Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-31T19:41:34.367Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Legitimacy and political organisation: caliphs, kings and regimes

from PART II - SOCIETIES, POLITICS AND ECONOMICS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2011

By
Saïd Arjomand
Edited by
Robert Irwin
Robert Irwin
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Get access

Summary

Although the Qurʾān frequently enjoins obedience to God and His Prophet, in verses generally recognised as belonging to the period of Medina, and formulates a powerful concept, jihād, for the revolutionary struggle against the Meccan oligarchy to establish Islam, it says nothing about the form of government under the Prophet or after his death. There is, however, an implicit model of dynastic rule in the house of the earlier prophets who were also explicitly designated as kings, most notably the houses of Abraham, David and ʿUmrān (Moses and Aaron). The fact that no male offspring survived Muḥammad precluded the institutionalisation of that model, which was, however, espoused by ʿAlῑ as the leading descendants of Hāshim, and after his assassination by his son al-Ḥasan, seconded by his cousin ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-ʿAbbās.

Our oldest historical document, the so-called ‘Constitution of Medina’, did provide a basis for the organisation of authority in the nascent Islamic polity. It in fact consists of a number of pacts with the Jews of Medina that mark the foundation of a ‘single community’ (umma wāḥida) under God, which was unified in matters of common defence and undivided peace, recognised Muḥammad as His Messenger, and invested him with judiciary authority. Nevertheless, as with the Qurʾān itself, no provisions were made regarding the form of government. Muḥammad’s political activities centred on the organisation of jihād.

Type
Chapter
Information
The New Cambridge History of Islam , pp. 223 - 273
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ʿAbbās, Iḥsān (ed.), ʿAhd Ardashῑr, Beirut, 1967.Google Scholar
ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Lāhῑjῑ, Gawhar-i murād (Tehran, 1377/1958) –5.Google Scholar
Ḥājib, Ysuf Khạṣ, Wisdom of royal glory: A Turko-Islamic mirror for princes, ed. and trans. Dankoff, Robert, Chicago, 1983.Google Scholar
Ṭūsῑ, Naṣῑr al-Dῑn, Akhlāq-i Nāṣirῑ, ed. Mῑnuwῑ, M. and Ḥaydarῑ, ʿA.-R., Tehran, 1356/1976; trans. Wickens, G. M. as The Nasirean ethics, London, 1964.Google Scholar
Yaʿqūb, Abū Yūsuf, Abū Yūsuf’s Kitāb al-kharāj, ed. and trans. Shemesh, A. Ben, Leiden and London, 1969.Google Scholar
ibn Mubārak, Abu’l-Faḍl, The Ā’ῑn-i Akbarῑ/Abul Fazl, 3 vols., trans. Blochmann, H., Calcutta, 1927.Google Scholar
Ahmad, Aziz, ‘Delhi sultanate and the universal caliphate’, in Ahmad, Aziz, Studies in Islamic culture in the Indian environment, Oxford, 1964 –11.Google Scholar
al-Azmeh, Aziz, Muslim kingship: Power and the sacred in Muslim, Christian and pagan polities, London, 1997.Google Scholar
al-Dinawarῑ, Ibn Qutayba, ‘Kitāb al-sulṭān’, in ʿUyūn al-akhbār, ed. Tawil, Y. ʿA., 4 vols., Beirut, 1986, vol. I, 53–183; trans. Horovitz, Josef as ‘The book of government’, Islamic Culture, 4 (1930), 171–98, 331–62, 487–530; 5 (1931), 1–27.Google Scholar
al-Ghazālῑ, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad, Makātῑb-i Fārsῑ-yi Ghazālῑ, ed. Iqbāl-Āshtiyānῑ, ʿAbbās, Tehran, 1333/1954.Google Scholar
al-Ghazālῑ, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad, Naṣῑḥat al-mulūk, ed. Humāʾῑ, J., 4th edn, Tehran, 1367/1988.Google Scholar
