Kenan Camurcu

I.

Undoubtedly, Muawiyah is the bāni-yi sani (second founder) of the Muslim identity, uncovered through a deconstruction of Islam. Sunnism, much like it meticulously upholds the piety established by Abu Hurayrah—who confessed the pleasure of praying behind Ali but also noted the abundance of Muawiyah's table (Ibn al-ʿImād, 1/113-114) and ended his life in his court, relying on often false and fabricated narrations—also exercises utmost care in preserving Muawiyah's religious, political, and cultural legacy. This is because, while the first Caliph, Abdullah ibn Abi Quhāfah (Abu Bakr), and the second Caliph, Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, were the founding fathers of the current Muslim identity, Sunnism recognizes that it was Muawiyah who truly systematized it. The preservation of this identity necessitates the protection of Muawiyah. Some are even willing to abandon Muawiyah to keep the founding fathers of Muslim identity, Abu Bakr and Umar, beyond the scope of debate—a kind of negotiation with critics: they can do what they wish with Muawiyah, provided they do not touch the periods of the first two caliphs.

However, the metaphysical-sacred state concept in Islamic political thought did not begin with Caliph Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan’s state model. As clearly seen in early sources, the deconstruction that occurred in the history of Islam during the periods of the first two caliphs after the Prophet’s death reached its natural conclusion in 661 CE when Muawiyah, the Governor of Damascus, became Caliph with his Byzantinist state model.

The "Constitution of Medina," drafted by Ali ibn Abi Talib and encompassing all Jewish and Muslim communities in Medina during the Prophet's time, was based on the principle of a pluralistic public sphere. Ali's safeguarding of this document until the end of his life demonstrates the importance and value of this social contract. Michael Lecker, citing Abu Ubayd’s al-Amwāl, refers to historical sources indicating that Ali preserved not only the Constitution of Medina but all of the Prophet's critical documents (Lecker, "Constitution of Medina," Muhammad’s First Legal Document, pp. 194-195).

During the periods of the first and second caliphs, the public sphere in "new Medina" transformed from participation to dominance. Voluntary adherence was no longer valid in religion, and subjugation by force became the foundation of the new system. Tribes that did not accept Abdullah ibn Abi Quhāfah’s caliphate were accused of apostasy (irtidād) and war was waged against them. This was a period of political assassinations. Caliph Abu Bakr refused to punish Khalid ibn al-Walīd, who had killed Malik ibn Nuwayrah, the Prophet’s representative in Yemen, for opposing him, stating, "I will not sheathe the sword of Allah drawn against the polytheists" (Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, 5/561). In the "new Medina," where the Prophet's participatory governance had been abolished, the absolute dominance of political authority over religion and society had now come into effect—in other words, a Byzantinist state.

II.

Unlike Western Rome and its successor Germanic states, which were governed by principalities and lordships, the Byzantine state structure was based on a centralized bureaucratic organization. The ruler governed the state through officials he appointed and dismissed. The Emperor was both the head of the state and the church, and a sacred person. Although there was formally a council of notables (āʿyān meclisi), the emperor did not share his powers with this council. A distinct feature of the Byzantine Empire was that the state was a copy of divine sovereignty (Selen, p. 68).

Muawiyah adapted this model by concentrating head of state and caliphate powers in a single hand. This is the model that was bequeathed to subsequent Muslim political culture.

Contrary to ancient Roman traditions, Byzantine Emperors took sides in theological debates, deciding on "correct" and "incorrect" beliefs. "Defenders of correct beliefs" were appointed Patriarchs by the Emperor. In this way, emperors accelerated the politicization of the Church. Combating "religious heresies" was considered the primary duty of the emperor. Emperor Justin I (518-527) stated that he considered combating "heretical sects" his first duty to God (Sivrioğlu, p. 68).

The official doctrine of the Byzantine Empire consisted of three elements: the Christian religion, ideas derived from Roman law, and the belief in the divine origin of power. Believers were expected to obey and submit to the ruler. The Stoic legal concept, as interpreted by Rome, also incorporated into the empire's rules the authority to bring natural order to the world. The Eastern theocratic understanding of the ruler’s sacred authority also influenced the formation of official Byzantine doctrine. Justinian I (d. 565) believed that he was chosen by God and carefully watched over by angels in all his endeavors (Seidler, pp. 16-17).

