The Caliphate of Adam Theological Politi PDF

Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29
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The Caliphate of Adam: Theological Politics

of the Qurʾānic Term Ḫalīfa
Han Hsien Liew

Harvard University (Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Department
of History)
hliew@fas.harvard.edu
Abstract
This paper studies how medieval Sunnite Muslim exegetes from al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923)
to Ibn Kaṯīr (d. 774/1373) understood the Qurʾānic term ḫalīfa and other Ḫ.L.F-derived
terms. While previous scholarship has examined how exegetes generally understood
the term, this paper scrutinizes the exegetical commentaries (tafsīr) chronologically in
order to discern the semantic and terminological shifts accompanying different com-
mentaries over time. It demonstrates the importance of an intertextual approach in
placing tafsīr literature in dialogue with writings on the caliphate in works of theology
(kalām) and law ( fiqh). Overall, the paper argues that the legal and theological deve
lopment of the Sunnite theory of the caliphate provided exegetes with new clusters of
terminology associated with the caliphate to enrich their commentaries on the Ḫ.L.F
verses. This process was in turn catalyzed by the systematization of the caliphate dis-
course and the canonization of the four-caliphs thesis during the Sunnite Revival.
* My sincere thanks to Roy Mottahedeh, Ahmed Ragab, Suzanne Smith, Greg Halaby, and
Ceyhun Arslan for their comments on drafts of this article. I am also indebted to Khaled
El-Rouayheb for pointing me to the appropriate exegetes crucial to this study and Aziz
al-Azmeh for his speedy responses to my queries on Adam. Earlier versions of this article
were presented at the Arabic & Islamic Studies Workshop at Harvard University, the 2014
Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Annual Meeting, and the “New Trends in Qurʾānic
Studies” conference co-hosted by the International Qurʾānic Studies Association (IQSA) and
the Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. I am grateful to the
participants for their helpful questions, comments, and suggestions.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi 10.1163/15700585-12341381

2 Liew
Keywords
Qurʾān, exegesis, tafsīr, caliphate, ḫalīfa, political thought, Adam, Sunni Revival
Résumé
Cet article étudie comment les exégètes médiévaux musulmans sunnites, d’al-Ṭabarī
(m. 310/923) jusqu’à Ibn Kaṯīr (m. 774/1373), comprenaient le terme coranique ḫalīfa et
les autres termes dérivés de Ḫ.L.F. Alors que les études précédentes ont examiné la
façon dont les exégètes comprenaient généralement le terme, cet article examine
les commentaires exégétiques (tafsīr) selon l’ordre chronologique pour discerner les
changements sémantiques et terminologiques qui accompagnaient les différents com-
mentaires au fil du temps. Il démontre l’importance d’une approche intertextuelle en
plaçant la littérature tafsīr en dialogue avec les écrits sur le califat dans les œuvres de
théologie (kalām) et de droit ( fiqh). L’article fait valoir que le développement juridique
et théologique de la théorie du califat sunnite fournissait aux exégètes de nouvelles
terminologies, liées au califat, qui leur permettaient d’enrichir leurs commentaires sur
les versets Ḫ.L.F. Ce processus a été à son tour catalysé par la systématisation du dis-
cours califal et la canonisation du concept des califes « bien guidés » pendant la renais-
sance sunnite.
Mots clés
Coran, exégèse, tafsīr, califat, ḫalīfa, pensée politique, Adam, renaissance sunnite
Introduction
The use of Qurʾānic verses as proof texts to justify certain claims and proposi-
tions in Islamic writings was common practice during the medieval Islamic
period. But to what extent can one make an argument for the reverse, namely
that political discourse and extra-textual issues external to the Qurʾānic text
were being read into the Qurʾān itself?1 This paper examines this question
with regard to Sunnite exegetical commentaries (tafsīr) on the Qurʾānic term
1 For a general study on how exegetes reflect their own theological ideas back into the text of
the Qurʾān, see S.R. Burge, “The Search for Meaning: Tafsīr, Hermeneutics, and Theories of
Reading”, Arabica, 62/1 (2015), p. 53-73.
Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29

The Caliphate of Adam 3
ḫalīfa and other derivatives from the root Ḫ.L.F in order to scrutinize the range
of vocabulary and concepts deployed by exegetes (mufassirūn) in explaining
these terms.
There are complex layers of interpretation underlying the term ḫalīfa in the
Qurʾān, in addition to the many derivatives of the root Ḫ.L.F itself.2 The sin-
gular term ḫalīfa appears twice in the Qurʾān, the first in verse 30 of the sura
al-Baqara (Kor 2, 30; also known as the “Adam verse”) and the second in verse
26 of the sura Ṣād (Kor 38, 26; also known as the “David verse”). In the first, the
text reads:
And when your Lord said to the angels, “Verily I am creating on earth a
ḫalīfa”, they said, “Will You create therein one who will act corruption
and shed blood on it, while we glorify You with Your praise and hallow
You?” He said, “I know that which you do not know.”3
The second verse refers to the prophet-king David:
O David, we have made you a ḫalīfa on earth. So judge between men with
truth and do not follow the lusts [of your heart], for they will mislead you
from the path of God. Because they forget the Day of Reckoning, those
that stray from God’s path shall be sternly punished.
A rich variety of meanings can be derived from the root Ḫ.L.F, but with regard
to the term ḫalīfa, Qurʾānic exegetes normally turned towards two basic mea
nings: the first being “successor” and the second being “deputy”. Moreover,
following the death of Muḥammad, ḫalīfa also became the title used for the
caliph, who served as the universal ruler of the Muslim community. Owing to
the numerous yet incongruous meanings of the term, interpretations of these
two verses often posed problems for exegetes, some of which bordered on
deeper political and theological issues.
2 In addition to the singular ḫalīfa, we have seven instances of the term in the plural—four
of them in the form ḫalāʾif and three in the form ḫulafāʾ. For verbal derivatives of the verb
(which occur in forms 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 10), only forms 1 (ḫalafa) and 10 (istaḫlafa) are related
in meaning to the term ḫalīfa and thus relevant to this paper.
3 The term ḫalīfa is rich in meanings and can be translated in several different ways, thus trans-
lating the term itself entails interpreting it on my part. To avoid this, I leave ḫalīfa and other
related Ḫ.L.F terms untranslated whenever possible in order to make room for different inter-
pretations of the word by the exegetes themselves.
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In recent decades, several works have been dedicated to the study of the term
ḫalīfa in the Qurʾān. Most scholars, however, settle on the conclusion that there
is hardly any link between the Qurʾānic ḫalīfa and the title used by the histori-
cal caliphs.4 More recently in her seminal article “The Term ‘Khalīfa’ in Early
Exegetical Literature”, Wadād al-Qāḍī attempts to examine how early Muslim
exegetes before al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923)—namely, Muǧāhid b. Ǧabr (d. 103/721),
Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 150/767), and Sufyān al-Ṯawrī (d. 161/777)—who lived
under the Umayyads generally understood the Qurʾānic term ḫalīfa in their own
time and place, an approach she calls “exegetically historical”.5 She concludes
that early exegetes generally did not go at lengths to legitimate Umayyad rule by
associating the Qurʾānic ḫalīfa with a reigning caliph, despite being governed by
Umayyad caliphs who not only self-referred as ḫalīfat Allāh but also cited such
Qurʾānic verses as Kor 2, 30 and Kor 38, 26 to support their claims.6
This paper extends al-Qāḍī’s “exegetically historical” approach to a later time
period beginning from al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) through Ibn Kaṯīr (d. 774/1373). In
addition to delineating how exegetes understood the term ḫalīfa, I also scru-
tinize semantic and terminological shifts by examining the exegetical com-
mentaries on the term ḫalīfa in chronological fashion not only in relation to
the socio-political context surrounding each exegete, but also against his intel-
lectual and discursive context. An intertextual approach is thus required in
order to place an exegete’s commentaries in dialogue with other writings on
the caliphate in works of theology (kalām) and law ( fiqh). Overall, this paper
argues that the legal and theological development of the Sunnite theory of the
caliphate provided exegetes with new clusters of terminology associated with
the caliphate to enrich their commentaries on the Ḫ.L.F verses.7 This process
was catalyzed by the systematization of the caliphate discourse and the cano
nization of the four-caliphs thesis during the Sunnite Revival.
4 See, in particular, Rudi Paret, “Signification coranique de ḫalīfa et d’autres dérivés de la racine
ḫalafa”, Studia Islamica, 31 (1970), p. 211-217 and William Montgomery Watt, “God’s Caliph:
Qur’ānic Interpretation and Umayyad Claims”, in Iran and Islam, in Memory of the Late
Vladimir Minorsky, ed. Clifford Edmund Bosworth, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press,
1971, p. 565-574.
5 Wadād al-Qāḍī, “The Term ‘Khalīfa’ in Early Exegetical Literature”, Die Welt des Islams, 28/1
(1988), p. 392-411.
6 Ibid., p. 409-411.
7 This paper deals mainly with published and edited tafsīr sources. Keeping in mind that there
are works of tafsīr which may have been lost or remained unpublished, I acknowledge that
several claims made in this paper about certain semantic and terminological shifts consti-
tute arguments from silence. Nonetheless, I have exhausted the extant sources at my disposal
to ensure that any claim about a particular semantic shift is fully substantiated.
Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29

As al-Qāḍī points out, many of the early exegetes before al-Ṭabarī were
“either puzzled by the Qurʾānic term ‘khalīfa’ in the singular and did not know
how to handle it, or they took it so much for granted that they did not com-
ment on it”.8 With respect to Kor 2, 30, most early exegetes tended towards
the identification of ḫalīfa with humankind in general, who are said to have
succeeded or replaced the jinns or angels on earth. For instance, Muqātil b.
Sulaymān’s commentary on Kor 2, 30, which relies on isrāʾīliyyāt material,
views Adam and his human descendants as the successors or replacement of
the jinns and devils in inhabiting the earth.9 There was no move on the part
of the early pre-Ṭabarī exegetes to find any Qurʾānic basis for the Umayyad
caliphs to justify any of their claims to be ḫalīfat Allāh.10
Al-Ṭabarī: Politicizing the Qurʾānic ḫalīfa
In Sunnite Muslim exegesis, al-Ṭabarī’s work of tafsīr, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan ta‌ʾwīl
āy al-Qurʾān, is often regarded as the maturation of classical tafsīr bi-l-ma‌ʾṯūr
(tradition-based commentary), with every interpretation supplied with a com-
plete chain of transmission (isnād).11 Al-Ṭabarī, however, was no mere compiler
of traditions. His tafsīr, though neither a work of theology (kalām) nor a here
siography, participated to some degree in the elaboration of Sunnite orthodoxy
during the fourth/tenth century.12 There he does not hesitate to present his
own opinions and evaluations, stating which interpretation he deems to be
most sound or correct.13
8 For the range of problems surrounding ḫalīfa in the Adam and David verses, see al-Qāḍī,
“The Term ‘Khalīfa’ ”, p. 405-406.
9 Muqātil b. Sulaymān, Tafsīr, ed. ʿAbd Allāh Maḥmūd Šiḥāta, Cairo, al-Hayʾa l-miṣriyya
l-ʿāmma li-l-kitāb, 1979, I, p. 96; al-Qāḍī, “The Term ‘Khalīfa’ ”, p. 399-400.
10 Ibid., p. 405-411.
11 Claude Gilliot, “Exegesis of the Qurʾān: Classical and Medieval”, in Encyclopedia of the
Qurʾān (EQ), ed. Jane McAuliffe, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2002.
12 In several of al-Ṭabarī’s works such as Kitāb Iḫtilāf al-fuqahāʾ and al-Tabṣīr fī maʿālim
al-dīn, one observes kalām-oriented modes of argument utilized in attacking his theologi-
cal adversaries. See id., Exégèse, langue, et théologie en Islam: l’exégèse coranique de Tabari,
Paris, Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1990, p. 14, 41-49.
13 Ibid., p. 211; al-Qāḍī, “The Term ‘Khalīfa’ ”, p. 396; Mahmoud Ayoub, The Qurʾan and Its
Interpreters, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1984, I, p. 3.
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In many respects, al-Ṭabarī regards succession and replacement of who-