al-Māwardῑ, ʿAlῑ ibn Muḥammad, al-Aḥkām al-sulānῑyah wa-al-wilāyāt al-dῑnῑyah, Cairo, 1978.Google Scholar
Alam, Muzaffar, The languages of political Islam: India, 1200–1800, London and Chicago, 2004.Google Scholar
Alam, Muzaffar, and Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (eds.), The Mughal state 1526–1750, Delhi, 1998.Google Scholar
Alvi, Sajida S., ‘Religion and state during the reign of Mughal emperor Jahāngῑr (1605–27): Nonjuristic perspectives’, Studia Islamica, 69 (1989) –119.Google Scholar
Andaya, Barbara Watson, To live as brothers: Southeast Sumatra in the 17th and 18th centuries, Honolulu, 1993.Google Scholar
Barbara Watson, Andaya, and Andaya, Leonard Y., ‘Melaka and its heirs’, in A history of Malaysia, 2nd edn, Honolulu, 2001 –76.Google Scholar
Andaya, Leonard Y., The world of Maluku: Eastern Indonesia in the early modern period, Honolulu, 1993.Google Scholar
Arjomand, S. A., The shadow of God and the hidden imam: Religion, political organization and societal change in Shiʿite Iran from the beginning to 1890, Chicago, 1984.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arjomand, S. A., ‘Coffeehouses, guilds and Oriental despotism: Government and civil society in late-17th–early 18th century Istanbul and Isfahan, and as seen from Paris and London’, Archives européennes de sociologie/European Journal of Sociology, 45, 1 (2004) –42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arjomand, S. A., ‘Conceptions of authority and the transition of Shiʿism from sectarian to national religion in Iran’, in Daftary, F. and Meri, J. W. (eds.), Culture and memory in medieval Islam, London, 2003 –409.Google Scholar
Arjomand, S. A., ‘The Constitution of Medina: A socio-legal interpretation of Muhammad’s acts of foundation of the umma’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 41, 4 (August 2009) –75.Google Scholar
Arjomand, S. A., ‘The law, agency and policy in medieval Islamic society: Development of the institutions of learning from the tenth to the fifteenth century’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 41, 2 (1999) –93.Google Scholar
Arjomand, S. A., ‘Medieval Persianate political thought’, Studies on Persianate Societies, 1 (2003) –34.Google Scholar
Arjomand, S. A., ‘Political ethic and public law in the early Qajar period’, in Gleave, Robert M. (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, London, 2005 –40.Google Scholar
Barani, Zia-ud-Din, Fatāwā-i jahāndārῑ (Rulings on temporal government), ed. Khan, A. S., Lahore, 1972.Google Scholar
Bartol’d, V. V., ‘Kalif i sultan’, Mir Islama, 1 (1912) –26, 345–400; partial trans. Doniach, N. S., published as ‘Caliph and sultan’, Islamic Quarterly, 7 (1963), 117–35.Google Scholar
Becker, Carl H., ‘Barthold’s studien über Kalif und Sultan’, Islam, 6 (1916) –412.Google Scholar
Blake, Stephen P., ‘The patrimonial-bureaucratic empire of the Mughals’, Journal of Asian Studies, 39, 1 (1979) –94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bosworth, C. E., ‘An early Arabic mirror for princes: Ṭāhir Dhū’l-Yamῑnain’s Epistle to his son, ʿAbdallāh (206/821)’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 29, 1 (1970) –41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charles, Schefer, Chrestomathie persane, 2 vols. (Paris, 1883), vol. I –13, 19–20.Google Scholar
Crone, Patricia, God’s rule: Government and Islam, New York, 2004.Google Scholar
Crone, Patricia, and Hinds, Martin, God’s caliph: Religious authority in the first centuries of Islam, Cambridge, 1986.Google Scholar
Dabῑr-Siyāqῑ, M. ed., Ḥabῑb al-siyar, 4 vols. (Tehran, 1362/1983), vol. IV, p.Google Scholar
