Succession To Muhammad - Western Academic Views

Western Academic Views

Many contemporary scholars who have sifted through the early Muslim historical writings are proposing narratives that are closer to the received versions. In most cases, this has meant a swing back towards the Sunni version of events. However, one recent publication, The Succession to Muhammad written by Institute for Ismaili Studies in London's researcher Wilfred Madelung, ex Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford, examines the course of events from 632, and the death of Muhammad, through the rise of the Umayyads — and rehabilitates some of the Shia narratives. On the right of Muhammad's household to succeed him, for instance, Madelung observes that:

In the Qur’an, the descendants and close kin of the prophets are their heirs also in respect to kingship (mulk), rule (hukm), wisdom (hikma), the book and the imamate. The Sunnite concept of the true caliphate itself defines it as a succession of the prophet in every respect except his prophethood. Why should Muhammad not be succeeded in it by any of his family like the earlier prophets? If God really wanted to indicate that he should not be succeeded by any of them why did He not let his grandsons and other kin die like his sons? There is thus a good reason to doubt that Muhammad failed to appoint a successor because he realized that the divine design excluded hereditary succession of his family and that he wanted the Muslims to choose their head by Shura. The Qur’an advises the faithful to settle some matters by consultation, but not the succession to prophets. That, according to the Qur’an, is settled by divine election, God usually chooses their successors, whether they become prophets or not from their own kin

Madelung writes on the basis of the hadith of the pond of Khumm Ali later insisted on his religious authority superior to that of Abu Bakr and Umar.

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