“All pious Muslims well-read in the Hadith (the compiled sayings of the Prophet) firmly believe in the need to establish an Islamic State headed by a Muslim Caliph. This is mentioned twice in the Holy Quran and it’s central to the Islamic faith. No Muslim scholar would debate an Islamic state and the caliphate. Muslim Sunnis claim that the caliph should hail from Meccan notability. Shiite Muslims add that he must be from Ahl al-Bayt; a member of the prophet’s family.” (Sami Moubayed, Daily Telegraph, 23 Sep 2015)

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: سَتَكُونُ أُمَرَاءُ فَتَعْرِفُونَ وَتُنْكِرُونَ فَمَنْ عَرَفَ بَرِئَ وَمَنْ أَنْكَرَ سَلِمَ وَلَكِنْ مَنْ رَضِيَ وَتَابَعَ ‏ ‏.‏ قَالُوا أَفَلاَ نُقَاتِلُهُمْ قَالَ ‏ لاَ مَا صَلَّوْا ‏‏ “‘There will be ameers, you recognise (something of what they do) and you reject (some). Whosoever recognised, he would be absolved (of sin) and whosoever rejected, he would be safe. But whosoever accepted and followed (what they do, he would not be safe).’ They (the Sahabah) asked ‘Shouldn’t we fight them?’ He said; ‘No, as long as they pray.’” (Sahih Muslim 1854a)

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.

Among the teeming and terrified crowd of protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in January 2011, a young man and an older man crouched huddled next to each other as bullets from the security services whizzed overhead. In the din, the two spoke of how the Prophet Muhammad had once declared that whoever dies speaking truth to a tyrant will die a martyr.[1] They spoke of the great martyrs of the Prophet’s day, who awaited those latter-day believers who would one day join them in Paradise. Seized by inspiration, the young man cried, “I will greet them for you,” stood up and was shot in the head. “I touched his blood with my hands,” the elder man, a famous Muslim preacher, it turns out, recounted later in a TV interview, “It smelled like perfumed musk.”[2]     Notes [1] Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said: “The master of the martyrs is Hamza ibn Abdul Mattalib, and a man who stands (in front of) an oppressive ruler and enjoins the good and forbids the evil and so is killed …