Conditions of Caliphate in the Islamic political system

Tuesday, 20 July 2010

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Written by Islamstory

Introduction

When talking about the requirements of the Islamic Caliphate, we mean the conditions laid down by Shari`ah (Islamic Law) and enjoyed consensus of both scholars and laymen that must be met by a ruler before the Caliphate inaugural ceremony.

One is really dazzled when reflecting on these conditions and comparing them to that of the Persia and Rome, as they indicate the extent of progress the Islamic civilization has reached at the Islamic governance level.

Islam raises the value of human life and makes everyone a caliph (regent) of Allah on His land. However it preserves, at the same time, the unity of the Islamic community through a set of regulations and rules that place this nation at the ranks of other nations, or even greater and better than them.

So Islam has achieved a difficult equation, which had been missing in previous and subsequent ruling systems. This equation is based on the need for achieving the Law of God on earth, with preserving full rights of the ruler and answering all the legitimate requirements needed by the ruled, Muslims or non-Muslims alike. It is not surprising to find this equation very evident in the Islamic political establishment with all its fundamentals and subsidiaries.

Conditions of Islamic Caliphate

Since the role of the caliph, or the commander of the believers or the head of the Muslim state one of the most important positions at all, for he is assigned the task of "guarding religion and leading worldly affairs,"[1] Muslim scholars put a set of conditions that must be fulfilled by those who assume that position. Imam al-Mawardy defined seven conditions as follows:

First: justice with all its comprehensive conditions

Second: knowledge leading to Ijtihad (juristic effort to infer expert legal rulings) in calamities and judgments.

Third: integrity of the senses of hearing, sight and speech, to be able to comprehend what is said immediately.

Fourth: integrity of organs, i.e. not including any impairment that may prevent him from movement or reaction.

Fifth: (good) opinion leading to lead the ruled and preserving interests.

Sixth: courage and bravery leading to the protection of the citizens and proclamation of jihad against the enemy.

Seventh: linage, i.e. a descendant of Quraysh Tribe, defined by Nas (Islamic text from the Qur’an or the Sunnah) and Ijma` (consensus of scholars).[2]

Without a doubt, the Caliphate establishment has taken into account these conditions. So it adopted them and the Muslims in general were keen to have them met by their caliphs. Many Muslim caliphs enjoyed these qualities. In his book al-Imamah wa al-Siyasah (The Imamate and Policy) Ibn Qutaybah describes Abdul-Malik ibn Marwan ibn al-Hakam (died 86 AH) in the beginning of his succession, saying: "Abdul-Malik ibn Marwan promised people of good, called them to revive the Book (Qur'an) and Sunnah, and establish justice and rights. He was known for truthfulness, well-known for his favors and knowledge, nobody disputed his religion or piety. So they accepted this from him, nobody from Quraysh (tribe) or from the people of the Levant (the region covering Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine) disputed him."[3]

Laymen Muslims pledged allegiance to Abdul-Malik ibn Marwan because of those qualities mentioned by Ibn Qutaybah. These characteristics are among the conditions set by Muslim jurists for a Caliphate candidate. This is actually striking, because conditions set by the jurists, which they inferred from the Book of Allah (Exalted and Glorified be He) and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), were not theoretical where the society has not had anything to do with. On the contrary, there has been a close relationship between what is approved by the purified Shari`ah and the consequent results of application on the ground. And this exactly what we found in the Caliphate or al-Imamah al-Kubra (Major Imamate) as mentioned by Muslim jurists.

Conditions to be met by the ruler between the Islamic Caliphate and the Roman and Persian empires

The ruler's conditions between Islam and other empires

Although we are sure that the position of Caliphate in our civilization was controlled by Shari`ah-based regulations and that the caliph was very human with some qualities that qualified him to the post, this did not relieve the caliph of public accountability by the citizens or made him deify himself, contrary to what we witnessed in the Persian and Byzantine empires. That is because the Islamic Caliphate was a human position – that is, it was set to preserve the rights of the people and achieve justice among them, the values the Persian and Roman kings failed to achieve.

In the ancient Persian culture the Emperor of Persia, Chosroes, was tantamount to a god. This was evident in the treatment of the Persian kings with their people. Many of them were given free rein in brutality, levying money and enslaving people. The most prominent example of this was Chosroes II, who called himself "the immortal man among gods, the very great god among men, the well-known who wakes up with the sun, and who gives his eyes to retaliation."[4] He was described by Arthur Christensen in his book Iran under the Sassanians as the ruler who did injustice to the people to fill his treasures. He did not preserve the dignity of the elite either. He was very spiteful and doubtful, seizing the opportunity to kill those whom he doubted among those who were loyal in his service.[5]

A Persian Chosroes used to come to the throne through inheritance, without any social, cultural or political regulations. The people were valueless in the sight of the Persian rulers. This is not surprising when we know that Persia was socially divided into four classes, with some were superior to others, namely: the clergy, the men of war, the clerks, and the people (farmers, craftsmen, etc). All these social classes were inferior to the ruling family (the Sassanids).[6]

This was also the case with the Romans. With absolute power, the emperor has had a popular mandate to rule with iron and fire and the people were not able to resist this tyrannical, despotic authority.[7]

The deteriorating mechanism of appointing the emperor reached the lowest levels, when the military took over the affairs of the empire and the Roman emperor became one of the army commanders. The military emperors surrounded their posts with a halo of sanctity, after they had been in control of everything. None of the clergymen or people could stop those despotic rulers. Therefore, it was natural with such developments that when Emperor Aurelian[8] took power in 270 AD, he was called 'the master and the god'. The situation got worse during the reign of Emperor Diocletian, the severest and the cruelest Roman emperor. The Roman Empire saw the ideal model of a corrupt emperor during the reign of Diocletian![9]

Actually the jurisprudential regulations developed by our jurists were met by many Muslim caliphs. The Commander of the Faithful Harun al-Rashid (may Allah have mercy upon him) pardoned a man who wronged him when the latter reminded the caliph of Allah.[10] Such an example could not be found with any of the kings of Persia or Rome. This is not a review of the justice of Muslim caliphs, but rather their application of the jurisprudential regulations in this regard.

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