One of the means by which power became visible in the emperor, who represented authority, was the ostentatious official garment. Adorned with embroideries, gold thread, splendid folds and patterns, dazzling colors, and bright fabrics that reached the floor and were sewn in layers, the emperor was a manifestation of divinity. Sometimes he was even considered a demigod. As a symbol of power, he always wore a crown adorned with precious stones and jewels, and rings made of valuable metals on his fingers. In this state, the head of the empire or state clearly demonstrated that he was not an ordinary person. His behavior was also consistent with his attire. He was dignified and stern-faced, speaking in short, definitive sentences. He was the embodiment of unlimited and unchecked authority. The religious institution (the church) was under the emperor's command. Law was every decision that came from his lips. He was both the lawgiver, the commander of the army, and the head of religion (the church). As the chosen one of God, he represented the Christian state (Ostrogorsky, pp. 28-29).

The palace was the administrative center of public affairs in the Byzantine Empire. In this respect, the palace had a meaning and function beyond being merely the residence of the dynastic family (Rice, p. 39). This meaning of the palace continued until the beginning of the 18th century, the age of absolute monarchs. The palace was a peculiar and artificial world. To outsiders, it appeared magnificent. It was an elevated stage, and at its center stood the ruler, undisputed in his superiority. The ruler was the personification of the palace's splendid public life (Poggi, p. 88).

The formation of the state center necessitated the establishment of a suitable civil and military administrative order (Gibbon, 2/18).

Diocletian (d. 312), famous for ending the "third-century crisis" (235-284) that brought the Roman Empire to the brink of collapse, recreated the state by emulating contemporary Eastern monarchies. In this system, the palace was not merely the emperor's residence but a sacred center representing the centralized state. Diocletian, who mostly resided in Nicomedia (Izmit), established a despotic administration. As a god-ruler, he adopted the court customs, pomp, and ceremonial procedures of the East. Subjects and entourage visiting the emperor had to kneel before him without looking at his face, for everything about the emperor was sacred (Vasiliev, 1/75). Although the vocabulary that regarded everything related to the palace as sacred was abandoned after Christianity became the official religion of Rome (391), the sacredness of the "God-crowned" ruler continued through a reinterpretation of some ancient forms of worship (Morrison, 1/109).

The concept of the palace as the administrative center and sacred public building in the Roman Empire is a model inherited from ancient Egypt. Around 1400 BCE, the royal palace and its surrounding complex in Memphis were known as Per Ao (Great House). This name eventually became synonymous with the Pharaoh and was used as his title (per ao-pharao-firʿawn). This complex housed a large bureaucracy, including officials such as the vizier responsible for maintaining laws and order and supervising construction, an official tasked with keeping the secrecy of official decrees, a senior doorkeeper, and a throne inspector (Freeman, p. 31).

Byzantine court protocol was a meticulously detailed system of ceremonies. Its purpose was to reflect the emperor's glory. Court ceremonies were used to implement political and religious cult life (Ostrogorsky, p. 53).

The understanding of the sacredness of the monarchy was reflected in its artistic depictions and also inspired legal language and the emperor's laws. The emperor's public appearances, from attire to behavior, were regulated with ceremonial meticulousness. The constant hierarchical concern planned all relations between authority and subjects, adhering to a codified sequence. The theoretical and symbolic aspects of official protocols, which were entirely a spectacle, did much more than merely color public life; they contributed to the integrity of the empire (Morrison, 1/102). President Erdoğan's advisor's characterization of him as a "national value" might reveal an ambition to be an heir to Rome—something Hitler attempted.

In terms of civilization and politics, the most important of the Arab Syrian kingdoms during the Roman Empire was the Kingdom of Palmyra (Tadmur). The Syrian kingdom was ruled by the monotheistically inclined Arab Ghassanid dynasty. The Ghassanids were a kind of vassal to the Byzantine emperor (Vasiliev, 1/255-256). This means that Damascus (Syria) had a tradition of autonomous governance before its conquest by the Arabs. Furthermore, the cultural proximity stemming from Islam being considered a sect of Christianity while under the rule of Arab Christians facilitated the unreserved transfer of political tradition by Muawiyah to Islam. The person who identified and declared the proximity between the two cultures was Muawiyah's chief advisor, John of Damascus (Ioannes Damascenus). According to this Christian theologian, known to Arabs as Yuḥannā al-Dimashqī, Islam was not a new religion. On the contrary, it was a Christian sect and a schismatic heretical movement that had separated from the main body. Islam could at most be a Christian sect related to Arianism, which did not accept Jesus as God (Vasiliev, 1/263). In Western Christianity, for example, Dante in his Divine Comedy presents the Prophet Muhammad as a heretical schismatic (Bauschke, p. 192).

