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.
The bay’ah is a ruling contract which governs the relationship between Muslims and the Islamic state. For those Muslims living under the authority of the Khilafah the bay’ah is their citizenship contract with the state. Unlike most Islamic contracts which are one-to-one such as buying, selling, and marriage, the bay’ah is one-to-millions i.e. between the Khaleefah and the Muslim ummah. This poses a challenge on how you get the free choice and consent of millions of people which is a condition in Islamic contracts. Historically in the rightly guided Khilafah of the sahaba, the senior representatives of the people would contract the bay’ah to the Khaleefah. The rest of the Muslims would accept their opinion and rush to pledge their bay’ah to the newly appointed Khaleefah directly in the Prophet’s mosque in Medina which was the capital of the state, or indirectly through the governors in the other provinces. The classical fiqh books called this contracting group Ahl hali wal-aqd. Sallaabee states: “The inhabitants of Al-Madeenah pledged allegiance to him (Abu Bakr) and placed their …
The second foundation (usul) of the Islamic ruling system is that ‘Authority belongs to the Muslim Ummah.’ The Khaleefah is not a king or dictator who imposes his authority on the people through coercion and force. The Khaleefah’s authority to rule MUST be given willingly by the Muslims through the Islamic ruling contract known as bay’a. Without this bay’a the Khaleefah cannot rule. Unfortunately, after the time of the rightly guided Khulufaa which lasted 30 years Muawiya came to power and instigated the start of a hereditary bay’a where sons or family members would assume power after the Khaleefah’s death. This was prophesised in the hadith: الْخِلاَفَةُ فِي أُمَّتِي ثَلاَثُونَ سَنَةً ثُمَّ مُلْكٌ بَعْدَ ذَلِكَ “The Khilafah in my Ummah will be for thirty years. Then there will be Mulk (kingdom) after that.” (Tirmidhi) This doesn’t mean the Khilafah stopped after 30 years, rather it means the Khilafah based on prophethood (following the sunnah) which we refer to as the Khilafah Rashidah stopped and then the Khilafah continued but had the characteristic of a monarchy …
Islamic Civilization 