Piety الوَرَع (al-Wara’) is one of the fundamental characteristics of the ruler without which the implementation of Islamic rule itself is in jeopardy. Imam Ghazali refers to this as “the fundamental and noblest quality”[1] in the ruler. Taqiuddin an-Nabhani says, “Since the strength of the personality has within it the potential of domination and authority, there is an obvious need that the ruler has an attribute which protects him from the evil of authority. So it is necessary that he has the attribute of taqwa within himself and in his taking care of the Ummah.

Muslim and Ahmad from Sulayman bin Buraydah from his father:

كَانَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم إِذَا أَمَّرَ أَمِيرًا عَلَى جَيْشٍ أَوْ سَرِيَّةٍ أَوْصَاهُ فِي خَاصَّتِهِ بِتَقْوَى اللَّهِ وَمَنْ مَعَهُ مِنَ الْمُسْلِمِينَ خَيْرًا

“Whenever the Messenger of Allah ﷺ would appoint an Amir over an army or expedition, he would command him with taqwa with himself and to be good to those Muslims who are with him.”[2]

The ruler, if he is conscious of Allah ta’ala and fears Him, and accounts Him in his own soul secretly and openly, then this would stop him from enslaving the citizens.”[3]

Shehu Uthman Dan Fodio, (1754-1817), founder of the Sokoto Sultanate[4] which was established in 1804 in West Africa, says concerning the rule, “He must maintain an open door to the aggrieved and oppressed. His job is to establish justice and prevent injustice, not simply to devote himself to personal acts of piety.”[5]

As mentioned in the hadith concerning Abu Dharr, piety and someone’s high rank in Islam is not enough for someone to assume authority. Kifāyah is considered of higher importance when it comes to governing people than individual taqwa, although this is still an essential attribute of a ruler as Al-Nabhani mentions.

Abu Dharr was one of the fourth or fifth Muslims[6], and had one of the highest ranks among the sahaba, yet the Prophet ﷺ refused to appoint him to a wiliyah saying to him إِنَّكَ ضَعِيفٌ “Indeed you are weak!” i.e. not capable of ruling at this time. Compare this to Bādhān ibn Sāsān and al-Mundhir ibn Sawa who were new Muslims, yet remained as governors of Yemen and Bahrain respectively.

As-Sallabi says, “choosing a leader, did not involve a random selection; on the contrary, the Prophet carefully chose the right man for the job, taking into consideration a candidate’s character, level of piety, experience and knowledge; at times, he ﷺ would choose someone who was influential in his tribe, in the hope that he could, in the capacity of overall leader of that tribe, convince all of his fellow tribesmen to embrace Islam. In such situations, the Prophet appointed not one of his own Companions but a member of the tribe he had just conquered. For it is always the case that people want one of their own to lead them, and not an outsider.”[7]

Appointing people to leadership positions based on merit continued throughout the Rightly Guided Khilafah. After Ali ibn Abi Talib was martyred, his son al-Hasan was given the bay’ah by the Ahlul hali wal-aqd based in the capital Kufa. There is no doubt that Ali and al-Hasan are of a higher rank among the sahaba than Mu’awiya. Mu’awiyah even said so during the civil war with Ali, “I know that Ali is better than me,”[8] but when it came to governing the Muslims al-Hasan made a conscious decision to abdicate from the Khilafah and hand over power to Mu’awiya. His motivation for resigning from the Khilafah was to restart the Islamic conquests which had halted after Uthman’s assassination, and to deal with the other territories who had taken advantage of the situation and rebelled in the East. Al-Hasan said, “I have been thinking of going to Madinah to settle there and yielding (the Khilafah) 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.”[9]

This is why “the caliph’s ability to actually do so, termed kifāyah, is all that remains after al-Juwaynī’s process of intellectual distillation as the most essential qualifying attribute for an imam.”[10]

Notes

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[1] Al-Ghazali, Fada’ih al-Batiniyya wa Fada’il al-Mustazhiriyya, translated by Richard J. McCarthy, Twayne Publishers, 1980, p.278 https://www.ghazali.org/works/bati.htm Arabic: https://shamela.ws/book/6554/187#p1

[2] Sahih Muslim 1731a,b, https://sunnah.com/muslim:1731a

[3] Taqiuddin an-Nabhani, ‘The Islamic Personality,’ translation of Shakhsiya Islamiyya, Vol.2, 5th Edition, 2003, p.83

[4] The Sokoto Sultanate is also referred to as the Sokoto Caliphate, but since the Ottoman Caliphate was in existence and it’s prohibited to have more than one Caliph, Sultanate is a more appropriate term for the reality of this state even if the term Caliphate was used.

[5] Aisha Bewley, ‘Democratic Tyranny and the Islamic Paradigm,’ Diwan Press, 1st edition, 2018, Kindle Edition, p.85

[6] al-Tabari, ‘The History of Al-Tabari’, translation of Ta’rikh al-rusul wa’l-muluk, State University of New York Press, Vol. VI, p.87

[7] Dr Ali Muhammad As-Sallaabee, ‘The Noble Life of the Prophet ﷺ,’ p.1938

[8] Al-Dhahabi, ‘Tarikh al-Islam – Ahd ul-Khulufa’ Rashida,’ ‘Vol.3, p.540

[9] Ibn Sa’d, at-Tabaqat al-Kubra at Tabaqat al-Khamisah min as-Sahabah, 1:331

[10] Mona Hassan, ‘Longing for the Lost Caliphate,’ Princeton University Press, 2016, p.105