Why might the Aristotelian Yuḥannā al-Dimashqī (John of Damascus) have appealed to Muawiyah, who promoted a religious culture interwoven with fabricated stories? One reason might be that Ioannes represented secular rationality within religion; another might be that he argued pagan philosophy could be used to prove faith dogmas and be put to the service of theology (Seidler, p. 49). Muawiyah, who sought to revive the customs of the pagan Arab Jāhiliyyah (pre-Islamic ignorance), must have benefited from John's ideas and experience.

It is known that Christians working in finance in the Byzantine Empire also served in the financial administration of the newly established Islamic state. Manṣūr ibn Sarjūn held the highest administrative positions during Muawiyah's reign (Harman, p. 581). It is certain that Manṣūr, known as Yuḥannā al-Dimashqī, inspired Muawiyah in constructing the Byzantinist model of governance.

III.

A new era began when Arab conquerors were welcomed with satisfaction at a moment of weakness when the Monophysite population, angered by Orthodox impositions, and the Jews, oppressed by the Christian state, had no reason left to show loyalty to Byzantium. With Caliph Umar’s army defeating the Byzantine army at the Yarmuk River in 636 CE, Syria and Palestine became ready for conquest. Subsequently, Byzantium’s rival, the Sasanians, were also defeated, and Alexandria surrendered to the Arabs in 642 CE (Freeman, p. 640). Studies mentioning that the Arabs adhered to the "Romania status quo" after the conquests (Honigman, p. 36) indicate Caliph Umar and Muawiyah's intention to create an Islamic empire as a successor to the Byzantine Empire. Islam, for the first time moving beyond the Hijaz, had its "new world" completely ready to establish its own civilization. Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, the architect of a political culture based on Byzantine and Sasanian traditions, did not miss the opportunity to inherit this legacy.

In the 13th year of the Hijra to Medina (634 CE), Caliph Abdullah ibn Abi Quhāfah (Abu Bakr) appointed Yazīd ibn Abi Sufyan (Muawiyah's older brother) as emir over Damascus (Dimashq) and its surroundings (Ibn al-Athīr, 2/279). Yazīd did not interfere with the Byzantine institutions and political structure that remained in Damascus. When he died five years later, his brother Muawiyah succeeded him by order of Caliph Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (Ibn Saʿd, 7/285). Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih al-Andalusī (d. 940) reminds us that Muawiyah became governor of Damascus despite Caliph Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (ʿIqd al-Farīd, 2/270). His father, Abu Sufyan, congratulated Umar’s decision to hand Damascus over to the Umayyad clan, saying, "You have observed the ties of kinship (ṣilat al-raḥim)" (Ibn ʿAsākir, 35/390).

Abu Sufyan's congratulation of Umar for observing kinship ties seems related to leaving the governorship of Damascus within the Umayyad family, but perhaps the real reason is Umar's close ties with the Umayyad tribe, alongside Abu Jahl (ʿAmr ibn Hishām), the Prophet's greatest enemy and his uncle. So much so that when the Umayyad family in Mecca planned to kill the Prophet to get rid of him, Umar was the first to volunteer for this task. As he went to kill the Prophet, he met someone on the way. When he told him his plan, the answer he received was: "Don't deceive yourself, Umar. Do you think the sons of ʿAbd al-Manāf will let you walk the earth if you kill Muhammad?" (Ibn Kathīr, 2/85). According to Ibn Isḥāq's narration, the person Umar met while going to kill the Prophet was Nuʿaym ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Naḥḥām from the ʿAdiyy tribe. In contrast, Ibn Saʿd, Ibn Shabbah, and al-Ḥākim narrate that he was from the Zuhra tribe (ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Muḥsin Āl ʿĪsā, 1/133). The Zuhra tribe was the Prophet's mother's family.

Saʿd ibn Abi Waqqāṣ, one of the prominent figures of the Umayyad family, humiliated Umar, who offered to be an assassin to kill the Prophet: "You are the smallest and most contemptible person who can kill Muhammad" (Burhān al-Dīn al-Ḥalabī, 1/469). It seems that Umar was forced to quickly abandon his decision after this warning. While even the great families and notables of Mecca were hesitant, Umar, not belonging to a rooted tribe, coming forward to assassinate the Prophet seems related to compensating for an honor issue. According to Ibn Isḥāq's claim, the Quraysh sent Umar to kill the Prophet (Ibn Isḥāq, 1/220).

