ABSTRACT
In practice, following the imposition on the Muslim community of dynastic rule by the Umayyads, the incumbent caliph came to simply designate his successor, usually his son or brother. The caliph’s decision was then rubber-stamped by an ad hoc electoral council, whose members he had himself handpicked and who did not dare to challenge his designation. One can thus argue that the members of the Sunni community prudently chose to accept the political and military realities of the moment and to submit to the strongest ruler available, namely, one who had the wherewithal to make an effective bid for power and then proceed to intimidate or, if necessary, militarily defeat his competitors. In other words, the Sunnis were prepared to submit to the rule of the strongest political player, no matter how impious or oppressive, as long as he pledged to maintain the norms of the Shari‘a law and public order,2 appoint judges, collect the legal alms, defend the borders of Islam, and, last but not least, preserve the unity of the faithful under his sway. In this view, life under an unjust but strong leader, who met the minimal requirements of the post, was a better alternative to the fratricidal communal strife that, as the civil wars of the first two centuries of Islam had demonstrated, was an inevitable consequence of some high-minded attempts to bring to power the most just and righteous leader available.
