LAW
Successors (Caliphs)
For a better perspective, read together the Commentaries tiled as “Succession (Caliphate),” “Successors (Caliphs)” and “Successors, The Righteous.”
Islam mandates all its Commands and Prohibitions to be followed fully. The rules, the ruled and the ruler are well-defined. The means and mechanism to enforce them all are well-placed. It gets peace to man’s heart and soul which in turn spills over the entire society and makes it peaceful.
But human nature includes ambition, greed and crossing the lines. All man-made systems break at their weak links and shatter the chain even when made of the best ideas. Vices like the Primogeniture and Harems soon crept into caliphate even when it was named as an institution of the God-made religion. Man-made limits on power, time or term have always failed.
History shows that zealots added and subtracted their notions into religions. Kings and wannabee aspirants clothed their fabrications in attractive garbs as religious dogmas. Enemies also contributed greatly such as Abdulla-bin-Saba who faked his entry into Islam very early. They all have smeared the face of this faith as outlined in our commentary History of Add-ons.
The system Caliphate (Khelaafut (خلافت) evolved in time. It started producing Caliphs or rulers who really were just like other kings. They and their cronies kept expanding their prestige, privilege and power by importing concepts and theories practiced by other royalists like among others the following:
1. King can do no wrong meaning what he does is the Law and therefore no Wrong.
2. King is God’s shadow on earth meaning he can do whatever and whenever he likes.
3. God makes a king meaning no other man can object to anything what the king does.
4. Law of progeniture meaning the eldest son has a title to the throne after a king is gone. That is how Yazeed succeeded his father Ameer Mo-aa-viah when their O-muy-yid dynasty ruled in Baghdad (Iraq) from the 36th till the 96th year Hijri. These rulers were labelled as Caliphs.
5. O-muy-yid dynasty’s rule ended nearly sixty years later when they were taken out by the sword. Then on Ab-baa-site dynasty ruled as kings though labelled as Caliphs and ruled for six centuries until taken out by sword and destruction by Genghis Khan in 1258 AD.
6. Bloodshed is permissible in fights for throne like Turkish queen Mahperi Hatun vouched. She orchestrated the murder of her husband Sultan Allaudin Keykubad, Crown Prince Kilicarslan and the other Queen Melike Adile Sultan. She thus successfully mounted her own son as Sultan Ghiyaseddin Keyhusrev to the Seljuk throne of the Caliphate in Turkey.
7. The Ruler is God’s only representative on earth like the Chinese ruler Ogedei Khan son of Genghis Kan had said. He claimed that Mongols’ Only One God Tengri… and there has been no higher being than Him for all eternity had made him the sole representative on Earth when he got on the throne of Genghis Khan in 1229 and ruled till his death in 1241.
8. Harems are a King’s legitimate privilege like the 10th Ottoman Sultan Suleiman (labelled also as The Magnificent, The Lawgiver and The Sexual) had from where one slave Sultan Hurrem even birthed his seed and successor Sultan Saleem.
9. Setting up one’s own shop is okay as was done by Abdur Rahman III in Spain who severed ties with the central Caliphate in the Baghdad and declared himself as a Caliph (خليفه).
Dozens of sects grew in many centuries, countries and cultures with contradictory views of Islam. They kept evolving the role of their leadership and clothing it with the spirituality garb of a religion. They continually produced, presented and promoted justifications why the ruler was the only authority. They eroded the responsibility of a leader in the teachings of Islam to zero.
Answering to none is today legally and academically the norm for an Emir in an Emirate, Caliph in a Caliphate, Emperor in an Empire, Imam in an Imamate, Khan in a Khanate or Sultan in a Sultanate. It could be an Imam of Shiites who follow their first 11 Imams, have been waiting for centuries for the 12th to appear, and rule as the Ayatollahs in Iran and carry the titles of Agas in Indo-Pak lands. It could be a Sultan who ruled from the north-western Turkey in the 13th Century to the eastern half of Europe and the north Africa for centuries when Turks promoted their State to last for a thousand years. It could be a Khadim-ul-Hermain-ush-Sharifain (Servant Of The Two Lofty Sacred Sites, Kau-bah in Mukkah and Musjid Nubwi in Madina) who really is the King of Saudi Arab where the claims of Spirituality got added with the worldly wealth of discovered oil.
The history of Caliphate (Khelaafut (خلافت) On-Line accessible by the word has Caliph (خليفه) the following quotes.
1. “(C)ombined rule is idealized by the majority … for having been based on the concepts of shura (consultation), ijmāʿ (consensus) of Muslims, and bayʿah (allegiance). In contrast, subsequent rulers … instituted dynastic rule, which … was largely regarded as illegitimate, although … grudgingly accepted.”
- (T)he “title of caliph was borne by the 14 Umayyad rulers of Damascus and subsequently by the 38 Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad, whose dynasty fell before the Mongols in 1258. There were titular caliphs of ʿAbbāsid descent in Cairo under the Mamlūks from 1258 until 1517, when the last caliph was captured by the Ottoman sultan Selim I.”
- “The Ottoman sultans then claimed the title and used it until it was abolished by the Turkish Republic on March 3, 1924”
- ”Shiʿahs … call the supreme office the “imamate,” … (and) no caliph is legitimate.” “Sunni scholars insisted that the office belonged to the tribe of Quraysh … but this condition would have vitiated the claim of the Ottoman sultans, who held the office after the last ʿAbbāsid caliph of Cairo transferred it to Selim I.”