ever came before as constituting the basic meaning of the root Ḫ.L.F.14 But
with al-Ṭabarī we also start to see a new way of interpreting the term ḫalīfa in
his commentary on Kor 2, 30, where he starts by providing a definition of the
word ḫalīfa:
Ḫalīfa is the form faʿīla derived from the verb ḫalafa, meaning to take
someone’s place after him in some matter, as in His words: “Then We
appointed you as ḫalāʾif on earth after them, so that We might behold
how you would behave” (Kor 10, 14), meaning that He replaced them with
you on earth, and appointed you as ḫulafāʾ after them. Because of this,
the supreme ruler (al-sulṭān al-aʿẓam) is called ḫalīfa [=caliph], because
he replaces the one who was before him, and takes his place in the affair,
and is his successor (ḫalaf ).15
At the outset, al-Ṭabarī gives away his assumption: the term ḫalīfa as appears
in Kor 2, 30 is linked to the ruling caliph, which for al-Ṭabarī is the Abbasid
caliph in Baghdad.16 Another instance of al-Ṭabarī associating the root Ḫ.L.F
with the historical caliph is in his commentary of Kor 10, 14, where he men-
14 Notably with regard to Kor 6, 165 (“It is He who has made you ḫalāʾif on earth, and raised
some of you above others in rank, so that He might test you by what He has given you”)
and Kor 43, 60 (“And if We wished, We could have made of you angels yaḫlufūna on
earth”). Muḥammad b. Ǧarīr al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan ta‌ʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān, ed. Maḥmūd
Šākir and ʿAlī ʿĀšūr, Beirut, Dār al-iḥyāʾ al-turāṯ al-ʿarabī, 2011, VIII, p. 135; XXV, p. 115-116.
15 Ibid., I, p. 228; id., The Commentary on the Qurʾan: An Abridged Translation of Jāmiʿ
al-bayān ʿan ta‌ʾwīl al-Qurʾān, transl. John Cooper, Wilferd Madelung and Alan Jones, New
York, Oxford University Press, 1987, I, p. 208.
16 Up till the end of the fourth/tenth century, the word sulṭān was understood in the sense
of governmental power or of the person who at a particular time is the personification
of impersonal governmental power. The latter meaning is found for the caliphs as early
as the caliph al-Manṣūr (d. 158/775) who referred to himself as sulṭān Allāh fī arḍihi.
See Johannes Hendrik Kramers and Clifford Edmund Bosworth, “Sulṭān”, EI2; Patricia
Crone and Martin Hinds, God’s Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 84-85. Since during al-Ṭabarī’s time, the
caliph still enjoyed some semblance of universal authority in the Islamic world and that
there was no ruler more supreme (aʿẓam) than the Abbasid caliph himself, one can safely
assume that al-Ṭabarī must have had the Abbasid caliph in mind when he provided this
definition of the term ḫalīfa. This should not be surprising considering that al-Ṭabarī was
relatively close to caliphal circles, culminating in a book on the merits of the Abbasid pro-
genitor al-ʿAbbās and a book on waqf, both of which were commissioned by the Abbasids.
See Gilliot, Exégèse, langue, et théologie, p. 57, 60.
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tions two reports related to the caliph ʿUmar b. al-Ḫaṭṭāb. The first has ʿUmar
making a statement deeming all Muslims to be ḫulafāʾ in relation to the ḫalāʾif
mentioned in the verse. However, in the second report, al-Ṭabarī brings forth a
dream motif in which ʿUmar again appears as the main figure, but this time in
his capacity as a Rightly-Guided Caliph.17
Returning to the singular ḫalīfa in Kor 2, 30, al-Ṭabarī provides four possible
interpretations for the term. The first interpretation has as its authority the
early scholar Ibn Isḥāq (d. 151/768), who takes ḫalīfa to mean “someone who
will reside [on earth] and dwell there. He is not one of you [i.e. the angels]”.
However, al-Ṭabarī proceeds straight away to reject this interpretation, sta
ting that “[w]hat Ibn Isḥāq says about the meaning of it is no explanation of
it [. . .]. Rather, [the word’s] meaning is as we have just stated [i.e. someone
who replaces the one before him].” He then goes back to ask who resided on
earth before mankind, such that mankind could have replaced them as suc-
cessors. He provides three interpretations in reply to this question: the first
regards the ḫalīfa as someone who succeeds and replaces the jinns on earth,
while the second, related on the authority of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728),
postulates that the ḫalīfa refers to the offspring of Adam who would succeed
their father Adam, with each generation succeeding the generation before
them.18 For al-Ṭabarī’s third interpretation, he reports a dialogue between
God and the angels on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās (d. 68/687-688) and Ibn
Masʿūd (d. 34/654),19 which he interprets as God saying “I am about to place
a ḫalīfa on My behalf (ḫalīfa minnī) on earth to act on My behalf in judging
between My creatures ( yaḫlufūnī fī l-ḥukm bayna ḫalqī).” Al-Ṭabarī continues
with a further level of interpretation arguing that “[t]his ḫalīfa was Adam and
those who took his place (man qāma maqāmahu) in obeying God and judging
with justice between His creatures (al-ḥukm bi-l-ʿadl bayna ḫalqihi).”20 In this
17 The report has ʿAwf b. Mālik saying to Abū Bakr that he “saw a rope hanging from the
sky and God’s messenger was being raised. The rope was suspended again and Abū Bakr
was raised. Then people were given different measurements around the minbar, and
ʿUmar was favored with three forearms measurements (aḏruʿ) [. . .] one that he was caliph
(ḫalīfa); second that he did not, for the sake of God, fear the blame of blamers; and third
that he was a martyr (šahīd)”. Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, XI, p. 110; al-Qāḍī, “The Term
‘Khalīfa’ ”, p. 409.
18 Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, I, p. 228-229; id., Commentary, p. 208.
19 “God said to the angels: ‘I am about to place a ḫalīfa on earth.’ They said: ‘Our Lord, what
[or: who] will this ḫalīfa be?’ He said: ‘He will have offspring who will work corruption on
earth, and envy each other and kill each other.’ ” Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, I, p. 229; id.,
Commentary, p. 210.
20 Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, I, p. 229; id., Commentary, p. 210.
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interpretation, al-Ṭabarī goes beyond the notion of “succession” and “replace-

ment”, portraying Adam as a political ruler and vicegerent of God in governing
God’s creation.21 We also see for the first time the use of terminology such as
ḥukm and ʿadl—normally reserved for the David verse in addressing his role
as prophet-king—with respect to the figure of Adam in this verse. As early
as the Umayyad period, such terms are normally found in discourses on the
caliphate in order to project how caliphs conceived of their role vis-à-vis God
and their subjects.22
However, there still remains the problem of the question posed by the
angels: “Will You create therein one who will work corruption and shed blood
on it?” It would clearly be unthinkable for a vicegerent of God, charged with
the task of judging between God’s creatures, to also commit bloodshed and
work corruption. Al-Ṭabarī’s answer to this question would prove to be a vindi-
cation of his attempts to link the historical caliph with the Qurʾānic ḫalīfa. In
dealing with the abovementioned dilemma, al-Ṭabarī returns to the dialogue
between Ibn ʿAbbās and Ibn Masʿūd, and provides his own interpretation of it:
However, the corruption and the unlawful shedding of blood was not per-
petuated by [God’s] ḫulafāʾ, not by Adam and those who took his place
among the servants of God. For [Ibn ʿAbbās and Ibn Masʿūd] said that
God told the angels when they asked Him, “What/who will this ḫalīfa
be?”, [that] “[h]e is a ḫalīfa who will have offspring (ḏurriyya) who will
work corruption on earth, and envy each other and kill each other.” He
ascribed corruption and the unlawful shedding of blood to the offspring
of His ḫalīfa, not to His ḫalīfa himself, and He excluded the latter from it.23
Al-Ṭabarī then goes on to reject the claims of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī who states
that the term ḫalīfa refers to the children of Adam (banū Ādam), contending
21 Similarly, in al-Ṭabarī’s commentary on Kor 24, 55 (“God has promised those among you
who have believed and done righteous deeds that He will surely yastaḫlifannahum on
earth just as He istaḫlafa those who were before them, and that He will surely establish for
them their religion which He has approved for them, and that He will substitute for them,
after their fear, security, [for] they worship Me, not associating anything with Me . . .”),
the verb yastaḫlifa entails God “making [a people] kings and leaders of a land”. Al-Ṭabarī,
Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, XVIII, p. 189.
22 The implementation of God’s sunna (normative practice), ḥukm (decree), ḥudūd (restric-
tive statutes), farāʾiḍ (ordinances), ḥuqūq (claims), and providing for ʿadl (justice) among
God’s servants have been a key part of the Umayyad conception of the caliphate since the
reign of ʿAbd al-Malik (d. 86/705). See Crone and Hinds, God’s Caliph, p. 27, 120.
23 Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, I, p. 230; id., Commentary, p. 210. Emphasis mine.
Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29

