IB World Religions 5.4.5. Authority: the Prophet, Khalifahs, Imams, Ulama, Shaykhs and Pirs Notes

5.4.5. Authority: The Prophet, Khalifahs, Imams, Ulama, Shaykhs and Pirs

The authority of texts

1. Muslims rank the Qur'an above every other source because they hold it to be the speech of Allah rather than the words of any human being. No scholar, ruler or saint is thought able to overrule it.
2. The second source is the Sunnah, the practice of the Prophet, preserved in the Hadith. Muslims cite the Qur'anic command to obey Allah and to obey the Messenger as the reason a second source exists at all.
3. The two work together rather than in competition. The Qur'an commands salah without setting out its movements or timings, and Muslims take the form of the prayer from the Sunnah.
4. Shi'ah Muslims accept the same Qur'an and add the sayings of the imams to the recorded Sunnah. They hold that the imams transmitted the Prophet's teaching without error, so their words carry the same weight.
5. Where the texts are silent, scholars reason from them rather than around them. Agreement among qualified scholars and reasoning by analogy are treated as ways of extending the texts, not as rival authorities.
6. Texts still have to be read, and that is where persons enter. Every authority described below is understood as serving the texts, which is why Muslims describe scholars as heirs of the prophets rather than as sources in their own right.

The Prophet and the Sunnah

1. Muslims hold that the Prophet Muhammad received the Qur'an as messenger rather than composing it as author. Risalah, the sending of Allah's message, describes the role, and the message is held to be Allah's alone.
2. His authority rests on that role. The Qur'an calls him a beautiful example, uswa hasana, so his conduct becomes the pattern Muslims imitate in worship, business and family life.
3. The Sunnah covers what he said, what he did and what he approved by staying silent. Because it includes ordinary habits as well as rulings, it reaches into eating, dress and greeting.
4. Muslims hold that prophecy ends with him. The Qur'an calls him khatam an-nabiyyin, the seal of the prophets, and earlier prophets including Ibrahim, Musa and 'Isa are held to have brought the same essential message.
5. His authority is never treated as divinity. The shahadah names him as the servant and messenger of Allah, and worship directed at him would be shirk.
6. Muslims do not make images of him, and pictures of him are avoided in Muslim art and teaching. Reverence is expressed instead in words, above all in the blessing said after his name.

Khalifahs and imams

1. When the Prophet died in 632 the community had to decide who would lead it. Sunni Muslims hold that leadership passed to a khalifah, a successor charged with upholding the religion rather than adding to it.
2. Sunni tradition honours the first four as al-khulafa al-rashidun, the rightly guided khalifahs: Abu Bakr, 'Umar, 'Uthman and 'Ali. Their authority was executive and political, and none of them claimed revelation.
3. Later dynasties kept the title, and the last Ottoman khalifah was removed in 1924. Sunni Muslims have lived without a khalifah since then, which leaves scholarly authority carrying more weight.
4. Shi'ah Muslims hold that leadership was designated rather than elected, passing to 'Ali and then through the Prophet's family. Imamah, the imamate, is understood as an office appointed by Allah.
5. Twelver Shi'ah Muslims count twelve imams and hold that the twelfth entered ghaybah, occultation, and remains alive. In his absence qualified jurists guide the community, while Isma'ili Muslims follow a living imam, currently the Aga Khan.
6. The word imam does not mean the same thing in both branches. In Sunni usage it names the person leading a congregation in prayer, or a great scholar of the past such as Imam Malik.

Ulama, qadis and muftis

1. Islam has no priesthood and no ordination, so no one holds authority by office alone. The ulama, the scholars, earn standing by mastering the texts and the methods for reading them.
2. Training was traditionally personal. A student studied a text with a teacher and received an ijazah, a licence to teach it onward, which tied authority to a traceable line of instruction.
3. Institutions later concentrated that authority. Al-Azhar in Cairo, the seminaries of Qom and Najaf, and the schools of Deoband all train scholars whose graduates carry weight far beyond their own countries.
4. A qadi is a judge who applies the law in court. The ruling settles the case for the parties before him and is enforced by the state that appointed him.
5. A mufti issues a fatwa, a considered opinion in answer to a question. It is advisory rather than binding, so a questioner may seek another opinion, and muftis often disagree.
6. Shi'ah practice binds more tightly. Lay Twelver Shi'ah Muslims are expected to practise taqlid, following a living marja' in matters of law, and to change to another only in defined circumstances.

Shaykhs and pirs

1. Sufi authority works through relationship rather than through office. A shaykh, called a pir in Persian and South Asian usage, guides a murid, a disciple, in the inner life.
2. The relationship begins with bay'ah, a pledge of allegiance to the guide. The shaykh then prescribes practices of remembrance and discipline suited to that particular student.
3. The guide's credentials come from a chain. A silsila traces teaching from shaykh to shaykh back to the Prophet, so authority is presented as transmitted rather than claimed.
4. Its scope is different from a jurist's. A shaykh directs spiritual formation and does not issue court rulings, although many famous figures, including al-Ghazali, were jurists and Sufis at once.
5. Shrine culture extends the authority beyond a lifetime. In South Asia the descendants of a pir often manage his shrine and inherit real social and political influence from it.
6. This authority is openly contested. Salafi and other reformist Muslims argue that veneration of shaykhs and shrines drifts towards shirk, while Sufis answer that respect for a guide is not worship.

Mutakallimun and philosophers

1. Kalam is the discipline of defending Islamic doctrine by reasoned argument, and its practitioners are the mutakallimun. It grew out of debates about divine justice, free will and the nature of the Qur'an.
2. Distinct schools emerged. The Mu'tazila gave reason a leading role, while the Ash'ari and Maturidi schools became the mainstream Sunni theologies, and Shi'ah theology kept a strong emphasis on divine justice.
3. Alongside them worked the falasifa, the philosophers, including al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd. They read Greek philosophy closely and argued that reason and revelation could not finally conflict.
4. The two groups clashed in public. Al-Ghazali attacked the philosophers on questions such as the eternity of the world, and Ibn Rushd wrote a detailed reply to him.
5. Their authority is persuasive rather than binding. No Muslim is obliged to follow a theologian as a Shi'ah Muslim follows a marja', since argument convinces or fails on its own merits.