Muawiyah had established his rule as an independent sovereign in Damascus starting from the time of Caliph Umar, but primarily during the reign of his close relative, Caliph Uthman ibn ʿAffān (Üçok, p. 11). With the Umayyad dynasty (661-750) he founded in 41 AH (661 CE), he changed the destiny of Damascus (Tomar, 38/320) and transformed it into a center that produced the theo-political culture of the Byzantinist state. It can be said that during his governorship, he already laid the groundwork for the Umayyad sultanate he would later establish (Apak, p. 131).

The Damascus-centered Umayyad state, whose backbone and heart were formed by Muawiyah (Temir, p. 56), is a first in the early history of Islam in that it was founded by Muawiyah gaining power through armed rebellion and civil war. It can be considered the beginning of a new history due to his lack of affection for the people and disregard for their approval. Al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 869), a Muʿtazilite scholar, opposed Muawiyah's declaration of his seizure of power as the "year of unity" and said: "On the contrary, it was the year of disunity, tyranny, and dominance. The Imamate turned into kingship and imperial rule. The caliphate became a detested thing and an empire" (ʿĀlimī, p. 149). The Prophet's state architecture, based on participation, consultation, and merit, gave way to tribalism and dynastic rule. There was now a state that was a copy of the administrative style of Roman Caesars and Persian Chosroes. As Ibn Khaldūn stated, the dynastic and monarchical regime that Muawiyah called for, emphasizing sacrifice for his son Yazīd instead of adherence to the covenant, had begun (Muḥammad Kurt ʿAlī, 1/111). Ibn Khaldūn dedicates a special section to the process of the caliphate's transformation into a sultanate in his Muqaddimah (Ibn Khaldūn, p. 156).

The Umayyad state, with Damascus as its capital, is considered the beginning of a new history in Islam's historical experience due to its caliphal palace, professional army, unitary and centralized structure, metaphysical characteristics, and totalitarian nature that did not leave religion to the civil sphere. Indeed, Muawiyah used to say, "I am the last caliph and the first of kings" (Ibn ʿAsākir, 32/315). Caliph Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb also likened his governor Muawiyah to a Caesar and a Chosroes (Ṭabāṭabā/Ibn al-Ṭiqṭaqā, p. 144). Even ḥadīths legitimizing the sultanate and advocating submission to the kingdom in Damascus, which was considered the "heir of the Prophet," were fabricated: The Messenger of Allah said: "Before the Day of Judgment, a fire will emerge from the Sea of Aden in Hadramawt, where people will be gathered." They said: "O Messenger of Allah, what do you command us?" He said: "That you adhere to Syria." (Suyūṭī, 8/367, Hadith: 17200).

Muawiyah did not neglect the symbols that would aid in the metaphysics and sanctification of the state. For this purpose, he brought the Prophet's pulpit from which he delivered sermons to Damascus (Samhūdī, 1/10) and held his staff (Ṭabarī, 3/209).

As a display of political power, high and magnificent public buildings were constructed in Damascus during reconstruction efforts, utilizing advanced tools and equipment. Various ornaments were displayed in the palace, and symbols of luxury and nobility learned from Roman and Persian kings were incorporated.

Muawiyah differentiated the ruling dynasty from the common people by living a superior lifestyle and using the finest goods (ʿĀlimī, p. 150). He himself openly stated from the pulpit that his motivation for fighting his opponents was not religious: "My fight with you was not for prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, or zakat. I fought you to be your leader. Even if you dislike it, Allah has bestowed this upon me" (Ibn Abī Shaybah, 16/78, Narration: 31197).

While legitimizing ostentatious and luxurious clothing, a splendid lifestyle, pompous protocol/ceremonial practices, and traveling with guards and escorts, he would say, "The enemy is very close to us; they have eyes and spies among us, we must show them the glory and power of Islam" (Ṭabarī, 3/265). He justified his "Green Palace," inspired by the Byzantine court, with the same reasoning. However, since the palace was known to be a symbol of monarchical rule, Abu Dharr al-Ghifārī, one of the great companions, reacted to Muawiyah by saying, "If you built it with Allah's (people's) wealth, you are a traitor. If you built it with your own money, you are a spendthrift" (Ṭanṭāwī Jawharī al-Miṣrī, 11/155). The new political and social order centered around the palace was very different from the simple style of the caliphs in Medina (Barthold, p. 48).

