THE STUDY OF THE EARLY CALIPHATE

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Wilfred Madelung retired from Oxford as the professor of Arabic in the year 1998. He is at present the senior researcher with the Institute of Islamic Studies. During his endeavor to pursue research, he has published many books. These books include; Religious Schools and Sects in Mediaeval Islam (London, 1985), Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran (Albany, NY, 1988), Religious and Ethnic Movements in Mediaeval Islam (Hampshire, 1992), The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate (Cambridge, 1997), and with Paul E. Walker and Ismailia Heresiography (Leiden, 1998). He has also published The Encyclopaedia of Islam and is also a consulting editor for journals.

Target audience

The author aims to communicate with a broad scope of the audience including ostensible aliens, traditional general readers, and Islamic specialists. The scholar provides much insight to the research by creating a vast account of reference for his work which goes back to the contention after the death of the prophet. To satisfy this objective, the author developed a wide-reaching book that is provocative and stimulating triggering multiple questions and insight from the audience.

Background

The major theme of the book is a question relating to the authority, legitimacy and the rule of law. The author argues that the Muslims are guided highly by their ambivalent feelings concerning the events that they faced during the first century. Many historians have addressed the issue since the earliest days going through contradictory sources calling for a modern thorough scrutiny of the issue to take play. This heated condition in the Muslim communities calls for a scholarly investigation that is sober; unfortunately, the author although thorough did not provide a serious argument and the subject is not very scholarly in the analysis of the medieval Caliphates.

The book’s narrative picks up with the death of the prophet leaving behind a confederation of loosely incorporated hitherto of tribal clans each trying seeking to snatch riches and powers. The author, therefore, has taken that opportunity to express the matters that were at hand after the departure of the Prophet since not principle or formula was left behind to determine the succession. This left a spark of questions among religious and political leaders whether the throne should be vested in household members of to the...