Loyalty to the Caliph is through the Bay’ah

The bay’ah contract which is the citizenship contract between the Muslims and the caliph contains explicit words of loyalty and obedience to the head of state. Ubada ibn Al-Samit said:

بَايَعْنَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم عَلَى السَّمْعِ وَالطَّاعَةِ فِي الْمَنْشَطِ وَالْمَكْرَهِ‏.‏ ‏‏وَأَنْ لاَ نُنَازِعَ الأَمْرَ أَهْلَهُ، وَأَنْ نَقُومَ ـ أَوْ نَقُولَ ـ بِالْحَقِّ حَيْثُمَا كُنَّا لاَ نَخَافُ فِي اللَّهِ لَوْمَةَ لاَئِمٍ ‏‏‏

“We gave the bayah to Allah’s Messenger that we would listen and obey him both at the time when we were active and at the time when we were tired, and that we would not fight against the ruler or disobey him, and would stand firm for the truth or say the truth wherever we might be, and in the Way of Allah we would not be afraid of the blame of the blamers.”[1]

Every citizen, including all the governors are bound first and foremost by the bay’ah. When the Islamic ideology is strong within the ummah and its governing bodies, then this should be the basis of the societal bond (asabiyah) among the people and its rulers which holds the state together. The rulers in the provinces would then be appointed based on meritocracy i.e. strength of the Islamic ideology and competency in the role. In addition, the appointment of the governor must be based on shura (consultation) with the people he is ruling over, because a governor cannot rule over people who do not accept his rule. In modern times this would be through an election ratified by the caliph.

Rightly Guided Caliphate

Umar ibn Al-Khattab was known for being a very ‘hands-on’ caliph who was extremely strict with his governors, and was able to maintain a fairly centralised administration with no major rebellions across the vast lands of his caliphate. This is why Umar is known as the بَابًا مُغْلَقًا‏ “closed door” against fitna (discord).[2]

In his first speech as caliph he said,

إن الله ابتلاكم بي وابتلاني بكم وأبقاني فيكم بعد صاحبي. فو الله لا يحضرني شيء من أمركم فيليه أحد دوني ولا يتغيب عني فآلو فيه عن الجزء والأمانة. ولئن أحسنوا لأحسنن إليهم ولئن أساءوا لأنكلن بهم

“Allah is testing you with me and testing me with you after my two companions. By Allah, I will not delegate to anyone else any of your affairs that I can deal with directly, and if there is anything that I cannot deal with directly, I will try to delegate it to people who are able to deal with it and are trustworthy. By Allah, if they (governors) do well, I will reward them, and if they do badly, I will punish them.”[3]

Umar was able to keep a tight control over the regions of the state because his governors were mostly senior sahaba, supported by the sahaba and the tabi’un (next best generation) living in the province. Near the end of Uthman bin Affan’s rule, the senior sahaba had either passed away or left Medina. This made the capital vulnerable to nefarious anti-government activities which eventually culminated in Uthman’s assassination and martyrdom, something prophesised by the Messenger ﷺ. Abdulwahab El-Affendi describes this situation, “The system began to unravel during the latter part of Uthman’s reign, partly through no fault of his own. The fast expansion of the Medina city-state into an empire created many new difficulties, as the administration of the expanded state became too complicated for the city-state model of management as it evolved up to that time.”[4]

This fitna continued throughout Ali ibn Abi Talib’s rule where he fought a civil war with Mu’awiya, the governor of Ash-Sham. A man asked Ali bin Abi Talib (ra) why people obeyed Abu Bakr and Umar during their rule, yet in his and Uthman’s rule people started to disobey and rebel. Ali replied to him,

لأن رعية أبي بكر وعمر كانوا مثلي ومثل عثمان، ورعيتي أنا اليوم مثلك وشبهك

“Because the subjects of Abu Bakr and Umar were like me and Uthman, and my subjects today are like you and similar to you!”[5]

Al-Hasan ibn Ali (r.661CE) was the fifth and last Rightly Guided Caliph after the death of his father Ali ibn Abi Talib. The state’s authority was fragmented due to the ongoing civil war with Mu’awiya. In addition, the Islamic conquests had been halted since the later period of Uthman’s caliphate due to the fitna and rebellion. Although Al-Hasan had full executive and military authority to continue fighting Mu’awiya, he instead relinquished his right for the greater good and abdicated in favour of Mu’awiya who then received the bay’ah and became the caliph. Al-Hasan said, “I have been thinking of going to Medina to settle there and yielding (the caliphate) to Mu’awiya. The turmoil has gone on for too long, blood has been shed, ties of kinship have been severed, the roads have become unsafe, and the borders have been neglected.”[6]

This action of Al-Hasan was prophesised and praised by the Messenger ﷺ. Once the Prophet ﷺ brought out Al-Hasan and took him up to the minbar (pulpit) along with him and said,

ابْنِي هَذَا سَيِّدٌ، وَلَعَلَّ اللَّهَ أَنْ يُصْلِحَ بِهِ بَيْنَ فِئَتَيْنِ مِنَ الْمُسْلِمِينَ

“This son of mine is a Saiyid (i.e. chief) and I hope that Allah will help him bring about reconciliation between two Muslim groups.”[7]

