God's Caliph : Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam
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God's Caliph : Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam is a book co-authored by Middle East Scholars and historiographer of early Islam Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds.
The book examines the distribution of religious authority in early Islam.It provides evidence that the Ummayyad caliphs thought of themselves as representatives of God on earth (Shiite ideology) and not representatives of the Prophet of God (Sunni ideology), as the established Muslim canon maintains they were, following the death of the Prophet. The Sunni version represents the outcome of a conflict between the caliph and early scholars who, as spokesmen of the community, assumed religious leadership for themselves. Many Islamicists have assumed the Shi'ite concept of the imamate to be a deviant development. In contrast, this book argues that it is an archaism preserving the concept of religious authority with which all Muslims began.
Contents
- Introduction
- The title khalifat Allah
- The Umayyad conception of the caliphate
- Caliphal law
- From caliphal to Prophetic sunna
- Epilogue; Appendices; Index.
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