Dānishpazhūh, M. ed., Tārῑkh-i Bayhaqῑ, 2 vols. (Tehran, 1376/1997), vol. I, p..Google Scholar
Darling, Linda, ‘Islamic empires, the Ottoman empire and the circle of justice’, in Arjomand, S. A. (ed.), Constitutional politics in the Middle East, Oxford, 2008 –32.Google Scholar
Fouchécour, Charles-Henri, Moralia: Les notions morales dans la littérature persane du 3e/9e au 7e/13e siècle, Paris, 1986.Google Scholar
Dhabῑhῑ, M. and Sutūda, M. (eds.), Az Āstārā tā Astarābād, 7 vols. (Tehran, n.d.[1976]), vol. VI, p..Google Scholar
Eberhard, E., Osmanische Polemik gegen die Safawiden im 16. Jahrhundert nach arabischen Handschriften, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1970.Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, S. N., Political system of empires (New York, 1969).Google Scholar
Khunjῑ, Faḍlallāh Rūzbihān, Sulūk al-mulūk, Hyderabad, 1966.Google Scholar
Fakhr, al-Dῑn al-Rāzῑ, Jāmiʿ al-ʿulūm, ed. Malek al-Kottb, M. (Bombay, 1905), 204–6.Google Scholar
Fang, Liaw Yock (ed.), Undang undang Melaka: The laws of Melaka, The Hague, 1976.Google Scholar
Fang, Liaw YockFarāʾid al-sulūk, ed. Wiṣālῑ, N. and Afrsiyābῑ, G., Tehran, 1368/1989.Google Scholar
Fleischer, Cornell H., Bureaucrat and intellectual in the Ottoman empire: The historian Mustafa Âli (1541–1600), Princeton, 1986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibb, H. A. R., ‘Constitutional organization’, in Khadduri, M. and Liebesney, H. J. (eds.), Law in the Middle East, Washington, DC, 1955 –27.Google Scholar
Gibb, H. A. R., ‘Theory of the caliphate in al-Māwardῑ’, in Shaw, S. J. and Polk, W. R. (eds.), Studies on the civilization of Islam, Boston, 1968 –65.Google Scholar
Gibb, H. A. R., ‘Luṭfῑ Paşa on the Ottoman caliphate’, Oriens, 15 (1962) –95.Google Scholar
Grignaschi, M., ‘Quelques spécimens de la littérature sassanide conservés dans les bibliothèques d’Istanbul’, Journal Asiatique, 254 (1956) –142.Google Scholar
Hardy, Peter, ‘The authority of Muslim kings in medieval South Asia’, in Gaboriaux, M. (ed.), Islam et société en Asie du Sud, Paris, 1986 –55.Google Scholar
Hardy, Peter, ‘The growth of authority over a conquered political elite: The early Delhi sultanate as a possible case study’, in Richards, J. F. (ed.), Kingship and authority in South Asia, Madison, 1978 –214.Google Scholar
Hodgson, Marshall G. S., The venture of Islam, 3 vols., Chicago, 1974.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holt, P. M., ‘The position and power of the Mamluk sultan’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 38, 2 (1975) –49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holt, P. M., ‘The structure of government in the early Mamluk sultanate’, in Holt, P. M. (ed.), The eastern Mediterranean lands in the period of the Crusades, Warminster, 1977 –61.Google Scholar
Iṣfahānῑ, ʿAlῑ ibn Ab Ḥafṣ, Tuḥfat al-mulūk, ed. Ahmad Dārānῑ, ʿA.-A., Tehran, 1382/2003.Google Scholar
Iṣfahānῑ, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan, Dastūr al-wizāra, ed. Anzābi-nizhād, R., Tehran, 1364/1985.Google Scholar
al-Muṭaḥhḥhar al-Ḥillῑ, Ibn, ‘The ʿAllāma al-Ḥillῑ on the imamate and ijtihād’, ed. and trans. Cooper, John in Arjomand, S. A. (ed.), Authority and political culture in Shiʿism, Albany, 1988 –9.Google Scholar
ʿAbdallāh, Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, Rasāʾil al-bulaghāʾ, ed. ʿAlῑ, M. Kurd, Cairo, 1331/1913.Google Scholar
Ibn Jamāʿa, Badr al-Dῑn, ‘Handbuch des islamischen Staats- und Verwaltungsrechtes von Badr-ad-dῑn Ibn ǧamāʿa’, ed. Kofler, Hans, Islamica, 6, 4 (1934), 349–414; 7, 1 (1934), 1–64.
