his deathbed the Holy Prophet gave an indication as to who should succeed him as the head of the Muslim state by appointing Abū Bakr, admittedly the fittest man, to lead prayers in his absence. For a long time this practice was continued, and the head of the state led the prayers. Righteousness — fear of God and regard for other people’s rights — was as necessary a qualification for the ruler as fitness to rule. Spiritual force alone could enable a man to control the powers which temporal authority gives him and which, in the absence of such force, are often in danger of being abused. The early Islamic state organization, which combined the office of the spiritual and the temporal head of the community, was, therefore, the most perfect which the history of statecraft can show. The head of the state considered himself responsible to God, in the first place, for the exercise of his temporal authority.

The foundations of the state laid down by the Holy Prophet were thus spiritual. They were at the same time democratic in the truest sense of the word. There exists a misconception in some quarters that the Islamic state was a theocracy. The head of the Muslim state never considered himself a representative of God on earth but as a representative of men who had chosen him to serve them; nonetheless, he certainly considered himself responsible to God for every act that he did in the exercise of his authority. All people, including the ruler, had equal rights and obligations and were subject to the same law. The Holy Prophet himself did not claim any rights beyond those which other Muslims had. In the actual working of the state organization, of which he was the founder and the head, there was nothing to distinguish him from the others. Outsiders came and asked: which of you is Muḥammad? He lived in the simplest possible manner, and never claimed any superiority on account of his being a ruler. When his soldiers were digging a ditch for the defence of Madīnah, he was there with his pick-axe, and when they were removing heaps of dust and stones, he was one of the labourers who were covered with dust. If ever there was a democracy free from all differences of heredity, rank or privilege, it was the democratic state of which foundations were laid by the Holy Prophet. Perhaps history cannot show a greater conqueror than ‘Umar, the second successor of the Holy Prophet, a conqueror and an administrator at one and the