economic thought of the rightly guided caliphs 97unbelievers until they would witness that there was no God but one
and that Muœammad was His messenger. Only by saying this they
could save their blood and possessions. Relying on the Prophet’s say-
ing, Umar strongly opposed Abù-Bakr, “How could you fight those
who witness that there is no God but one and that Muœammad is
His messenger?” “I swear to fight those who separate Zakàh from
flalah”, said Abù-Bakr. The argument between the two men con-
tinued for sometime but Umar eventually accepted Abù-Bakr’s view,
“By God, when I realised that Abù-Bakr is determined to go ahead
and fight the rebels, I came to believe that it was the guidance from
God” (Al-Suyùtì). The awareness of the two men of each other’s
characters helped promote mutual understanding, as would be ex-
pected, and speeded up an agreement on that issue as well as others.
Abù-Bakr was renowned for his particular tenderness in character
with no inclination to violence, both before and after embracing
Islam, while Umar was known of his inclination to violence and his
desire for physical challenge, particularly before accepting Islam. With
his tender character and soft nature, Abù-Bakr would have avoided
a military action with the Muslim rebels if possible. But since a
caliph of that nature insisted on fighting the rebels, the fight must
have been inevitable, and with the piety of Abù-Bakr it could only
be legitimate. That seemed to have been how Umar perceived Abù-
Bakr’s insistence on the military confrontation.
The decision of the first caliph to fight the rebels although they
were Muslims should be viewed from various perspectives:
Firstly, the religious factor as indicated above. Abù-Bakr viewed
the rebels as aiming to divide the basic values of Islam as a religion.
Secondly, there was a need to unite the Arabian Peninsula, par-
ticularly in the transitional period of the Islamic state, and to trans-
fer the Bedouins into a coherent political entity (Al-Nabrawi and
Mihanna, 1982). This was necessary in order to prepare the Arabs
for the next stage to come. As previously stated, the Bedouin, as a
result of the nature of the land, were free in the vast desert with
no particular loyalty but to their families and kinship. Or, as Hitti
says, the Bedouin were never able to raise themselves to become a
social being of an international type or to develop ideals of devo-
tion to common good beyond that of the tribe (Hitti, 1963). Forcing
the Bedouin to bow down to the will of the state was a necessary
step in Abù-Bakr’s view to tame his temperament and widen his loy-
alty so that he might fit in with the new organisational structure of