Ibn Taymiyya, Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥalῑm, al-Siyāsa al-sharʿiyah fῑ ilā al-rāʿῑ wa-al-raʿῑyah, Beirut, 1966; trans. Laoust, H. as Le traité de droit publique d’Ibn Taimiya, Beirut, 1948.Google Scholar
Imber, Colin, ‘Ideals and legitimation in early Ottoman history’, in Kunt, M. and Woodhead, C. (eds.), Süleyman the Magnificent and his age, London, 1995 –53.Google Scholar
Inalcik, H., ‘State, sovereignty and law during the reign of Süleymân’, in Inalcik, H. and Kafadar, C. (eds.), Süleymân the Second and his time, Istanbul, 1993 –92.Google Scholar
Inalcik, H., The Ottoman empire: The classical age, 1300–1600, trans. Itzkowitz, N. and Imber, C., New York, 1973.Google Scholar
Inalcik, H., ‘Suleiman the Lawgiver and Ottoman law’, Archivum Ottomanicum, 1 (1969) –38.Google Scholar
Iskandar, T., ‘Three Malay historical writings in the first half of the 17th century’, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 40, 2 (1967) –53.Google Scholar
Jackson, Peter, The Delhi sultanate: A political and military history, Cambridge, 1999.Google Scholar
Kaykāwūs ibn Iskandar, ʿUnṣur al-Maʿālῑ, Qābūs-nāma, ed. Yūsufῑ, G.-H., Tehran, 1345/1966, trans. Levy, Reuben as A mirror for princes: The Qābūs nāma, by Kai-Kāvūs ibn Iskandar, Prince of Gurgān, London, 1951.Google Scholar
Khwānd-Amῑr, , Qānūn-i Humāyūnῑ, included in Maʿāthir al-mulūk, ed. Muḥaddith, Mῑr Hāshim, Tehran, 1372/1993 –307.Google Scholar
Kunt, Metin, The sultan’s servants: The transformation of Ottoman provincial government, 1550–1650, New York, 1983.Google Scholar
Lambton, Ann K. S., Continuity and change in medieval Persia: Aspects of administrative, economic and social history: 11th–14th century, New York, 1988.Google Scholar
Lambton, Ann K. S., State and government in medieval Islam, Oxford, 1981.Google Scholar
Lewis, Bernard (ed. and trans.), Islam from the Prophet to the capture of Constantinople, 2 vols. New York, 1974, vol. I, chapters 9–11.Google Scholar
Lombard, Denys, ‘Le sultanat malais comme modèle socio-économique’, in Lombard, D. and Aubin, J. (eds.), Marchands et hommes d’affaires asiatiques dans l’Océan Indien et la Mer de Chine 13e–20e siècles, Paris, 1988 –24.Google Scholar
Madelung, Wilferd, ‘Authority in Twelver Shiʿism in the absence of the imam’, in Makdisi, G., Sourdel, D. and Sourdel-Thomine, J. (eds.), La notion d’autorité au moyen âge: Islam, Byzance, Occident, Paris, 1982 –73.Google Scholar
Madelung, Wilferd, ‘Shiʿite discussions on the legality of the kharāj’, in Peters, R. (ed.), Proceedings of the Ninth Congress of the Union européenne des arabisants et islamisants, Leiden, 1981 –202.Google Scholar
Madelung, Wilferd, The succession to Muḥammad: A study of the early caliphate, Cambridge, 1997.Google Scholar
Madelung, Wilferd, ‘A treatise on the imamate dedicated to Sultan Baybars’, in Proceedings of the Fourteenth Congress of the Union européenne des arabisants et islamisants, Budapest, 1988 –102.Google Scholar
Madelung, Wilferd, The succession to Muḥammad: A study of the early caliphate (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 311–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marlow, L., Hierarchy and egalitarianism in Islamic thought, Cambridge, 1997.Google Scholar
Max, Weber, Economy and society, ed. Roth, G. and Wittich, C., 2 vols. (Berkeley, 1978), vol. II –20.Google Scholar
