God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780521541114)

This study examines how religious authority was distributed in early Islam. It argues the case that, as in Shi'ism, it was concentrated in the head of state, rather than dispersed among learned laymen as in Sunnism. Originally the caliph was both head of state and ultimate source of religious law; the Sunni pattern 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.

Author: Patricia Crone, Martin Hinds
ISBN-10: 0521541115
ISBN-13: 9780521541114
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 09/18/2003
Pages: 164
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.47lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.38d