waste, and their deviations from the path of God.

He recommended friendship among all Muslims and warned against discord and dissension.

Muhammad believed that all of this world is a vehicle for (transport to) the other world. He who loses the vehicle can go nowhere. When the Lawgiver (Muhammad) forbids or censures certain human activities or urges their omission, he does not want them to be neglected altogether.

Nor does he want them to be completely eradicated, or the powers from which they result to remain altogether unused. He wants those powers to be employed as much as possible for the right aims. 292 Every intention should thus eventually become the right one and the direction (of all human activities) one and the same.

It was in this sense that Muhammad said= “He who emigrates to God and His Messenger emigrates to God and His Messenger, but he who emigrates to gain worldly goods or to marry a woman emigrates to where he emigrates.” 293

Muhammad did not censure wrathfulness 294 in the intention of eradicating it as a human quality. If the power of wrathfulness were no longer to exist in (man), he would lose the ability to help the truth become victorious.

There would no longer be holy war or glorification of the word of God. Muhammad censured the wrathfulness that is in the service of Satan and reprehensible purposes,295 but the wrathfulness that is one in God and in the service of God, deserves praise.

Such (praiseworthy) wrathfulness was one of the qualities of Muhammad.

Likewise, when (the Lawgiver Muhammad) censures the desires, he does not want them to be abolished altogether, for a complete abolition of concupiscence in a person would make him defective and inferior. He wants the desires to be used for permissible purposes to serve the public interests, so that man becomes an active servant of God who willingly obeys the divine commands.Likewise, when the religious law censures group feeling and says= “Neither your blood relatives nor your children will be of use to you (on the Day of Resurrection),” 296 (such a statement) is directed against a group feeling that is used for worthless purposes, as was the case in pre-Islamic times.

It is also directed against a group feeling that makes a person proud and superior. For an intelligent person to take such an attitude is considered a gratuitous action, which is of no use for the other world, the world of eternity. On the other hand, a group feeling that is working for the truth and for fulfillment of the divine commands is something desirable.

If it were gone, religious laws would no longer be, because they materialize only through group feeling, as we have stated before.297 Likewise, when the Lawgiver (Muhammad) censures royal authority, he does not censure it for gaining superiority through truth, for forcing the great mass to accept the faith, nor for looking after the (public) interests. He censures royal authority for achieving superiority through worthless means and for employing human beings for indulgence in (selfish) purposes and desires, as we have stated. If royal authority would sincerely exercise its superiority over men for the sake of God and so as to cause those men to worship God and to wage war against His enemies, there would not be anything reprehensible in it.

Solomon said:

“O my Lord .. . give me royal authority, such as will not fit anyone after me.”

He was sure of himself. (He knew) that, as prophet and king, he would have nothing to do with anything worthless.

When ‘Umar b. al-Khattib went to Syria and was met by Mu’awiyah in full royal splendor as exhibited both in the number (of Mu’awiyah’s retinue) and his equipment, he disapproved of it and said:

“Are these royal Persian manners (kisrawiyah), O Mu’awiyah?”

Mu’awiyah replied: “O Commander of the Faithful, I am in a border region facing the enemy. It is necessary for us to vie with (the enemy) in military equipment.”

Umar was silent and did not consider Mu’awiyah to be wrong.300 He had used an argument that was in agreement with the intentions of the truth and of Islam.

If the intention (implied in ‘Umar’s remark) had been to eradicate royal authority as such, ‘Umar would not have been silenced by the answer with which Mu’awiyah (excused) his assumption of royal Persian manners. He would have insisted that Mu’awiyah give them up altogether.

Umar meant by “royal Persian manners” the attitude of the Persian rulers, which consisted in doing worthless things, constantly practicing oppression, and neglecting God. Mu’awiyah replied that he was not interested in royal Persian manners as such, or in the worthlessness connected with them, but his intention was to serve God. Therefore, Umar was silent.

The same applies to the attitude of the men around Muhammad towards abolishing royal authority and its conditions, and forgetting its customs. (The men around Mubammad) were wary of the admixture of worthless things that might be found in (royal customs).

When Muhammad was about to die, he appointed Abu Bakr as his representative to (lead the) prayers, since (praying) was the most important religious activity.

People were thus content to accept (Abu Bakr) as caliph, that is, as the person who causes the great mass to act according to the religious laws.

No mention was made of royal authority, because royal authority was suspected of being worthless, and because at that time it was the prerogative of unbelievers and enemies of Islam. Abu Bakr discharged the duties of his office in a manner pleasing to God, following the Sunnah of his master (Muhammad). He fought against apostates until all the Arabs were united in Islam. He then appointed ‘Umar his successor. ‘Umar followed Abu Bakr’s example and fought against (foreign) nations. He defeatedthem and permitted the Arabs to appropriate the worldly possessions of (those nations) and their royal authority, and the Arabs did that. (The caliphate), then, went to ‘Uthman b. ‘Affan and ‘Ali. All (these caliphs) renounced royal authority and kept apart from its ways.

They were strengthened in this attitude by the low standard of living in Islam and the desert outlook of the Arabs. The world and its luxuries were more alien to them than to any other nation, on account of their religion, which inspired asceticism where the good things of life were concerned, and on account of the desert outlook and habitat and the rude, severe life to which they were accustomed. No nation was more used to a life of hunger than the Mudar.

In the Hijaz, the Mudar inhabited a country without agricultural or animal products. They were kept from the fertile plains, rich in grain, because the latter were too far away and were monopolized by the Rabi’ah and Yemenites who controlled them.

They had no envy of the abundance of (those regions). They often ate scorpions and beetles. They were proud to eat ‘ilhiz, that is, camel hair ground with stones, mixed with blood, and then cooked.

The Quraysh were in a similar situation with regard to food and housing.

Finally, the group feeling of the Arabs was consolidated in Islam through the prophecy of Muhammad with which God honored them. They then advanced against the Persians and Byzantines, and they looked for the land that God had truthfully promised and destined to them. They took away the royal authority of (the Persians and the Byzantines) and confiscated their worldly possessions.

They amassed enormous fortunes. It went so far that one horseman obtained, as his share in one of the raids, about 30,000 gold pieces. The amounts they got were enormous. Still, they kept to their rude way of life. ‘Umar used to patch his (sole) garment with pieces of leather.

Ali used to say:

“Gold and silver! Go and lure others, not me!”

Abu Musa refrained from eating chicken, because chickens were very rare among the Arabs of that time and not (generally) known to them. Sieves were altogether non-existent among (the Arabs), and they ate wheat (kernels) with the bran. 304a Yet, the gains they made were greater than any ever made by other human beings.