that it is not the proper way to interpret the verse, because the “one/someone”
in “Will You place thereon one/someone who will work corruption” does not
refer specifically to Adam.
In al-Ṭabarī’s mental map, we now have (1) Adam himself, (2) his offspring
(which we can take to mean humankind in general), and (3) among his off-
spring “those who took his place among the servants of God”. Two implications
can therefore be derived from al-Ṭabarī’s interpretations of Kor 2, 30. First,
he separates Adam from the rest of his offspring (ḏurriyya) or humankind in
general. While Adam and the rest of mankind are said to be successors to the
jinns in inhabiting the earth, only “Adam and those who took his place [i.e.
his offspring] as God’s vicegerents” are humans par excellence, untainted by
greed and corruption. Other offspring who are not vicegerents and did not take
Adam’s place are believed to be corruptible and prone to violence. Secondly,
if the word ḫalīfa can be taken to mean al-sulṭān al-aʿẓam (i.e. the caliph),
al-Ṭabarī’s interpretation of the verse hints at a sacred genealogy of caliphs
ruling the world stretching all the way back to Adam at the beginning of time.24
Adam and his descendants now appear to be the fount of a narrow genea
logy of future caliphs appointed by God who are distinguished from the rest of
humankind as pure and incorruptible, and endowed with supreme rule over
all human beings. In other words, as God’s first caliph, Adam prefigures the
future historical caliphs who would continue in carrying out divine dispensa-
tions on earth.25
Al-Ṭabarī’s setting apart of Adam from the rest of humankind also finds
parallels in his Ḥanafī contemporary al-Māturīdī’s (d. 333/944) commentary
on Kor 2, 30, where the latter writes that God intended the ḫalīfa to be Adam
24 In his historical chronicle, Ta‌ʾrīḫ al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, al-Ṭabarī writes that aside from
being God’s prophet and messenger, Adam was given “rulership and authority on earth”
(mulk al-arḍ wa-l-sulṭān fīhā) by God after being cast out from Paradise. He also reports on
the authority of Ibn Isḥāq that Adam’s son Seth “was the legatee of his father Adam (waṣī
abīhi Ādam), so after Adam’s death, political leadership (al-riyāsa) fell to him”. And after
Seth’s death, his son Enoch “took over the political administration of the realm and the
guidance of the subjects under his control in place of his father”. Al-Ṭabarī, Ta‌ʾrīḫ al-rusul
wa-l-mulūk, ed. Michael Johan de Goeje, Leiden, Brill, 1965, I, p. 151-153, 165; transl. Franz
Rosenthal, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. I: General Introduction and From the Creation to the
Flood, Albany, State University of New York Press (« State University of New York series
in Near Eastern studies »), 1989, p. 322-324, 336. See also Patricia Crone, Medieval Islamic
Political Thought, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2004, p. 5.
25 Aziz al-Azmeh, “Monotheistic Monarchy”, in his The Times of History: Universal Topics in
Islamic Historiography, Budapest-New York, Central European University Press (« Pasts
incorporated », 4), 2007, p. 284.
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and that “Adam was not amongst those who worked corruption on earth and
shed blood, but rather he glorified God with praise and hallowed Him.”26
Al-Māturīdī further explains the verse by citing Kor 38, 26, hence bringing the
image of Adam as ruler closer to that of David the prophet-king.27 Incidentally,
the notion of human beings succeeding each other, generation after genera-
tion, seems to carry more weight in his commentary on the other Ḫ.L.F verses
such as Kor 6, 165, Kor 35, 39 (“It is He who has made you ḫalāʾif on earth. And
whoever disbelieves, upon him will be the consequence of his disbelief”), and
Kor 24, 55.28 The notion of succession and replacement also heavily informs
al-Samarqandī’s (d. 375/983) commentary on Kor 2, 30, where—in similar
fashion as Muqātil—he recounts the isrāʾīliyyāt story of Adam succeeding the
jinns on earth.29 We do, however, observe for the first time an explicit associa-
tion of Kor 24, 55 with the four Rightly-Guided Caliphs: “[This verse] is revealed
regarding Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUṯmān, and ʿAlī, may God be pleased with them,
to yastaḫlifannahum, meaning they will be ḫulafāʾ after the messenger of God,
peace be upon him, one after another.”30 Nevertheless, taking into account
al-Māturīdī’s and al-Samarqandī’s interpretations of the foregoing Ḫ.L.F verses,
one can still safely argue that the specter of the Baghdad caliphate over tafsīr,
which did inform al-Ṭabarī’s interpretation of the term ḫalīfa, had yet to pene
trate the Central Asian scholarly milieu in which they were writing.
The Sunnite Revival of Adam and the Rightly-Guided Caliphs
Beginning with al-Ṯaʿlabī (d. 427/1035), we arrive at the cusp of the so-called
“Sunnite Revival”, in which the forces of Sunnite traditionalism were gaining
momentum against the Shiʿites and rationalists of all shades.31 Meanwhile,
26 Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Māturīdī, Ta‌ʾwīlāt ahl al-sunna, ed. Fāṭima Yūsuf al-Ḫiyamī,
Beirut, Muʾassasat al-risāla nāširūn, 2004, I, p. 33.
27 He also mentions that the children of Adam were also charged with the same command
by God: wa-bi-ḏālika umira banū Ādam. Ibid., IV, p. 267.
28 See ibid., II, p. 202-203; III, p. 477; IV, p. 185.
29 His commentaries on Kor 6, 165, Kor 10, 14, and Kor 24, 55 specifically associate
Muḥammad’s umma with the notions of ḫalāʾif or istiḫlāf as presented in these verses. See
Abū l-Layṯ al-Samarqandī, Baḥr al-ʿulūm, ed. ʿAlī Muḥammad Muʿawwaḍ, ʿĀdil Aḥmad
ʿAbd al-Mawǧūd and Zakariyyā ʿAbd al-Maǧīd al-Nawatī, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya,
1993, I, p. 107-108, 529; II, p. 91, 446-447.
30 Ibid., II, p. 446-447.
31 George Makdisi, “The Sunni Revival”, in Islamic Civilization, 950-1150, ed. Donald Sydney
Richards, London, William Clowes & Sons Limited (« Papers on Islamic history », 3), 1973,
p. 155.
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the Abbasid caliphs were just beginning to regain some measure of political
authority in Baghdad and its surrounding regions. The period also witnessed
a burgeoning of writings on political thought. The caliphate, which prior to
the Sunnite Revival had only been covered in works of theology (kalām), was
now dealt with in systematic legal fashion in al-Māwardī’s famous treatise,
al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya.32 As the following paragraphs will demonstrate, the
caliphate discourse would not only be restricted to kalām and fiqh and other
writings on government, but would also permeate different genres of writings
in the Islamic scholastic tradition, including tafsīr.
The commentaries after al-Ṭabarī would more or less build on and rework
his interpretation of ḫalīfa and other derived terms. This can be observed in
al-Ṯaʿlabī’s work of tafsīr, al-Kašf wa-l-bayān ʿan tafsīr al-Qurʾān, which utilizes
the original sources of al-Ṭabarī’s tafsīr while adding new material and omit-
ting the heavy use of isnāds.33 With regard to Kor 2, 30, al-Ṯaʿlabī defines the
term ḫalīfa using the notions of successorship. He supports this claim by nar-
rating the story from isrāʾīliyyāt material reminiscent of Muqātil’s commen-
tary on the verse. Like al-Ṭabarī, he also separates the ḫalīfa from his offspring
(ḏuriyya) who will “work corruption on earth, envy each other, and kill each
other”.34 However, to further explain the verse, al-Ṯaʿlabī adds a new anecdote
in which the caliph ʿUmar asks Ṭalḥa, al-Zubayr, Kaʿb, and Salmān, “What is the
difference between a caliph (ḫalīfa) and a king (malik)?” Thereafter we get an
account of what qualities an ideal caliph ought to possess.35 Al-Ṯaʿlabī’s com-
mentary on Kor 24, 55 contains many parallels with that of al-Ṭabarī (see above,
32 Crone, Medieval Islamic Political Thought, p. 222-223. See also Hamilton Alexander
Rosskeen Gibb, “Al-Mawardi’s Theory of the Caliphate” in Studies on the Civilization of
Islam, ed. Stanford J. Shaw and William R. Polk, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1982,
p. 151-165 [reprinted from Islamic Culture, 11 (1937), p. 291-302]; id., “Some Considerations
on the Sunni Theory of the Caliphate”, in Studies on the Civilization of Islam, p. 141-150
[reprinted from Archives d’histoire du droit oriental, 3 (1939), p. 401-410]. Another fiqh
book of the same title treating similar topics was also written around the same time by
Ḥanbalite jurist al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā b. al-Farrāʾ (d. 458/1066).
33 Walid A. Saleh, The Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition: The Qurʾān Commentary of
al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035), Leiden, Brill (« Texts and studies on the Qurʾān », 1), 2004, p. 8-9,
224.
34 Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Ṯaʿlabī, al-Kašf wa-l-bayān ʿan tafsīr al-Qurʾān, ed. ʿAlī ʿĀšūr and
Naẓīr Sāʿidī, Beirut, Dār al-iḥyāʾ al-turāṯ al-ʿarabī, 2002, I, p. 175.
35 Namely to “act justly towards subjects, distribute [wealth] among them with equity, to
care for them with a compassion which a man would have towards his kin, and to judge
by the book of God”. Ibid., I, p. 177. Al-Ṯaʿlabī’s use of ʿUmar in explaining the root Ḫ.L.F
does not stop here. In commenting on Kor 10, 14, he provides the similar two reports used
by al-Ṭabarī (see above) with ʿUmar as the main figure, one of which has ʿUmar figuring in
it as caliph. See ibid., V, p. 123.
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12 Liew
footnote no. 21), but is supplemented by the claim that “in [the verse] is a clear
indication of the righteousness (ṣiḥḥa) of the caliphate of Abū Bakr and the
imamate (imāma) of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs”, as we similarly observe in
al-Samarqandī’s commentary on the same verse. He then cites two hadiths:
“The caliphate after me will be thirty years, after which it will become king-
ship” and “The caliphate after me in my community (umma) is in four [men]—
Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUṯmān, and ʿAlī.”36 One can therefore argue that al-Ṯaʿlabī
was using these verses as a platform to establish the orthodox position of the
four Rightly-Guided Caliphs in Sunnite historical memory.
By the time we get to al-Māwardī (d. 450/1058), we see a more stable set
of interpretations taking shape which tread along similar lines as that of
al-Ṭabarī. This is not surprising for al-Māwardī’s case, since his tafsīr modi-
fies al-Ṭabarī’s tafsīr by abridging it.37 He defines the word ḫalīfa as “someone
who acts in the place of another”.38 Subsequently, he goes on to mention three
interpretations regarding the “ḫilāfa of Adam and his offspring” (ḫilāfat Ādam
wa-ḏurriyyatihi). With regard to the three interpretations, al-Māwardī adopts
al-Ṭabarī’s three-tiered interpretation, with the first (on the authority of Ibn
ʿAbbās) being Adam and his offspring replacing the jinns who have worked cor-
ruption and shed blood on earth;39 the second (on the authority of al-Ḥasan
al-Baṣrī) being nations (qawm) from the offspring of Adam (wuld Ādam) suc-
ceeding one another, who succeeded their father Adam in the establishment
of truth (iqāmat al-ḥaqq) and the cultivation of the earth (ʿimārat al-arḍ); the
third (on the authority of Ibn Masʿūd) being a deputy (i.e. Adam and those
from among his offspring who take his place) who would deputize for God
in judging between His creation.40 Like al-Ṭabarī, al-Māwardī’s interpretation
of Kor 2, 30 brings forth the dual sense of successorship and divine rulership.
As for his interpretation of the David verse, al-Māwardī explains that the cali
phate of David entails prophecy (al-nubuwwa) and kingship (al-mulk).41
36 Ibid., VII, p. 115.

