It appears from the Holy Qur’ān that people were gathered together for counsel on many important occasions: “Only those are believers who believe in Allāh and His Messenger, and when they are with him on a momentous affair, they go not away till they ask his permission” (24:62).
It was due to these clear directions to make laws for themselves and to decide other important matters by counsel that the first successors of the Holy Prophet had councils to help them in all such matters. It was also in the early history of Islām that the great Imāms, such as Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, freely resorted to analogical reasoning in legislation, and Ijtihād was recognized as a source of Islamic law along with the Holy Qur’ān and the Sunnah. The two principles of democracy, the supremacy of the law and the taking of counsel in making new laws and deciding other important affairs, were thus laid down by the Holy Prophet himself. The third principle of democracy, the election of the head of the state, was also recognized by him. He went so far as to say that even a Black man could be appointed to rule over the Arabs and that obedience was due to him as to any other head (Bu. 10:54). It was due to such teachings of his that the election of a head was the first act of his companions after his death.
When the news of his death spread, the Muslims gathered together and freely discussed the question as to who should succeed the Holy Prophet as the head of the state. The Anṣār, the residents of Madīnah, were of the opinion that there should be two heads, one from among the Quraish and one from among themselves, but the error of this view was pointed out by Abū Bakr who made it clear in an eloquent speech that the state could have only one head (Bu. 62:6). And so Abū Bakr was elected, being as ‘Umar stated,” the best” of them and “the fittest of the Muslims to control their affairs” (Bu. 93:2). Fitness to rule was the only criterion to decide the election, as indeed in the Qur’ānic injunction: “Allāh commands you to make over (positions of) trust to those worthy of them” (4:58).
Justice was declared to be the corner-stone of the State which the Holy Prophet founded; in dealing equitably no distinction was to be made between friend and foe, between people whom one loved and those whom one hated: “O you who believe! be upright for Allāh,