God's Caliph : Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (University of Cambridge Oriental Publications)

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Summary: Back in Print and in a nicely price paperback
Review: This is a classic investigation into the nature of the most archaic form of Islamic polity. Though highly controversial, it is nonetheless a classic in the field.

The thesis set forth by Crone and Hinds can be succinctly stated thus: the Imamî/Shicî view of the caliphate is an archaism rather than an innovation as suggested by previous scholarship, which characterized the early Umayyad Caliphs as largely politically minded and irreligious.

Crone and Hinds spread out an examination of the early usages of the title khalîfat Allâh, i.e., 'deputy of God', as the foundation of their case. After a sweeping overview of the known Umayyad attestations and attributions of the title and elsewhere, they forcefully argue for the official status of the title khalîfat Allâh for the Umayyad head of state. This contradicts the claim of majority tendency of the 'ulamâ' to claim that caliphal title was merely khalîfat rusûl Allâh, or, 'successor/deputy of God's messenger'. The following are the three points which are seen to provide sufficient reason to reject of account of the 'ulamâ': 1) those who reject the title khalîfat Allâh are Abu Bakr, 'Umar, 'Umar II, and other 'ulamâ'-i.e., the religious scholars and their favorite "mouthpieces"; 2) the title khalîfat rusûl Allâh appears in an explicitly polemical context vis à vis the title khalîfat Allâh; 3) if the original meaning of 'Caliph' was merely 'successor to God's prophet', then why did the title khalîfat rusûl Allâh disappear only to reappear in the 'Abbâssid era?

In the 3rd chapter, entitled "The Umayyad conception of the caliphate," Crone and Hinds put forward their most controversial argument based to a large extent on an interpretation of al-Walîd's conception-namely, that the Ummayad Caliphs saw their caliphal stature as an office of religious charisma parallel to that of prophethood. More precisely, the caliphal era marked a new dispensation of divine charisma that succeeds prophethood: "Messengers belonged to the past; the present had been made over to caliphs" (p. 28). Utilizing heterodox stories wherein caliphal stature is embellished to rival that of both prophets and angels, the duo attempt to document their assertion averring, "As told, these stories sound like frivolous, indeed blasphemous, flatteries; but what they illustrate is precisely the point that khalîfa and rasûl were once seen as independent agents of God: that is why they are comparable" (p. 29). Muhammad, they argue, began to be spoken of as Prophet with a capital "P" as a means to diminish the centralized religious authority of the Caliph. The overwhelming, religious significance of the Caliph survives even in classical orthodox Sunnî literature. Caliphs are central to the faith both as they are 1) the defining figures representing the coherence of the religious community and 2) as the community's leaders, they act, even in error, as its principle guide. As such, "salvation was perceived as coming through the caliph" (p. 38), and "Like the pope, the caliph presided over a religious community outside which no ritual act had any effect... There was only one true imam and on true umma, so that whoever made the wrong choice would find himself outside the religious community where no amount of religious observance would save him from a Jâhilî death" (pp. 40-41).

According to Crone and Hinds, the Umayyads also reserved for themselves the prerogative of legislation. "Caliphal Law" as such represents the most archaic form of Islamic jurisprudence. However, this is not a mere assertion of an independent, secular law or extra-judicial arbitration in their view; rather, the early stage was "a stage at which God-given law was given by God-given caliphs" (p. 50). Moreover, "it is clear that the caliphs were free to make and unmake sunna as they wished... [T]he Umayyads concerned themselves with all aspects of the Sharîca, not just with matters of war, fiscality and other public matters" (pp. 52, 53).

Hind and Crone build on this to assert that the transformation from the concept of sunna as 'generally accepted practice' to the more stringent and dogmatically weighty sunna of the Prophet is an artifact of the struggle for religious legitimacy that occurred between the emerging, piety-minded culamâ' and the Umayyads. Prophet sunna, therefore, was introduced in order to undermine the broad authority of the Caliph, and it did so in three ways: 1) by making scholastic aptitude a desideratum for delineating the contents of the sunna rather than the power of an office; 2) prophetic sunna is ossified whereas caliphal sunna is more malleable; and 3) the prophetic sunna is resistant to reinterpretation by the caliph being ensconced in juridical method and discourse, i.e., the caliph is deprived of his ability to define Islamic norms.

The Epilogue recapitulates the essential point of the work: the Imamî conception of the caliphate is more archaic than the Sunnî in the three respects of 1) being khalîfat Allâh, 2) having a salvific office, and 3) possessing the ability to proffer God-given law. Appendix A gives the date of the origin of the caliphate (aside from the propaedeutic Quranic back-projections of the title onto Adam and David) to most likely be with 'Uthmân-the first Umayyad.

Whether or not you agree with the conclusions of the work, it still takes a profound step towards bringing to the surface the tensions present within our sources for early islamic history.