Al-Jāḥiẓ describes Muawiyah's state with the Arabism of the desert Arabs [Bedouins], far removed from civilization and civilized morality (al-Bayān wa-l-Tabyīn, 3/367). The Umayyad sultanate's violation of Islam's norm of equality for the sake of its discriminatory policies was met with anger and reaction by non-Arab Muslims. For this reason, many contemporary scholars like Rashid Riḍā (1865-1935) viewed Muawiyah as the corruptor of the caliphate for founding the sultanate and transforming it into an inherited property, while Arab nationalists glorify the Umayyad period as a period of Arab consciousness superiority (ʿizzatī wa-yaʿl al-ʿArabī) (ʿInāyat, p. 180).

The state founded by Muawiyah, in addition to its Arabism, was based on the acceptance of the nobility and superiority of the Umayyads. In the Umayyad period, which was an Arab empire, non-Arab peoples were treated as second-class citizens (Öztuna, 1/95). The ideological origin of this ethnic superiority concept is Abdullah ibn Abi Quhāfah’s (Abu Bakr) assertion during the caliph election, to justify that no one from the Medinans (Anṣār) could be caliph after the Prophet’s death, "Caliphs are from the Quraysh" (Ṭabarī, 3/203). This doctrine posited the Quraysh as a superior founding nation above all other peoples and tribes. Years later, Muawiyah further specialized the political doctrine inherited from Abu Bakr and adapted it to the Umayyad family. When asked whether the Prophet’s family, the Hāshimīs, or the Umayyad clan was superior, his answer was: "There was only one noble person among the Hāshimīs (referring to the Prophet’s grandfather ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib). But we had many nobles. This never changed. Until that person came who prevailed over both the predecessors and the successors (referring to the Prophet)" (Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, 3/269). The state's formation with elements of nobility, sacredness, and dynasty is a mixture of the Byzantine legacy and this chronology.

Muawiyah implemented a special cultural program to abstract the Damascus-centered Umayyad state from the Islamic tradition that had formed in Medina, which included an intense activity of fabricating ḥadīths (ʿĀlimī, p. 135). In his will to his son Yazīd, he emphasized the importance of preserving this culture: "Give special importance to the people of Damascus. If you sense danger from your enemy, launch them at your enemy like arrows. When they are done, lock them tightly to yourself [do not allow them to stay elsewhere]. For one can never be certain that people will not corrupt them [change their culture]" (Balādhurī, 3/356).

The political culture of the people of Damascus was based on absolute obedience, allowing no deliberation. The historian Masʿūdī, nicknamed "the Herodotus of the Arabs" (Haywood, "Al-Masʿūdī," Britannica), described this socio-psychology as follows: "The unquestioning [blind] obedience of Muawiyah's men reached such a point that when he was taking them to the Battle of Siffin (657), he led the Friday prayer on a Wednesday [no one objected]" (Masʿūdī, 3/33).

The cultural blockade enforced by the state in Damascus was so strong that the people did not know that the Prophet had relatives and members of the Ahl al-Bayt other than the Umayyads until the Umayyad dynasty collapsed and the Abbasids came to power (Masʿūdī, 3/41).

The Umayyad state, established with a complete break from the participatory and contractual political unity concept represented by the Prophet's Constitution of Medina, had forbidden the narration of authentic ḥadīths from the Prophet in Damascus to preserve its unique political culture. It compensated for the void created by this practice by encouraging storytelling (qiṣṣāh) and hagiography (manqabah). The famous storyteller Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, when he could not find a suitable environment in Medina for his Isrāʾīliyyāt-based stories, freely continued his activities in Damascus with the support of Muawiyah's court. Muawiyah used to say, "Kaʿb is from among the scholars. His knowledge is like oceans" (Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, 13/335). Most fabricated stories that played an active role in shaping the identity of existing Islam are the result of the official cultural policy in Damascus.

Muawiyah, leveraging the esoteric and symbolic power legacy of Byzantium, did not neglect to equip his own metaphysical rule with symbols. For instance, it is narrated that he once said: "The Prophet passed away at sixty-three years of age. Abu Bakr also passed away at sixty-three. And Umar was sixty-three when he passed away" (Ṭabarānī, 1/58, Hadith 29). Muawiyah's political objective behind this alignment can be found in another narration from the same context: "The Messenger of Allah died at sixty-three. Abu Bakr and Umar also. I am also sixty-three" (Ibn Abī Shaybah, 12/5, Hadith 34432).