37 Feras Hamza, Sajjad Rizvi and Farhana Mayer (eds), An Anthology of Qurʾanic
Commentaries, vol. I: On the Nature of the Divine, Oxford-New York-London, Oxford
University Press-Institute of Ismaili studies (« Qurʾānic studies series », 5), 2008, p. 4.
38 Abū l-Ḥasan al-Māwardī, al-Nukat wa-l-ʿuyūn, ed. al-Sayyid b. ʿAbd al-Maqṣūd b. ʿAbd
al-Raḥīm, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1992, I, p. 95.
39 This notion of “successorship” is also reflected in al-Māwardī’s commentary on the term
ḫalāʾif in Kor 6, 165. See ibid., II, p. 196-197.
40 Ibid., I, p. 95.
41 Ibid., V, p. 90. See also al-Samarqandī’s commentary on this verse where, in explaining
the term ḫalīfa as one who takes the place of another before him, he writes: “before him
Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29

A different mode of caliphal discourse is also discernible in al-Māwardī’s

commentary on several other ḫalīfa-related verses. For instance, with regard
to Kor 35, 39, he interprets ḫalāʾif—citing Qatāda—on the basis of “succes-
sion”. What is interesting is that immediately after, al-Māwardī claims that
this notion of “succession” explains Abū Bakr’s own statement that he would
rather be addressed as ḫalīfat rasūl Allāh (successor of the messenger of God)
instead of ḫalīfat Allāh (deputy of God) upon ascension to the caliphal office.42
This statement might be a pious retrojection by orthodox Sunnite ʿulamāʾ as
part of what they perceived as constituting legitimate Islamic rulership, but
it would eventually become the locus classicus for rejecting the lofty title
ḫalīfat Allāh.43 The evoking of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs also finds expres-
sion in al-Māwardī’s commentary on Kor 24, 55, where he cites the opinion of
al-Ḍaḥḥāk (d. 106/724) that “[t]his verse concerns the Four Caliphs (al-ḫulafāʾ
al-arbaʿa)—Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUṯmān, and ʿAlī, may God be pleased with them,
and they are the rightly-guided imāms (al-a‌ʾimma l-mahdiyyun).”44
The commentaries of al-Wāḥidī (a student of al-Ṯaʿlabī; d. 468/1076) in his
masterwork of tafsīr, al-Basīṭ, represent, in many respects, a synthesis of the
many interpretations that came before. With regard to Kor 2, 30, he explicates
ḫalīfa on the basis of succession but then alludes to conceptions of ruler-
ship along similar lines as that of al-Ṭabarī and al-Māwardī.45 Like al-Ṭabarī
and al-Ṯaʿlabī, he also calls attention to a group ( firqa) among the children
of Adam who will shed blood.46 Nevertheless, the notion of Adam as ḫalīfa
judging between humankind is completely absent in his abridged tafsīr titled
[i.e. David], prophethood (nubuwwa) used to inhere in one tribe and kingship (mulk) in
another; but God granted both to David”. Al-Samarqandī, Baḥr al-ʿulūm, III, p. 134.
42 Al-Māwardī, al-Nukat wa-l-ʿuyūn, IV, p. 477. This very statement is also used by al-Māwardī
in his Aḥkām to support his claim that the caliph ought to be addressed as ḫalīfat rasūl
Allāh instead of ḫalīfat Allāh. See id., al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya, ed. Aḥmad Ǧād, Cairo,
Dār al-ḥadīṯ, 2006, p. 39; transl. Wafaa Wahba, The Ordinances of Government, Reading-
London, Centre for Muslim Contribution to Civilization-Garnet Publishing, 1996, p. 15-16.
43 Crone and Hinds, God’s Caliph, p. 19-22.
44 He follows this comment with the prophetic hadith, “The caliphate after me will be thirty
years.” Al-Māwardī, al-Nukat wa-l-ʿuyūn, IV, p. 119.
45 For instance the notion that “the sulṭān is called ḫalīfa because he replaces the one before
him”. He also cites the opinion of Ibn ʿAbbās, Ibn Masʿūd, and Ibn Zayd which sees Adam
as the ḫalīfa created by God to “judge with truth on His earth”. Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Aḥmad
al-Wāḥidī, al-Tafsīr al-basīṭ, ed. Muḥammad b. Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Fawzān, Damascus,
Dār al-maʿād li-l-dirāsāt wa-l-buḥūṯ al-qurʾāniyya (« Silsilat al-rasāʾil al-ǧāmiʿiyya », 101),
2013, II, p. 320-322.
46 Ibid., II, p. 326.
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14 Liew
al-Waǧīz, where he writes that the ḫalīfa is Adam, “[for God] created him to be
a ḫalīfa [in this context, replacement] of the angels who were the inhabitants
of earth after the jinns, and the mentioning of this story is intended to recall
the beginning of the creation of mankind (al-nās)”.47 Since al-Waǧīz is writ-
ten “for the debased, who need something easy to understand and memorize”,
one can argue that al-Wāḥidī is more inclined to the notion of “succession” or
“replacement” in his interpretation of ḫalīfa.48
A semantic shift does occur, however, in al-Wāḥidī’s commentary of Kor 38,
26 in al-Basīṭ, where the construct phrase normally used as a caliphal title,
ḫalīfat Allāh, is being read into his interpretation of the term ḫalīfa. He explains
that the ḫalīfa is “ḫalīfat Allāh fī arḍihi [i.e. deputy of God on His earth] because
God created him to direct His servants by His command”. By analogy, on the
authority of Abū Isḥāq, ḫulafāʾ are therefore called ḫulafāʾ Allāh fī arḍihi.49
Adam as ḫalīfat Allāh
In commentaries after al-Wāḥidī, we start to observe the title of ḫalīfat

Allāh being read into commentaries of Kor 2, 30. For instance, in al-Baġawī’s
(d. 516/1122) tafsīr titled Maʿālim al-tanzīl—itself a reworking and summary
of al-Ṯaʿlabī’s al-Kašf 50—he relates the story of Adam succeeding the jinns
on earth, without going at length to provide the three-tiered interpretation of
ḫalīfa as observed in al-Ṭabarī and al-Māwardī.51 However, he proceeds imme-
diately to make a counter-argument: “It has been said that this is because
he [i.e. Adam] succeeds someone who is other than himself, but [the] more
plausible [interpretation] is that he is ḫalīfat Allāh fī arḍihi for the establish-
ment of His rulings (iqāmat aḥkāmihi) and the implementation of His injunc-
tions (tanfīḏ waṣāyāhu).”52 For al-Baġawī, the notion of ḫalīfat Allāh implying
47 Id., al-Waǧīz fī tafsīr al-kitāb al-ʿazīz, ed. Ṣafwān ʿAdnān Dāwūdī, Damascus, Dār al-qalam,
1995, I, p. 98.
48 For al-Wāḥidī’s classification of his three works of tafsīr—al-Basīṭ, al-Wasīṭ, and
al-Waǧīz—and his reasons for writing three compilations, see Saleh, “The Last of the
Nishapuri School of Tafsīr: Al-Wāḥidī (d. 468/1076) and His Significance in the History of
Qurʾanic Exegesis”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 126/2 (2006), p. 235-239.
49 Al-Wāḥidī, al-Tafsīr al-basīṭ, XIX, p. 192-193.
50 Saleh, Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition, p. 208-209.
51 Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn al-Baġawī, Maʿālim al-tanzīl, ed. Ḫālid ʿAbd al-Raḥmān
al-ʿAkk and Marwān Sawār, Multan, Idārat ta‌ʾlīfāt ašrafiyya, 1988, I, p. 60.
52 Ibid. For a discussion on the notion of tanfīḏ and its association with rulership and the
caliph, see Frank Vogel, “Tracing Nuance in Māwardī’s al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyyah: Implicit
Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29

divine rulership on earth thus seems closer to what the term ḫalīfa is supposed
to mean in the Qurʾān. The earliest instance in Islamic history whereby one
observes a similar equating of the Qurʾānic ḫalīfa in Kor 2, 30 with the title
ḫalīfat Allāh used by caliphs is in a testament by the Umayyad caliph al-Walīd II
(d. 126/744) appointing his two sons as successors to the caliphate; no exegete
before al-Baġawī, at least to my knowledge with regard to Kor 2, 30, had done
this in tafsīr.53 Nevertheless, by al-Baġawī’s time in the early sixth/twelfth cen-
tury, ḫalīfat Allāh had become such a common title and appellation used by
caliphs, such that even the most renowned of Sunnite jurists such as al-Ġazālī
(d. 505/1111) had no qualms regarding the Abbasid caliph as ḫalīfat Allāh ʿalā
l-ḫalq (deputy of God over creation).54
The reading of ḫalīfat Allāh into Kor 2, 30 can be further observed in
al-Zamaḫšarī’s (d. 538/1144) famous work of exegesis, al-Kaššāf ʿan ḥaqāʾiq
al-tanzīl wa-ʿuyūn al-aqāwīl fī wuǧūh al-ta‌ʾwīl, which does not pay much regard
to hadiths and chains of transmission, instead placing greater stress on linguis-
tic explanations. In Sunnite circles, this tafsīr is better known for its author’s
mastery of Arabic grammar and philology.55 For the meaning of the word
ḫalīfa in the Adam verse, al-Zamaḫšarī states that the ḫalīfa is “someone who
succeeds another”, which is equivalent to God saying to the angels, “a ḫalīfa
[i.e. successor] of you (pl.)”.56 This is because the angels were the inhabitants
Framing of Constitutional Authority”, in Islamic Law in Theory: Studies on Jurisprudence

