The Rightly Guided Ones 113and given the apt but rather vague title Khalifat Rasul Allah, “the Suc-
cessor to the Messenger of God”—Caliph, in English.
What made Abu Bakr’s title so appropriate was that nobody was
sure what it was supposed to mean. The Quran refers to both Adam
and David as God’s Caliphs (2:30; 38:26), meaning they served as God’s
“trustees” or “vice-regents” on earth, but this does not seem to be
how Abu Bakr was viewed. Despite the arguments of Patricia Crone
and Martin Hinds to the contrary, the evidence suggests that the Ca-
liphate was not meant to be a position of great religious influence.
Certainly, the Caliph would be responsible for upholding the institu-
tions of the Muslim faith, but he would not play a significant role in
defining religious practice. In other words, Abu Bakr would replace the
Prophet as leader of the Ummah, but he would have no prophetic
authority. Muhammad was dead; his status as Messenger died with him.
The deliberate ambiguity of his title was a great advantage for
Abu Bakr and his immediate successors because it gave them the
opportunity to define the position for themselves, something they
would do in widely divergent ways. As far as Abu Bakr was concerned,
the Caliphate was a secular position that closely resembled that of the
traditional tribal Shaykh—“the first among equals”—though with the
added responsibility of being the community’s war leader (Qa‘id) and
chief judge, both of which were positions inherited from Muhammad.
However, even Abu Bakr’s secular authority was severely limited. Like
any Shaykh, he made most of his decisions through collective consul-
tation and, throughout his Caliphate, he continued his activities as a
merchant, occasionally supplementing his meager income by milking
a neighbor’s cow. Abu Bakr’s chief responsibility, as he seemed to have
understood it, was to maintain the unity and stability of the Ummah
so that the Muslims under his care would be free to worship God in
peace. But because the restriction of his authority to the secular realm
kept him from defining exactly how one was to worship God, the door
was opened for a new class of scholars called the Ulama, or “learned
ones,” who would take upon themselves the responsibility of guiding
the Ummah on the straight path.
As we shall see, the Ulama would eventually fashion a comprehen-
sive code of conduct meant to regulate every aspect of the believer’s