Religion and the State

While the sources for reconstructing the early history of Islam leave much room for contention, it appears that a crisis of authority took place immediately after Muhammad's death (632 C.E.). Faced with the task of finding a successor to the Prophet, Muslims (at least according to later views) were divided into two main camps. The first group—later referred to as the Sunnis—decided that a successor should be elected by the highest-ranking Muslim leaders. These Muslims elected Abu Bakr, an old ally of Muhammad and one of his fathers-in-law, as his successor or "caliph." A second group argued that the matter of succession had already been decided by God and revealed by the Koran and the Prophet. This group believed that the legitimate successor was Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law 'Ali. The members of this group were referred to as the shia (partisans) of 'Ali, or simply the shia (or shii). To them, 'Ali and certain of his offspring—to whom they refer as imams—have been designated by God to rule the Muslims. According to most Shia, including those in contemporary Iran, imams have access to knowledge not available to any other human being, and they are free from sin. Because of these extraordinary characteristics, they are qualified to succeed the Prophet as the holders of both religious and political authority. The majority of Shia in the early twenty-first century believe that the last of these imams (the twelfth imam, al-Mahdi) went into hiding to avoid persecution at the hands of the Sunnis in the late ninth century. He remains in occultation today, but at some point will return in order to bring peace and justice to the world.

The majority of Muslims refer to the first four caliphs after Muhammad's death, including 'Ali (who was widely regarded as the fourth caliph), as the "Righteous" or "Rightly Guided" caliphs. While there is no question of their having wielded prophetic authority, prophethood having come to an end with the death of Muhammad, they nonetheless hold both religious and political authority. Later caliphs, however, were not able to keep these authorities unified. Over the course of the early medieval period, the ulema (religious scholars, literally "those who have religious knowledge") gradually staked for themselves the claim to have inherited the Prophet's religious authority. Moreover, by the late ninth and early tenth centuries, even the caliph's secular authority was reduced substantially, as local princes (emirs or, later, sultans) successfully usurped the caliph's temporal power and effectively reduced him to the position of figurehead of Sunni unity. Meanwhile, a sovereign exercising both temporal and spiritual authorities remained ideal to a number of Muslim medieval political theorists such as al-Farabi, who at the same time recognized the difficulty of finding a legitimate contender for such a position. During the early medieval period, a number of explicitly Shia states were also established, in several of which the leaders claimed to rule as imams or in the name of the imams. In these states (the Nizari state in Iran and the Fatimid state in Egypt, for example), the unity of authority was better preserved, as the rulers claimed direct or indirect link to 'Ali's family (and thus to Muhammad), and so exercised both spiritual and temporal powers.