in Honor of Bernard Weiss, ed. A. Kevin Reinhart and Robert Gleave, Leiden-Boston, Brill
(« Studies in Islamic law and society », 37), 2014, p. 350-351.
53 Al-Qāḍī, “The Term ‘Khalīfa’ ”, p. 410. For al-Walīd II’s quoting of Kor 2, 30 in his testament,
see al-Ṭabarī, Ta‌ʾrīḫ, III, p. 1759; translated in Crone and Hinds, God’s Caliph, p. 118-126.
54 Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad al-Ġazālī, Faḍāʾiḥ al-bāṭiniyya wa-faḍāʾil al-Mustaẓhiriyya,
ed. Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Quṭb, Beirut, al-Maktaba l-ʿaṣriyya, 2009, p. 153. By this period,
statements and traditions stressing that “whoever commands good and forbids evil is
ḫalīfat Allāh fī l-arḍ and the ḫalīfa of [God’s] book and of His Prophet” have also been
in circulation. See Crone and Hinds, God’s Caliph, p. 98; Crone, Medieval Islamic Political
Thought, p. 129. Nevertheless, one has to also take into account that Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād
(d. 227/842), to whom this statement is attributed, was himself a stern critic of the
Muʿtazilite doctrine of the createdness of the Qurʾān embraced by the Abbasid caliph
al-Ma‌ʾmūn (d. 218/833). Michael Cook has also pointed out that Prophetic traditions
positing similar claims have their provenance in Syria and Egypt, instead of the Abbasid
caliphal capital of Baghdad. See Michael Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong
in Islamic Thought, Cambridge-New York, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 38.
55 Gilliot, “Exegesis of the Qurʾān: Classical and Medieval”; Ayoub, The Qurʾan and Its
Interpreters, I, p. 5.
56 Maḥmūd b. ʿUmar al-Zamaḫšarī, al-Kaššāf ʿan ḥaqāʾiq al-tanzīl wa-ʿuyūn al-aqāwīl fī
wuǧūh al-ta‌ʾwīl, ed. Ḫalīl Ma‌ʾmūn Šīḥā, Beirut, Dār al-maʿrifa, 2009, p. 70.
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16 Liew
of the earth and so Adam and his offspring replaced them on it. After a brief
question and answer he poses to himself with regard to the use of the term
ḫalīfa in the singular,57 he goes on to advance a second proposition: “It is pos-
sible that [God uttered] ‘[I want someone to be] my ḫalīfa’ because Adam
was ḫalīfat Allāh fī arḍihi and the same goes for all the prophets.”58 Unlike
al-Ṭabarī and al-Māwardī, however, here we only get two interpretations of the
word ḫalīfa; the view of nations succeeding one another, which goes back to
al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, is absent. While the ḫalīfa is not explicitly defined as some-
one who implements God’s rule and command over humankind as we see in
al-Ṭabarī, al-Māwardī, and al-Baġawī, al-Zamaḫšarī still leaves room to intro-
duce the caliphal rhetoric of ḫalīfat Allāh into his interpretation of the verse,
which itself carries political connotations and alludes to the historico-political
caliph. In his commentary on Kor 38, 26, al-Zamaḫšarī claims that the phrase
ḫalīfa fī l-arḍ in the verse means that God deputized (istaḫlafa) David with
rulership (al-mulk) over earth, “just as one who is deputized by several rulers
(al-salāṭīn) over several lands and becomes ruler over them”. He then writes
that the utterance ḫulafāʾ Allāh fī arḍihi is derived from this interpretation.59
Al-Zamaḫšarī’s interpretation thus hints at a link between ḫalīfa as expressed in
Kor 38, 26 and the caliphate in reality, especially since the appellation of ḫalīfat
Allāh fī arḍihi was already in common use by the Abbasid caliphs. In sum, the
reading of ḫalīfat Allāh, a term normally used as a title for the caliph, into tafsīr
on the part of al-Wāḥidī, al-Baġawī, and al-Zamaḫšarī suggests a circulation of
ideas and vocabulary between political thinking and scriptural interpretation.
Unsurprisingly, the reading of ḫalīfat Allāh into the Qurʾān did not go entirely
unopposed by all exegetes. The most explicit objection to the use of the title
comes from the Andalusian exegete Ibn ʿAṭiyya (d. 541/1147), who offers a short
discussion of the title ḫalīfat Allāh in his commentary on Kor 38, 26:
Some people conclude from this verse the need of earth for a ḫalīfa from
God Almighty [. . .]. This [i.e. the caliphate] is not obligatory based on the
verse, but rather its necessity is derived from revelation (šarʿ) and
57 He poses the question as to why are the terms ḫalāʾif and ḫulafāʾ not used in place of the
singular ḫalīfa. He answers by saying that just like a tribe is known by its founder (abī
l-qabīla), it suffices to mention the ḫalīfa (i.e. Adam) alone and take it to mean his off-
spring and humankind in general. Ibid.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid., p. 924; David Johnston, Earth, Empire and Sacred Text: Muslims and Christians as
Trustees of Creation, London, Equinox Publishing Ltd (« Comparative Islamic Studies »),
2010, p. 285.
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consensus (iǧmāʿ). And [the caliph] is not called the ḫalīfa of God, except
[as ḫalīfa] to His messenger. And as for ḫulafāʾ, every one of them is a
ḫalīfa [i.e. replacement or successor] of whoever was before him; and
whatever is mentioned in poetry with regard to the designation of one
among them [i.e. the caliphs] as ḫalīfat Allāh is excessive and overstep-
ping boundaries, just as Ibn Qays al-Ruqayyāt recited: “Ḫalīfat Allāh
among His creation, from which the pens and books have shunned away.”60
He then proceeds to mention the anecdotes of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar regar
ding the use of the title ḫalīfat Allāh. Incidentally, Ibn ʿAṭiyya’s commentary
on Kor 2, 30 seems to favor the view of Adam and his descendants—alluding
to Ādam wa-ḏuriyyatihi and banū Ādam—as ḫalīfas, in some sense minimizing
the association of Adam with notions of rulership.61 Ibn ʿAṭiyya’s commentary
on Kor 38, 26 demonstrates that the reading of ḫalīfat Allāh into the Qurʾān
was far from being a universal mode of interpretation among exegetes. The
contemporary debates on the necessity of the caliphate and the caliphal title
of ḫalīfat Allāh certainly guided his commentary on Kor 38, 26.
The Caliphate of Adam as Deputyship of God
By the time we reach the late sixth/twelfth century, the Sunnite t raditionalist
revival in Baghdad was already in full swing and our next exegete Ibn
al-Ǧawzī (d. 597/1200) also participated in its development. In many ways,
Ibn al-Ǧawzī’s career emblemized the collaborative relationship between
the Baghdadi ʿulamāʾ, particularly the Ḥanbalites, and the Abbasid caliphs.
We hear of preaching sessions held by Ibn al-Ǧawzī himself in the courtyard
of the Rayḥāniyyīn palace, the caliph al-Mustaḍīʾ’s (d. 575/1180) newest and
largest residence, which often drew large crowds.62 In return, the Ḥanbalites
would provide a sense of legitimation for the caliph as the sole universal
figurehead of the Muslim community, as exemplified by Ḥanbalī traditionalist
60 Abū Muḥammad b. ʿAṭiyya, al-Muḥarrar al-waǧīz fī tafsīr al-Kitāb al-ʿazīz, Beirut, Dār Ibn
Ḥazm, 2002, p. 1597-1598.
61 Though he does mention in passing Ibn Masʿūd’s saying that the ḫalīfa will deputize for
God in judging between His creatures. Ibid., p. 71.
62 For an outline of the social context of Ibn al-Ǧawzī and his activities during this period,
see Merlin Swartz (transl. and intro.), Ibn al-Jawzī’s Kitāb al-Quṣṣāṣ wa’l-mudhakkirīn,
Beirut, Dār al-mašriq (« Recherches publiées sous la direction de l’Institut de lettres ori-
entales de Beyrouth, série 1 », 47), 1971, p. 16-35.
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18 Liew
Ibn al-Baqqāl’s (d. 440/1048) famous statement made in the caliphal dīwān:
“The Caliphate is like a tent, and the Ḥanbalīs are its tent-ropes; if the tent-
ropes fall, the tent is sure to follow.”63
A slight semantic shift can be observed when examining Ibn al-Ǧawzī’s
interpretation of Kor 2, 30. He defines ḫalīfa as “someone who acts in the place
of another” before proceeding to explain the meaning of ḫilāfat Ādam by provi
ding two interpretations—as in the case of al-Zamaḫšarī—instead of the usual
three encountered in al-Ṭabarī and al-Māwardī. For the first (on the authority
of Ibn Masʿūd and Muǧāhid),64 Ibn al-Ǧawzī defines ḫalīfa as “a deputy of God
(ḫalīfa ʿan Allāh) in the establishment of His revealed law (iqāmat šarʿihi), the
demonstrations of His oneness (dalāʾil tawḥīdihi), and the judging between His
creation (al-ḥukm fī ḫalqihi)”.65 This shows a politically charged interpretation
that echoes the terms which jurists such as al-Māwardī and al-Ġazālī use in
describing the caliph.66 It is also noteworthy that Ibn al-Ǧawzī introduces this
interpretation (implying rulership) first before going on to the next, while pre-
vious exegetes such as al-Ṭabarī and al-Māwardī customarily introduced it last
(right after the interpretations which imply “succession” and “replacement”),
which indicates hesitation on their part to equate the ḫalīfa in Kor 2, 30 with
any notions of rulership. The move by Ibn al-Ǧawzī in mentioning this inter-
pretation before others might suggest that he, like al-Baġawī as seen above,
found ḫalīfa qua “ruler/deputy” to be closer to what ḫalīfa means in Kor 2, 30.67
Ibn al-Ǧawzī’s second interpretation merges the early interpretations of Ibn
ʿAbbās (implying “replacement”) and al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (implying “succession”),
and states that the ḫalīfa is “he who replaces/succeeds whomever comes
63 Quoted in Makdisi, “Sunni Revival”, p. 164.

64 Ibn al-Ǧawzī’s citing of Muǧāhid as an authority is strange, considering that Muǧāhid
passes over the ḫalīfa part of Kor 2, 30 and Kor 38, 26 without commenting on them.
See Muǧāhid b. Ǧabr, Tafsīr, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Salām Abū l-Nīl, Cairo, Dār al-fikr
al-islāmī l-ḥadīṯa, 1989, p. 199-200, 573-574.
65 Abū l-Faraǧ ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. al-Ǧawzī, Zād al-masīr fī ʿilm al-tafsīr, ed. Muḥammad
Zuhayr al-Šāwīsh, Damascus, al-Maktab al-islāmī li-l-ṭibāʿa wa-l-našr, 1964, I, p. 60.
66 Al-Māwardī, Aḥkām, p. 13-15; id., Ordinances, p. 1-3; al-Ġazālī, Faḍāʾiḥ al-bāṭiniyya, p. 155.
See also Ibn al-Ǧawzī, al-Miṣbāḥ al-muḍīʾ fī ḫilāfat al-Mustaḍīʾ, ed. Nāǧiyya ʿAbd Allāh
Ibrāhīm, Baghdad, Al-Awqāf Press, 1976, I, p. 93, where he claims, “Verily the caliphate is
a deputyship in place of God (niyāba ʿan Allāh) regarding His servants and His lands and
the implementation of His commands and judgments (tanfīḏ awāmirihi wa-aḥkāmihi).”
67 As S.R. Burge argues, “Even when a preferred reading is not expressly given, the form and
arrangement of the selection of readings may provide an indication of an exegete’s per-
sonal view.” Burge, “Search for Meaning”, p. 64.
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before him on earth”.68 However, despite citing al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī as an autho

rity, Ibn al-Ǧawzī seems to leave out al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s notion of the children
of Adam (wuld Ādam) succeeding each other on earth. In that regard, the dual
notion of “succession” and “deputizing” being attributed to Adam as a single
individual becomes more clearly brought forth in Ibn al-Ǧawzī’s commentary
on this verse.69
Ibn al-Ǧawzī’s interpretation of the term ḫalīfa in Kor 2, 30 finds many
parallels with that of al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209), who is often considered the most
authoritative in the tradition of the more rationalist school of tafsīr. His
famous Qurʾānic commentary, Mafātīḥ al-ġayb contains extensive philosophi-
cal and theological discussions of Qurʾānic verses, while eschewing frequent
use of hadiths.70 With regard to the term ḫalīfa in Kor 2, 30, al-Rāzī offers two
interpretations. His first interpretation regards the ḫalīfa as Adam alone; those
who work corruption on earth and shed blood are his offspring and not Adam
himself. Referring to Ibn ʿAbbās, Adam is called ḫalīfa because God placed him
on earth to inhabit it after expelling the jinns from it; he is therefore the ḫalīfa
(successor) of the jinns. Adam is also called ḫalīfa because he deputizes for
God in judging between those who are obligated to observe the precepts of
religion, and this line of interpretation goes back to Ibn Masʿūd, Ibn ʿAbbās,
and al-Suddī (d. 128/745).71 In al-Rāzī’s second interpretation, on the authority
of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, the ḫalīfa refers to the children of Adam because they suc-
ceed one another.72 Overall, al-Rāzī’s commentary on Kor 2, 30 largely echoes
that of previous exegetes, with the only difference being the way he organizes
and merges the different interpretations available to him.
68 Ibn al-Ǧawzī, Zād al-masīr, I, p. 60.

