The bay’a (pledge of allegiance) is a ruling contract that governs the relationship between the Muslims and the head of the Islamic State. This is shown in the sunnah where the Messenger of Allah ﷺ took bay’a on ruling not belief because bay’a was only taken from mature Muslims.
George Hourani, a maritime historian who has researched the early Muslim navy discusses “the problem of the earliest Arab ventures on the Mediterranean: how could they be successfully carried out in such a surprisingly short time?
DR MUHAMMAD KHAIR HAIKAL This is an extract from his PhD thesis ‘Al-Jihad wa’l Qital fi as-Siyasa ash-Shar’iyya’ It appears that this stage, the stage of manifestation and open declaration, in accordance to the understanding that we have explained, did not take place in one go, even if this gradual transition came to its climax when ‘Umar Ibn Al-Khattaab declared, after having been in the trench of the Kuffaar, with a certain heart and mind, that he had moved into another trench of the battle, transforming what he had carried in respect to this Da’wah in terms of a storm of hatred and violent vigour, transforming that all to the opposing side, to become the strongest of believers in backbone and firmness and most challenging in the face of the disbelievers.
DR MUHAMMAD KHAIR HAIKAL This is an extract from his PhD thesis ‘Al-Jihad wa’l Qital fi as-Siyasa ash-Shar’iyya’ We are already aware that the meeting of the Messenger ﷺ with the Aws and the Khazraj only took place within the context of the search for the Nusrah (support) that he had been seeking from the leaders of the Arab tribes and those of a position of honour, nobility and leadership amongst them.
The names of those Ansar who gave bay’ah at the second pledge of al-Aqaba are etched in history as the first to support the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and pledge allegiance to him as the leader of the first Islamic State, an event which marks the beginning of the Hijri calendar in Islam.
When Umar ibn Al-Khattab was Caliph he wanted to adopt a law which would limit the Mahr for women.[1] So one day Umar delivered a khutbah[2] and said: “Do not give more than forty uqiyahs[3] in dowries to women, even if she is the daughter of Dhu al-Qissah – i.e., Yazeed ibn al-Husayn[4]. Whoever gives more than that, I will seize the extra amount and put it in the Bayt ul-mal[5].”
BY DR. REZA PANKHURST This article has been reproduced from Prophetic Politics. Generally speaking, the contemporary argument that it is permitted to have more than one ruler for Muslims is not textually based but derived from the thinking that the paradigm of the nation-state is the only pragmatic way to do politics today. The inability to imagine another form of state, or to envision a unified Muslim state, may then lead to the sincere individual seeking justification from Islam for submission to the current geo-political status quo, hence the relevance of this contention.