McKenna, Thomas, Muslim rulers and rebels: Everyday politics and armed separation in the southern Philippines, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melville, Charles, ‘Pādshāh-i Islām: The conversion of Sultan Mahmūd Ghāzān Khān’, Pembroke Papers, 1 (1990) –77.Google Scholar
Mikhail, Hanna, Politics and revelation: Māwardῑ and after, Edinburgh, 1995.Google Scholar
Milner, A. C., ‘Islam and Malay kingship’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1 (1981) –70.Google Scholar
Milner, A. C., KERAJAAN: Malay political culture on the eve of colonial rule, Tucson, 1982.Google Scholar
Najm-i, Sānῑ [Thānῑ], Bāqir, Muḥammad, Advice on the art of governance: An Indo-Islamic mirror for princes: Mauʿiẓah-i Jahāngῑrῑ, Persian text with introd., trans. and notes Alvi, Sajida Sultana, Albany, 1989.Google Scholar
Navāʾi, A.-H., Shāh Ismāʿῑl Safavῑ: Asnād wa mukātibāt-i tārῑkhῑ (Tehran, 1347/1969) –3.Google Scholar
al-Mulk, Niẓām, Siyar al-mulūk (Siyāsatnāma), ed. Darke, Hubert, Tehran, 1355/1976.Google Scholar
Pellat, Charles, ‘Imamat dans la doctrine de Jāḥiẓ’, Studia Islamica, 15 (1961) –52.Google Scholar
Pseudo-Māwardῑ, , Naṣῑḥat al-mulūk, Baghdad, 1986.Google Scholar
Reid, Anthony, ‘Trade and state power in the 16th and 17th century Southeast Asia’, in Proceedings of the Seventh IAHA Conference, Bangkok, 1977 –419.Google Scholar
Reid, Anthony, and Castles, Lance (eds.), Pre-colonial state systems in Southeast Asia, Kuala Lumpur, 1975.Google Scholar
Richards, J. F., ‘The formation of imperial authority under Akbar and Jahangir’, in Alam, Muzaffar and Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (eds.), The Mughal state 1526–1750, Delhi, 1998 –67; repr. from Richards, J. F. (ed.), Kingship and authority in South Asia, Madison, 1978.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, E. I. J., Political thought in medieval Islam, Cambridge, 1958.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sabzawārῑ, Muḥammad Bāqir, Rawḍat al-anwār-i ʿabbāsῑ, Tehran, 1377/1998.Google Scholar
Sabzawārῑ, Muḥammad Bāqir, Sĕjarah Mĕlayu or Malay annals, trans. and annotated Brown, C. C., new introd. Roolvink, R., Kuala Lumpur, 1970.Google Scholar
Sabzawārῑ, Muḥammad Bāqir, Tāj us-Salāṭῑn, ed. Hussain, Khalid, Kuala Lumpur, 1966.Google Scholar
Sabzawārῑ, Muḥammad Bāqir, Tietze, Andreas (ed. and trans.), Muṣāaf ʿĀlῑ’s counsel for sultans of 1581, 2 vols., Vienna, 1979.Google Scholar
Saiyid, AtharAbbas, Rizvi, Religious and intellectual history of the Muslims in Akbar’s reign, with special reference to Abu’l Fazl, 1556–1605 (New Delhi, 1975) –7Google Scholar
Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, ‘Iranians abroad: Intra-Asian elite migration and early modern state formation’, Journal of Asian Studies, 51, 2 (1992) –63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, ‘State formation and transformation in early modern India and Southeast Asia’, Itinerario, 12, 1 (1988) –109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyan, Émile, Institutions du droit public musulman, 2 vols., Paris, 1954, 1957.Google Scholar
Wake, C. H., ‘Melaka in the fifteenth century: Malay historical traditions and the politics of Islamization’, in Sandhu, Kernial Singh and Wheatley, Paul (eds.), Melaka: The transformation of a Malay capital c.1400–1980, 2 vols., Kuala Lumpur, 1983, vol. I –69.Google Scholar
Wellhausen, Julius, The Arab kingdom and its fall, trans. Weir, M. G., Beirut, 1963 [1927].Google Scholar
Winstedt, R. O., ‘Kedah laws’, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 6 (1928) –44.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×