69 Though when explaining istiḫlāf in Kor 7, 129 (“[. . .] perhaps your Lord will destroy your
enemy and He will yastaḫlifakum on earth”), he makes a passing comment that “the
believers (muʾminīn) are ḫulafāʾ Allāh fī arḍihi”. In his commentary on the term ḫalāʾif in
such verses as Kor 6, 165, Kor 10, 14, and Kor 35, 39, the notion of an umma (usually that
of Muḥammad) succeeding previous generations is more clearly spelled out. See ibid., III,
p. 162-163, 246; IV, p. 13; VI, p. 495.
70 Norman Calder, “Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr: Problems in the description of a genre,
illustrated with reference to the story of Abraham”, in Approaches to the Qurʾan, ed. Gerald
R. Hawting and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef, London-New York, Routledge (« Routledge/SOAS
series on contemporary politics and culture in the Middle East »), 1993, p. 114.
71 Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ġayb, ed. Ḫalīl al-Mays, Beirut, Dār al-fikr, 1981, II, p. 180-181.
72 Al-Rāzī sees no problem attributing the singular term ḫalīfa to Adam’s offspring, as he
claims that the noun lends itself to the singular and plural sense of the word. Ibid., II,
p. 181.
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20 Liew
While al-Rāzī’s commentary on Kor 2, 30 does not depart much from the
commentaries before him, we observe a significant shift in his commentary on
Kor 24, 55. He begins by providing a generic interpretation of the verse, saying
that God will make those who believe and do righteous deeds—as indicated
in the verse—ḫulafāʾ, victors (al-ġālibūn), and masters (al-mālikūn), just as He
did during the time of David and Solomon. Al-Rāzī then comments that this
verse raises many issues (or questions, masāʾil) which are fundamentally theo-
logical. The masāʾil mentioned cover issues such as God’s attributes, knowledge
of events before their occurrence, and Muḥammad’s prophethood.73 Arriving
at the eighth masʾala, al-Rāzī offers us a rather lengthy discussion of the four
Rightly-Guided Caliphs:
The verse validates the imamate of the four imams [i.e. the Rightly-
Guided Caliphs]. This is because God promised those present in the time
of Muḥammad who believed and did righteous deeds [. . .] that He will
surely yastaḫlifannahum on earth just as He istaḫlafa those before them,
and that He will establish for them their approved religion, and that he
will substitute for them, after fear, security. It is well known that the
intended of this promise after the Prophet is them [i.e. the Rightly-Guided
Caliphs] because the appointment to succession (istiḫlāf ) of anyone
other than him [i.e. Muḥammad] can only take place after him, as it is
known that there is no prophet after him because he is the seal of the
prophets. Having said that, the intended of this appointment to succes-
sion (istiḫlāf ) is the way of the imamate (ṭarīqat al-imāma). And it is well
known that after the Prophet, the appointment to succession that is
described here is that which took place during the days of Abū Bakr,
ʿUmar, and ʿUṯman, because in their time there were great conquests
(al-futūḥ al-ʿaẓīma) and the establishment and manifestation of religion
and peace was achieved. This was not achieved during the days of ʿAlī
because he could not devote himself to the fighting of infidels (ǧihād
al-kuffār) due to his preoccupation with fighting those who opposed him
from among the Muslims.74
Not only does al-Rāzī point this verse to the historical Rightly-Guided Caliphs,
he also introduces the debate surrounding the legitimacy of ʿAlī into his inter-
pretation of the verse. It is important to note that the legitimacy of the four
Rightly-Guided Caliphs—in particular ʿUṯmān and ʿAlī—was hotly contested
73 Ibid., XXIV, p. 24-25.

74 Ibid., XXIV, p. 25.
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up till the end of the third/ninth century.75 However, al-Rāzī’s commentary on

Kor 24, 55 suggests that this debate was very much alive in the late sixth/twelfth
century among Sunnite religious scholars, especially with regard to ʿAlī’s trou-
bled reign. Thereafter, al-Rāzī proceeds immediately to refute the claim that
anyone who “believes and does righteous deeds”, as mentioned in the verse,
can obtain the caliphate. This is because “[God’s] appointment of those before
[the Rightly-Guided Caliphs] was not by way of the imamate (wa-stiḫlāf man
kāna qablahum lam yakun bi-ṭarīqat al-imāma)”. This statement is then fol-
lowed by a refutation of Shiʿite claims that the notion of istiḫlāf as seen in the
verse referred to ʿAlī, whom the Shiʿites claim was appointed by the Prophet via
designation (al-taʿyīn).76 In that regard, al-Rāzī uses his commentary on Kor
24, 55 as a platform to discuss the nature of the caliphate/imamate and also to
engage in polemical discourse against the Shiʿites.
Al-Qurṭubī: Juristic Caliphal Discourse as Exegesis
With al-Qurṭubī (d. 671/1272), an Andalusian Mālikite jurist and scholar who
lived through the end of the Abbasid caliphate in 656/1258, we arrive at another
major shift in the interpretation of Kor 2, 30. He points out that the word ḫalīfa
refers to Adam: “[Adam] is ḫalīfat Allāh [i.e. deputy of God] in the execution
of His commands and judgments (wa-huwa ḫalīfat Allāh fī imḍāʾ aḥkāmihi
wa-awāmirihi) because he is the first messenger (awwal rasūl) [sent] to earth”.77
Only this interpretation is provided and al-Qurṭubī makes no mention whatso-
ever about Adam succeeding the jinns on earth or about the children of Adam
succeeding one another. The term ḫalīfa here solely points to Adam as ruler
and God’s deputy on earth.
Next, al-Qurṭubī introduces a completely unprecedented interpretation of
the verse: “This verse is the basis for the appointment of an imām and a caliph
who shall be heard and obeyed, so that opinions will be united through him
75 Josef Van Ess, “Political Ideas in Early Islamic Religious Thought”, British Journal of Middle
Eastern Studies, 28/2 (2001), p. 153-156; Crone, Medieval Islamic Political Thought, p. 134-135.
76 Al-Rāzī claims that the Prophet had istaḫlafa by mentioning of the characteristics (bi-ḏikr
al-waṣf ) of a worthy successor and the instruction to elect someone (al-amr bi-l-iḫtiyār).
Al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ġayb, XXIV, p. 25.
77 Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Qurṭubī, al-Ǧāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān, ed. Muḥammad Ibrāhīm
al-Ḥifnāwī and Maḥmūd Ḥāmid ʿUṯmān, Cairo, Dār al-ḥadīṯ, 1996, I, p. 279.
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22 Liew
and rulings of the caliph will be implemented.”78 He goes on to state that no