Umayyads

After the Rightly Guided Caliphate and the transformation of the caliphate into hereditary rule and monarchy (mulk), loyalty of the provinces was primarily maintained through the family bond (asabiyah) of the ruling dynasty. The main provincial governors were from the ruling family and hence had a natural loyalty to the caliph through the family asabiyah bond. Islam was still the basis of this bond, and it was unthinkable that any of the governors would not implement the rules of Islam. However, some of the governors did abuse their positions and took advantage of their position within the ruling family of the Umayyads. This eventually culminated in widespread opposition to their rule and the rise of another ruling dynasty – the Abbasids – who obliterated Umayyad rule and assumed the caliphate for themselves in 750CE. The Abbasids then continued in a similar manner to the Umayyads with governors appointed from Banu Abbas.

Tocqueville (d.1859) describes this type of loyalty bond. “Hereditary monarchies have a great advantage: as the particular interest of a family is continually bound in a strict manner to the interest of the state, not a single moment ever passes in which the latter is left abandoned to itself. I do not know if affairs are better directed in these monarchies than elsewhere; but at least there is always someone who, well or ill according to his capacity, is occupied with them.”[8]

Since the monarchy and aristocracy own the state, then they have a vested interest in its continuance because they are benefiting materially from their hold on power. Traditionally in the UK, all senior officers in the military, security services, civil service and government were from the aristocracy, who were groomed for ruling from birth, going to the best schools and universities – Eton, Oxbridge and Sandhurst. Even though their ties to the aristocracy have lessened, the British ‘establishment’ to this day is still recruited primarily from these institutions.

Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan (d.705CE), the father of Umar ibn Abdul-Aziz, was the Wali Al-‘Ahd (designated successor) for his brother the caliph Abdul-Malik ibn Marwan (d.705CE) according to the covenant (‘ahd) of their father Marwan ibn Al-Hakam (d.685CE). Abd al-Aziz was the governor of Egypt with full powers over the province for 20 years from 685–705CE. Abdul-Aziz was a very pious man, and being the ‘crown prince’ and next in-line to the caliphate meant there was no incentive for him to rebel as one day he would be the ruler (if he had outlived Abdul-Malik). He was therefore a loyal governor over one of the most important provinces of the Caliphate.

Ibn Khaldun describes this transformation from caliphate to mulk (kingship): “After Mu‘âwiyah, caliphs who were used to choosing the truth and to acting in accordance with it, acted similarly. Such caliphs included the Umayyads ‘Abd-al-Malik and Sulaymân and the ‘Abbâsids as-Saffâḥ, al-Manṣûr, al-Mahdî, and ar-Rashîd, and others like them whose probity, and whose care and concern for the Muslims are well known. They cannot be blamed because they gave preference to their own sons and brothers, in that respect departing from the Sunnah of the first four caliphs. Their situation was different from that of the (four) caliphs who lived in a time when royal authority (mulk) as such did not yet exist, and the restraining influence was religious. Thus, everybody had his restraining influence in himself. Consequently, they appointed the person who was acceptable to Islam, and preferred him over all others. They trusted every aspirant to have his own restraining influence.

After them, from Mu‘âwiyah on, the group feeling (asabiyah) (of the Arabs) approached its final goal, royal authority (mulk). The restraining influence of religion had weakened. The restraining influence of government and group was needed. If, under those circumstances, someone not acceptable to the group had been appointed as successor, such an appointment would have been rejected by it. The (chances of the appointee) would have been quickly demolished, and the community would have been split and torn by dissension.”[9]

Abbasids

After the Abbasids took power, the caliphate was never a fully unified state again. Al-Andalus became semi-independent under the Umayyad Abdul-Rahman I who managed to escape the Abbasid purge of all Umayyad elements in the state. In the beginning, Al-Andalus never declared itself a separate caliphate and hence implicitly acknowledged the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad. The scholars of Al-Andalus travelled freely to and from the domains of the Abbasids without fear of any persecution or discrimination. In 929CE when the central Abbasid caliphal regime was in utter disarray, with a weak almost non-functional government, Al-Andalus became the Cordoba Caliphate under Abdul-Rahman III.

Other remote provinces of the state were also effectively semi-independent such as in Ifriqiya (eastern Algeria, Tunisia and the Tripoli region) under the Aghlabid dynasty (r.800-899CE) whose Amir was first appointed by Harun Al-Rashid (r. 786-809CE) to bring peace to the region which had been devastated by years of civil war.

From the 10^th century, the Abbasid Caliphate completely fragmented and the caliph in Baghdad simply accepted the rise of semi-independent emirates and sultanates whom he conferred titles upon, in return for the Amirs and Sultans bay’ah which kept him in power.

The Buyids (r. 934-1062CE) in modern-day Iraq and Iran, the Ghaznavids (r.977–1186CE) in modern-day Afghanistan, Eastern Iran and Pakistan, and then later the Seljuks (r. 1037–1194CE) who succeeded the Buyids and expanded into Ash-Sham and later Anatolia. All of these governors or Amirs are what Al-Mawardi refers to as an Amir Al-Istila’ (Amir of Seizure or Conquest) and Wazir Al-Tafweedh (Delegated Assistant).