ABSTRACT

In some Western and Eastern Muslim as well as Christian cultures oath-based political relations persisted even into modernity. But we also find them in the emerging Islamic Caliphate 19 Andrew Marsham, Rituals of Islamic Monarchy: Accession and Succession in the First Muslim Empire. From the seventh century onwards, the authors have evidence for the Muslim bay'a, the general oath of allegiance, which was sworn to the first caliph Abu Bakr and continued to be sworn to his successors. So there are obviously some striking parallels between Western and Eastern oaths of loyalty in the post-Roman period, and regarded from this point of view the oaths sworn to the caliphs do indeed not look entirely different from their contemporary Western counterparts. The following work appeared too late to be considered in this chapter: Ella Landau-Tasseron, The Religious Foundations of Political Allegiance: A Study of Bay'a in Pre-modern Islam, Hudson Institute Research Monographs on the Muslim World.