94 chapter three
the Prophet’s death. Before the Prophet’s burial, two groups of
Muslims disputed the right to the succession: the Medinese Supporters
and the Makkahn Emigrants. The dispute ended by swearing the oath
of allegiance to Abù-Bakr, the Prophet’s close companion. The
Immigrant Qurayshite, Abù-Bakr became the first successor, the
caliph. Muslims, then, had time to prepare for their Prophet’s burial.
Of the many caliphates that have come and gone over fourteen
centuries or so, the Rightly Guided Caliphate is the most highly
esteemed in Muslim minds. It is the correctly-guided caliphate, “al-
Khilafah al-Rashìdah”, as referred to by Muslims, and the only caliphate
that is associated in Muslims’ views with righteousness and highly
spiritual values. The Orthodox Caliphate covered the years from 632
to 661 and embraced four correctly-guided Caliphs: Abù-Bakr (632–34),
Umar (634–44), Uthmàn (644–56) and Ali (656–61). All were the
Prophet’s close companions with the last one, Ali, also being the
Prophet’s first cousin. All had marriage relationships with the Prophet;
Abù-Bakr and Umar, were the Prophet’s fathers-in-law, and Uthmàn
and Ali were his sons-in-law. All but one, Abù-Bakr, had tragic
deaths: Umar and Ali were assassinated while praying and Uthmàn
was killed while reciting the Qur"àn. All caliphs contributed to the
development of the Islamic economic thought, though at different
levels and to varying degrees.
The period of the Rightly Guided Caliphate was a crucial period
in Islamic history. It witnessed (a) the psychological shock caused by
the death of the Prophet, (b) tribal revolt which had to be defeated
militarily, (c) active Islamic conquests that reached as far as Khurasàn
in the east, Georgia and Armenia in the north, Egypt and the North-
African coast in the west, and Yemen and Œadramawt in the south
(d) rapid and dramatic changes in Islamic society in a way that was
never experienced before, and, towards the end of the period, (e)
internal schism which reached the level of bloodshed. In other words
there was a sharply contrasting combination of events, ranging from
a wide Islamic expansion to a deep Islamic, or perhaps non-Islamic,
schism. What concerns us in this study is the effect of those events,
or the relevance of them, on the development of Islamic economic
thought and the role of the Orthodox caliphs in the development
of Islamic economic concepts. As mentioned previously, Islamic
jurisprudence, which incorporated economic issues, was first witnessed
at the time of the Orthodox Caliphate and was necessitated by the