one disagrees over the obligatory nature of the office of the caliphate, except
the Muʿtazilite al-Aṣamm (d. 200/816 or 201/817) who holds that, if people in the
community (umma) maintain the right order and establish the truth, they
would then free themselves of the necessity of appointing a caliph. Arguing
that the caliphate is a necessity (wuǧūb), al-Qurṭubī calls the caliphate one of
the pillars of religion (rukn min arkān al-dīn), by which Muslims are set aright.79
What follows in al-Qurṭubī’s discussion shares many similarities with other
writings on the caliphate found in kalām treatises and al-Māwardī’s fiqh-
oriented Aḥkām. It is nonetheless noteworthy that al-Qurṭubī seems to rely
more on al-Ǧuwaynī (d. 478/1085)—referred to as “Abū l-Maʿālī”—whose ideas
on the caliphate would acquire greater relevance among post-656/1258 jurists
such as Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), Ibn Ǧamāʿa (d. 733/1333), and al-Subkī
(d. 771/1370).80 Substantial space is dedicated to refuting many Shiʿite inter-
pretations of widely circulating traditions such as “Whose master I am, ʿAlī
is his master” (man kuntu mawlāhu fa-ʿAlī mawlāhu) and “Your relation to me
is as that of Aaron with Moses” (anta minnī bi-manzilat Hārūn min Mūsā).81
Al-Qurṭubī then discusses three ways by which one obtains the office of the
caliphate: (1) by direct appointment by a preceding caliph, as in the case of
Abū Bakr appointing ʿUmar as successor; (2) by a consultative assembly con-
sisting of caliphal candidates, as the Companions (Ṣaḥāba) did in selecting
ʿUṯmān for the caliphate; (3) by a consensus (iǧmāʿ) of the people who loose
and bind (ahl al-ḥall wa-l-ʿaqd). Like al-Māwardī and al-Ġazālī writing more
than a century before him, al-Qurṭubī also allows for only one person among
the ahl al-ḥall wa-l-ʿaqd to affirm the candidate.82 Regarding the qualifications
required of the caliph, al-Qurṭubī lists eleven conditions: (1) Quraysh descent,
though it is not required that the candidate be from the Banū Hāšim, just as
Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUṯmān were themselves non-Hāšimites; (2) qualified
to judge and issue fatwās; (3) sound judgment (ra⁠ʾy ḥaṣīf ) and experience in
78 Hāḏihi l-āya aṣlun fī naṣb imām wa-ḫalīfa yusmaʿu lahu wa-yuṭāʿu li-tuǧtamaʿu bihi
l-kalima wa-tunfaḏu bihi aḥkām al-ḫalīfa. Ibid., I, p. 280.
79 Ibid.
80 See Mona Hassan, “Loss of Caliphate: The Trauma and Aftermath of 1258 and 1924”, Ph.D.
dissertation, Princeton, 2009, p. 110-170. For al-Ǧuwaynī’s political thought, see Wael
Hallaq, “Caliphs, Jurists and the Saljūqs in the Political Thought of Juwaynī”, The Muslim
World, 74/1 (1984), p. 26-41; Crone, Medieval Islamic Political Thought, p. 234-237. This fre-
quent citing of al-Ǧuwaynī’s ideas on the caliphate will be encountered again later in Ibn
Kaṯīr’s (d. 774/1373) commentary on Kor 2, 30.
81 Ibid., I, p. 281-283.
82 Ibid., I, p. 284.
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c ommanding armies and to lead them in war; (4) not be mild in implementing
laws and punishments; (5) free (ḥurr); (6) Muslim; (7) male; (8) free of physical
defects; (9) mature age (bāliġ); (10) rational (ʿāqil);83 (11) probity (ʿadl), because
it is not permitted to contract the caliphate/imamate to a sinner ( fāsiq).84
Al-Qurṭubī also argues that there can only be one caliph, and if two caliphs
are given the oath of allegiance (bayʿa), the first who was given the oath is the
legitimate caliph and the other should be killed. However, the appointment of
two caliphs is allowed when the various provinces are far away, like al-Andalus
and Ḫurāsān.85
As observed in exegetes before him such as al-Māwardī and al-Ṯaʿlabī,
al-Qurṭubī also alludes to the Rightly-Guided Caliphs in his commentaries on
other ḫalīfa-related verses. Al-Māwardī’s commentary on Kor 35, 39—whereby
Abū Bakr demands to be addressed as ḫalīfat rasūl Allāh instead of ḫalīfat
Allāh—is reproduced word for word in al-Qurṭubī’s commentary on the same
verse.86 With regard to Kor 24, 55, which has by now become the classic verse
for exegetes to evoke the historical memory of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs,
al-Qurṭubī writes that this verse “is revealed regarding Abū Bakr and ʿUmar”.
After elucidating the occasion of revelation (asbāb al-nuzūl) behind this verse
during the Prophet’s time, al-Qurṭubī cites an opinion of al-Ḍaḥḥāk: “This
verse encompasses the caliphate of Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUṯmān, and ʿAlī, because
they are people of faith (ahl al-īmān) and they perform righteous deeds. And
the Prophet had said that ‘the caliphate after me will be thirty years.’ ”87 After
introducing different viewpoints on whether Kor 24, 55 solely refers to holders
83 Al-Qurṭubī’s substantial emphasis on the rational faculty of the caliphal candidate makes
his doctrine of the caliphate tend closer to that of al-Māwardī who, similarly, lays greater
stress than Abū Yaʿlā on the rational faculty of the prospective caliph. Donald P. Little,
“A New Look at al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya”, The Muslim World, 64/1 (1974), p. 12-13.
84 As for the age-old question of whether a sinful caliph can be removed, al-Qurṭubī pre
sents two contrasting views—the majority view that the sinful caliph should be removed
and those who argue that he should not be removed unless he falls into unbelief and
abandons prayer—and claims that it is necessary for a caliph to remove himself from
office should he find shortcomings in himself. Nevertheless, he does not comment on
whether a sinful caliph can be removed by others. This view parallels that of al-Māwardī
who says that sinfulness “excludes from candidacy in the first place, and disqualifies from
continuation in office. An incumbent so disqualified must step down (ḫaraja minhā), and
may not be reinstated upon regaining probity without a new appointment”. Al-Māwardī,
Aḥkām, p. 42; id., Ordinances, p. 17.
85 Al-Qurṭubī, al-Ǧāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān, I, p. 287-288.
86 Ibid., XIV, p. 342.
87 Ibid., XII, p. 296.
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24 Liew
of the caliphal office or to the entirety of the umma in general, al-Qurṭubī goes
on to reject the view that the verse only applies to Abū Bakr because ʿUmar
and ʿUṯmān were killed and ʿAlī’s caliphate was contested. Al-Qurṭubī refutes
this claim by arguing that peace (al-amn; hence hinting at the part of the verse
which says “He will substitute for them, after their fear, security”) does not
imply security from death (referring to ʿUmar and ʿUṯmān). Concerning ʿAlī,
al-Qurṭubī argues that “his [i.e. ʿAlī’s] fighting in war does not rule out peace”.88
Like al-Rāzī, al-Qurṭubī introduces the debate regarding the legitimacy of the
Rightly-Guided Caliphs into tafsīr.
Compared to other exegetes before him, al-Qurṭubī’s interpretation of
Kor 2, 30 has been most explicit in linking the Qurʾānic ḫalīfa to the caliphate
in historical reality. As evidenced by the title of his work, al-Ǧāmiʿ li-aḥkām
al-Qurʾān, al-Qurṭubī intended his tafsīr to be a compendium of legal rulings
that can be derived from the Qurʾānic text, which thereby gives it a legal slant.
Thus, his incorporation of the juristic discourse on the caliphate into his com-
mentary on Kor 2, 30 is a tacit recognition of the importance of the caliphate
for the šarīʿa and Sunnite tradition such that he could not simply ignore it
when compiling a work of tafsīr covering all aspects of legal rulings derived
from the Qurʾān. Along parallel lines, the evoking of the historical memory of
the four Rightly-Guided Caliphs—by now a key element in Sunnite orthodoxy—
also represents al-Qurṭubī’s way of affirming his own position within the
ahl al-sunna.
Commentaries after the Fall of Baghdad (656/1258)
The exegetical commentaries on the Qurʾānic term ḫalīfa after the sack of
Baghdad and the fall of the Abbasid caliphate in 656/1258 largely rely on the
interpretations of previous generations, particularly those from the period of
the Sunnite Revival. For instance, al-Bayḍāwī’s (d. 685/1286) and al-Nasafī’s
(d. 710/1310) commentaries incorporate and build on al-Zamaḫšarī’s lin-
guistically oriented discussion of the term ḫalīfa.89 Al-Ḫāzin’s (d. 741/1340)
88 “Since”, writes al-Qurṭubī, “the removal of war (rafʿ al-ḥarb) is not among the conditions
of peace, whereas its condition is for humans to control their own soul by way of their free
will”. Ibid., XII, p. 297.
89 In his Anwār al-tanzīl wa-asrār al-ta‌ʾwīl, mainly a summary of al-Zamaḫšarī’s al-Kaššāf,
though removing its Muʿtazilite aspects and overtones, al-Bayḍāwī states that “the ḫalīfa
is someone who succeeds/replaces another and acts on someone’s behalf [. . .] and the
intended [of the term ḫalīfa in this verse] is Adam because he was ḫalīfat Allāh fī arḍihi
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i nterpretation of Kor 2, 30 draws heavily from al-Baġawī’s commentary on the

same verse, albeit with minor variations in wording.90
We also see a distinctively Andalusian interpretation of the Qurʾānic ḫalīfa
emerging with the commentaries of Abū Ḥayyān al-Ġarnāṭī (d. 741/1341), an
Andalusian exegete who was influenced by Ibn ʿAṭiyya.91 This influence is
noticeable in Abū Ḥayyān’s incorporation of Ibn ʿAṭiyya’s commentary on
Kor 38, 26 in rejecting the title of ḫalīfat Allāh and in refuting the use of this
verse to justify the necessity of the caliphate.92 Abū Ḥayyān’s commentary on
Kor 2, 30, on the other hand, presents the prophets as the deputies of God on His
earth (ḫalāʾif Allāh fī arḍihi), who will succeed one another, and regards Adam
as the father of the ḫalāʾif (abū ḫalāʾif ) in his capacity as the first prophet.93
In this sense, only the prophets alone are worthy of the title ḫalīfat Allāh.
Ibn Kaṯīr (d. 774/1373) relies on al-Ṭabarī’s tafsīr for much of his material,
though he is much more selective and dogmatic than al-Ṭabarī in his use of
hadiths, favoring the opinions and sayings of the Companions.94 Despite
lifting numerous quotes from al-Ṭabarī’s tafsīr, Ibn Kaṯīr’s interpretation of
Kor 2, 30 differs significantly from that of al-Ṭabarī. At the outset, Ibn Kaṯīr
writes, “God announces his bestowing of favors (imtinānihi) upon the children
and the same goes for all the prophets. God appointed them (istaḫlafahum) in the cultiva-
tion of the earth (ʿimārat al-arḍ), the leading of the people (siyāsat al-nās), the perfection
of their [i.e. the people’s] selves (takmīl nufūsihim), and the implementation of his com-
mand over them (tanfīḏ amrihi fīhim)”. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar al-Bayḍāwī, Anwār al-tanzīl
wa-asrār al-ta‌ʾwīl, ed. Muḥammad Ṣubḥī Ḥasan Ḥallāq and Maḥmūd Aḥmad Aṭraš,
Damascus, Dār al-rašīd, 2000, I, p. 82. Al-Nasafī’s commentary on Kor 2, 30 is somewhat
closer in wording to that of al-Zamaḫšarī. See ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Nasafī, Madārik
al-tanzīl wa-haqāʾiq al-ta‌ʾwīl, ed. Marwān Muḥammad al-Šaʿʿār, Beirut, Dār al-nafāʾis, 1996,
p. 79.
90 Especially since he intended his tafsīr, Lubāb al-ta‌ʾwīl fī maʿānī l-tanzīl, to be an abridge-
ment of al-Baġawī’s tafsīr. For his commentary on Kor 2, 30, see ʿAlī b. Muḥammad
al-Ḫāzin, Lubāb al-ta‌ʾwīl fī maʿānī l-tanzīl, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad ʿAlī Šāhīn, Beirut,
Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1995, I, p. 59.
91 An Anthology of Qurʾanic Commentaries, I, p. 42.
92 Abū Ḥayyān Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Ġarnāṭī, al-Baḥr al-muḥīṭ, ed. ʿĀdil Aḥmad ʿAbd
al-Mawǧūd, ʿAlī Muḥammad Muʿawwaḍ, Zakariyyā ʿAbd al-Maǧīd al-Nawatī and Aḥmad
al-Naǧūlī al-Ǧamal, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1993, VII, p. 378.
93 To Adam is ascribed the dual roles of judging with truth and justice (al-ḥukm bi-l-ḥaqq
wa-l-ʿadl) as well as cultivating the earth (ʿimārat al-arḍ). Ibid., I, p. 288.
94 Jane McAuliffe, “Quranic Hermeneutics: The Views of al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Kathīr”, in
Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qurʾān, ed. Andrew Rippin, Oxford-
New York, Clarendon Press-Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 56-57; Calder, “Tafsīr from
Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr”, p. 120-134.
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26 Liew
of Adam (banī Ādam) by mentioning them in the heavenly council before cre-
ating them.”95 He points out that the term ḫalīfa does not solely refer to Adam
(mentioning al-Qurṭubī as among those who support this view) and could
only mean humankind in general, otherwise God would not have allowed the
angels’ question, “Will you place therein those/one who will work corruption
and shed blood?” This shows that the angels understood that this type of crea-
ture (al-ǧins) usually commits the aforementioned atrocities, owing to their
special understanding of human nature (al-ṭabīʿa l-bašariyya). God’s reply,
“I know that which you do not know”, is thus paraphrased as “I know that the
superior benefit (al-maṣlaḥa l-rāǧiḥa) in the creation of this species (al-ṣinf )
outweighs the detriments you mentioned”.96
Despite attributing the term ḫalīfa to humankind in general, Ibn Kaṯīr also
mentions al-Ṭabarī’s definition of ḫalīfa as “al-sulṭān al-aʿẓam, because he
replaces/succeeds whoever was before him”. Besides this, much of what con-
stitutes al-Ṭabarī’s commentary on Kor 2, 30 is quoted at length in Ibn Kaṯīr’s
commentary.97 Oddly enough, Ibn Kaṯīr also copies the report produced by
al-Ṭabarī in which ʿUmar figures as caliph, but without mentioning the report
in which ʿUmar refers to all Muslims to be ḫulafāʾ.98
Although Ibn Kaṯīr disagrees with al-Qurṭubī’s definition of ḫalīfa, it
is nonetheless surprising that he claims at the end of his commentary on
Kor 2, 30 that “al-Qurṭubī and others conclude that this verse proves the obli-
gation of appointing a caliph to pass judgments on matters of dispute between
people, to aid the oppressed against the oppressor, to implement punishments
( yuqīmu l-ḥudūd) and to prevent the committing of crimes ( yazǧuru ʿan taʿāṭī
l-fawāḥiš)”.99 What follows in Ibn Kaṯīr’s commentary is largely abridged from
al-Qurṭubī’s discussion of the caliphate/imamate in his own commentary on
Kor 2, 30.
In many ways, Ibn Kaṯīr’s commentary on Kor 2, 30 typifies the uneasy ten-
sions which many post-Ṭabarī exegetes had to grapple with in regard to the
manifold meanings of the term ḫalīfa. The notion of Adam deputizing for God
95 The statement “Verily I am creating on earth a ḫalīfa” is understood as “nations (qawm)
succeeding one another century after century, generation after generation”. ʿImād al-Dīn
Ismāʿīl b. Kaṯīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm, ed. Muḥammad Anas Muṣṭafā al-Ḫinn, Beirut,
Muʾassasat al-risāla, 2000, p. 52.
96 Ibid. See also Johnston, Earth, Empire and Sacred Text, p. 281.
97 With one notable difference: unlike al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Kaṯīr does not reject Ibn Isḥāq’s defini-
tion of ḫalīfa as someone who will reside on earth and cultivate it (sākin wa-ʿāmir). Ibn
Kaṯīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm, p. 53.
98 Ibid., p. 635.
99 Ibid., p. 54.
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in implementing God’s laws had by now become a recurring theme in com-