The path to establishing the Umayyad state was to invalidate the tradition (sunnah) embodied by Ali ibn Abi Talib. For this, the disparagement and vilification of the Ahl al-Bayt, who preserved the Prophet's cultural heritage, became state policy. One of the articles of the peace treaty Hasan, Ali's son, made with Muawiyah in July 661 CE (41 AH) to prevent further civil war, was the prohibition of cursing Ali ibn Abi Talib from mosque pulpits (Ibn al-Athīr, 3/272; Ṭabarsī, 1/403). However, Muawiyah did not abide by this commitment, and for approximately 60 years until Umar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz became caliph in 717 CE, Umayyad caliphs had Ali and the Ahl al-Bayt insulted from mosque pulpits. Ibn Khaldūn writes that Caliph Umar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz sent letters everywhere to stop this ugly practice (Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddimah, 3/94). When the Umayyad caliph Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam was asked why they cursed Ali from mosque pulpits, he replied, "Because this is the only correct thing" (Ibn ʿAsākir, 42/438).

With Muawiyah's caliphate, it is possible to see Ali ibn Abi Talib as the last representative of the classical period and Muawiyah as the first representative of the new period in the transformation process experienced by the Islamic society (İrfan Aycan, p. 151). During Muawiyah's period, the understanding that the legitimacy of rulers was based on power, not on being the Prophet's successor, became official. The concept of "Caliph of the Messenger of Allah (Khalīfat Rasūl Allāh)" was replaced by the concept of "Caliph of Allah (Khalīfat Allāh)," and the obligation to follow the Prophet's practice in state administration was abandoned (Hādi Wakīl, p. 95).

Muawiyah, acting contrary to his agreement with Hasan ibn Ali, initiated the dynastic and monarchical practice by taking allegiance for his son Yazīd while he was still alive. Hasan al-Baṣrī counts Muawiyah's appointment of his son, whose decadent lifestyle was evident, as his successor among Muawiyah's four great sins (Demir, p. 69; narrated from Abū al-Fidāʾ). His grandson (Yazīd's son) Muawiyah, in 64 AH (683 CE), summarized the four years of state policy continued by his father Yazīd, which he inherited from Muawiyah, as follows: "He killed the lineage of the Messenger of Allah, made the forbidden permissible, and burned the Kaaba" (Ibn Abī al-Dam, p. 98).

The primary justification the Damascus-centered Byzantinist state resorted to for legitimizing (making religiously lawful) all these actions was the authority of the walī al-amr (the one in authority) and the obligation to obey him. As narrated by Yaʿqūbī, the people of Damascus used to say, "Forbidden and obedience are on the same line." Afterwards, obedience prevailed over forbiddenness (Yaʿqūbī, 2/300).

The Prophet’s Medina was organized neither like Plato’s Sparta, based on the rule of elites, nor like Aristotle’s Athens, based on categorized citizenship. The social model based on the Constitution of Medina was a new and brilliant historical experience where ethnic and religious differences were recognized and guaranteed by contract.

Medina, founded through a social contract in the Prophet’s Mosque (Masjid al-Nabawī), gave way to the "new Medina" after the Prophet's death, through a so-called election that took place under the Saʿida family's shade (saqīfah), which was the political center of Yathrib during the Jāhiliyyah period. Simultaneously, the public sphere underwent a structural transformation from participation to a dominant approach.

The importance and value gained by authority in the rapid structural transformation of public life in early Islamic history are comparable to the ideological postulates of the modern state.

In Sunni Islamic tradition and in the faction of Twelver Shiʿism that adheres to Wilāyat al-Faqīh, the state is not merely a functional and pragmatic organization for managing social affairs but is characterized by ideology and doctrine, oriented towards societal design, and possesses cult-like features.

The etymology of the Arabic word "siyāsah" (politics) carries the meaning of "subduing, training, reforming," particularly in reference to animals, but also extending to humans. In this respect, the relationship between the ruler and the subjects has been likened to a "father-child" relationship. The subjects must obey the ruler with the same respect and absolute obedience that a child shows to their father. This is because "the Sultan is Allah’s shadow on earth."

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