Authority and Legitimacy in Islamic Political Life the Ummah, Politics, the Caliphate

Abstract

The circumstances and contexts surrounding the early emergence of Islam are key to understanding subsequent developments relating to the concepts of the ummah, authority and the state. The intrinsic political dynamics within Islamic society were significant, leading to the formation of an Islamic political community and sphere closely linked to the essence that bound the community together: religion, which served simultaneously as both a belief system and a unifying force. Secondly, in the Islamic experience, politics did not present itself merely as a practice but as a subject of reflection that would lead Muslims to establish their own fields of knowledge: Islamic theology (kalam) and jurisprudence (fiqh), as well as the theory of the caliphate.