mentaries on Kor 2, 30 such that Ibn Kaṯīr could not simply gloss over it even
if he leaned more towards equating ḫalīfa with humankind. His commentary
also brings to light the ambiguous stance which Muslim jurists struggled to
adopt with regard to the caliphate in a post-Abbasid world order. On the one
hand, the universal caliphate as an institution symbolized by the Abbasids had
been long gone; on the other, it remained a political ideal which proved dif-
ficult to dislodge from juridical and theological discourse.
Conclusion
This paper has sought to explore, through the prism of the Qurʾānic term ḫalīfa
and other related Ḫ.L.F-derived terms, the shared language between tafsīr and
political discourse during the medieval Islamic period. Compared to Kor 38,
26, Kor 2, 30 allowed exegetes more leeway to introduce new clusters of termi-
nology into their interpretations of the term, hence producing shifts in seman-
tics and terminology over time. The earliest significant shift took place with
al-Ṭabarī who identified the term with the ruling caliph and introduced more
politically oriented terms such as al-sulṭān al-aʿẓam, ḥukm, and ʿadl into the
picture. The terms mentioned, along with the caliphal title ḫalīfat Allāh, would
eventually form part of the terminological cluster accompanying commenta
ries on Kor 2, 30 by later exegetes during the Sunnite Revival.
Nevertheless, the semantic shifts associated with the Qurʾānic ḫalīfa did
not proceed in a straightforward, linear fashion through history. Inasmuch as
Adam increasingly became more ruler-like over time as deputy of God, the
notion of ḫalīfa as the children of Adam or humankind replacing the jinns and
succeeding each other on earth was never entirely lost on exegetes. Referring
to God’s creation of Adam as ḫalīfa in Kor 2, 30, Aziz al-Azmeh writes that
“[t]he conjunction of this foundational act of humanity with the foundation
of the authority of one over the multitude predominates in exegeses of this
verse.” It is in this sense that the dual roles of Adam as primordial caliph on
earth are brought forth: as first man succeeding or replacing the jinns on earth
and as deputy of God implementing God’s rulings over humankind.100
Whether or not the Qurʾānic exegetes from al-Ṭabarī onwards were inten-
tionally using Kor 2, 30 as a proof text for caliphal legitimation is hard to pin-
point. To use the Qurʾānic text as a platform to curry political favor would be
100 Aziz Al-Azmeh, Muslim Kingship: Power and Sacred in Muslim, Christian and Pagan
Polities, London, I.B. Tauris, 1997, p. 154.
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28 Liew
an act of scholarly suicide. Moreover, to claim that the exegetes were employ-
ing tafsīr as an instrument for caliphal legitimation would be to assume that
the medieval ʿulamāʾ—whose ranks included the exegetes themselves—were
ideologues in the sense of having an exclusive political commitment to the
caliphate. The fluid, loose, and unstructured identity of the ʿulamāʾ prevented
them from coalescing into a collective voice for or against the caliphate and any
other ruling institution.101 Being stratified and belonging to a variety of social
groups within society meant that the ʿulamāʾ came into contact, in one way or
another, with the caliphal network of patronage in Baghdad. This, however,
is far from conceiving them as a cadre of ideologues solely writing in service
of pro-Abbasid propaganda. Scholars such as al-Māwardī, al-Ġazālī, and Ibn
al-Ǧawzī did indeed write treatises that reenacted a caliphate-centered vision
of the Islamic political order.102 But to claim that this pro-Abbasid stance per-
meated all genres of writing—including tafsīr—is too far-fetched.103
Nonetheless, the shifts in semantics cannot be regarded as mere happen-
stance. Even if exegetes were not using their commentaries on the ḫalīfa
verses to justify caliphal authority, it is equally implausible to claim that the
historico-political realities of the caliphate did not at all inform their under-
standing of these verses. When al-Ṭabarī was writing in the early fourth/tenth
century, the Sunnite doctrine of the caliphate was taking shape and slowly
being worked out in scholarly circles.104 Fast forward to the Sunnite Revival
101 On the nature of the ʿulamāʾ, see Roy Mottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early
Islamic Society, London-New York, I.B. Tauris, 20012, p. 135-150.
102 For instance, al-Māwardī’s claim that the caliphate functioned as the foundation upon
which the principles of creed/welfare of the community (qawāʿid al-milla) are estab-
lished. A few decades later, al-Ġazālī, in countering the Fatimid threat, would put forward
a radical doctrine of the caliphate as being the source of legitimacy of religious life. See
Ovamir Anjum, Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought: The Taymiyyan Moment,
New York, Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 107-128; Eric J. Hanne, “Abbasid Politics
and the Classical Theory of the Caliphate”, in Writers and Rulers: Perspectives on Their
Relationship from Abbasid to Safavid Times, ed. Beatrice Gruendler and Louise Marlow,
Wiesbaden, Reichert Verlag (« Literaturen im Kontext », 16), 2004, p. 49-71.
103 This would fall under what Quentin Skinner calls the “mythology of coherence”, namely
to give “the thoughts of the major philosophers a coherence, and an air generally of a
closed system, which they may never have attained or even aspired to attain”. Quentin
Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas”, in his Visions of Politics,
vol. I: Regarding Method, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (« Visions of politics », 1),
2002, p. 67-72.
104 Ann K.S. Lambton, State and Government in Medieval Islam: An Introduction to the Study of
Islamic Political Theory: The Jurists, Oxford-New York, Oxford University Press (« London
oriental series », 36), 1981, p. 43-68.
Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29

in the fifth/eleventh and sixth/twelfth centuries and we find the fullest

expression of the Sunnite caliphate discourse in the works of al-Māwardī and
al-Ġazālī. The maturation of the theory of the caliphate during the Sunnite
Revival catalyzed the introduction of terminological clusters normally used
to define the role of the caliph in fiqh and kalām writings into commenta
ries on the term ḫalīfa. This in turn culminated in the wholesale incorpora-
tion of the juridical discourse on the caliphate into al-Qurṭubī’s tafsīr. Besides,
the notion of the Qurʾānic ḫalīfa as “deputy” and “successor” might even be
informed by the fact that the historical caliphs were often regarded, and self-
regarded, as ḫalīfat Allāh (deputy of God) and ḫalīfat rasūl Allāh (successor of
the messenger of God), which alludes to their double capacity as God’s caliphs
in “instances of mimesis of the divine in their constitutive and preservative
capacities” and as caliphs of Muḥammad “in that they figure, in time, both
his universalist historical enterprise and his election, which allows for the
transmission of charisma through a dynastic line related to him by blood”.105
Anecdotes and sayings attributed to Abū Bakr and ʿUmar are also invoked with
regard to several verses (for instance, Kor 2, 30; 10, 14; 35, 39). Of more signifi-
cance is Kor 24, 55, which eventually becomes the verse most exegetes associa
ted with the four Rightly-Guided Caliphs, with some exegetes (in particular,
al-Rāzī and al-Qurṭubī) introducing debates regarding the legitimacy of these
caliphs. In that regard, the four-caliphs thesis of Sunnite orthodoxy, which
crystallized in the course of the ninth century in Iraq and eventually became
part of Sunnite creeds and caliphal discourse, was given sanction and at the
same time debated in tafsīr literature.
105 Al-Azmeh, “Monotheistic Monarchy”, p. 284. Consider, for instance, the flattering state-
ment addressed to the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil (d. 247/861) that he was ḫalīfat Allāh
fī ʿibādihi wa-ḫalīfat rasūl Allāh fī ummatihi. Cited in Crone and Hinds, God’s Caliph, p. 16.
Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29

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Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29

The Caliphate of Adam: Theological Politics

Han Hsien Liew

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi 10.1163/15700585-12341381

Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29

The second verse refers to the prophet-king David:

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Al-Ṭabarī: Politicizing the Qurʾānic ḫalīfa

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In many respects, al-Ṭabarī regards succession and replacement of who-

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interpretation, al-Ṭabarī goes beyond the notion of “succession” and “replace-

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Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29

The Sunnite Revival of Adam and the Rightly-Guided Caliphs

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36 Ibid., VII, p. 115.

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A different mode of caliphal discourse is also discernible in al-Māwardī’s

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Adam as ḫalīfat Allāh

In commentaries after al-Wāḥidī, we start to observe the title of ḫalīfat

Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29

Framing of Constitutional Authority”, in Islamic Law in Theory: Studies on Jurisprudence

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The Caliphate of Adam as Deputyship of God

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63 Quoted in Makdisi, “Sunni Revival”, p. 164.

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before him on earth”.68 However, despite citing al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī as an autho­

68 Ibn al-Ǧawzī, Zād al-masīr, I, p. 60.

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73 Ibid., XXIV, p. 24-25.

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up till the end of the third/ninth century.75 However, al-Rāzī’s commentary on

Al-Qurṭubī: Juristic Caliphal Discourse as Exegesis

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and rulings of the caliph will be implemented.”78 He goes on to state that no

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Commentaries after the Fall of Baghdad (656/1258)

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i­ nterpretation of Kor 2, 30 draws heavily from al-Baġawī’s commentary on the

Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29

Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29

in implementing God’s laws had by now become a recurring theme in com-

Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29

Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29

in the fifth/eleventh and sixth/twelfth centuries and we find the fullest

Arabica 63 (2016) 1-29

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© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi 10.1163/15700585-12341381

36 Ibid., VII, p. 115.

63 Quoted in Makdisi, “Sunni Revival”, p. 164.

before him on earth”.68 However, despite citing al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī as an autho

68 Ibn al-Ǧawzī, Zād al-masīr, I, p. 60.

73 Ibid., XXIV, p. 24-25.

i nterpretation of Kor 2, 30 draws heavily from al-Baġawī’s commentary on the