Umar introduced Caste System in Islam-An Analysis

Our opponents look at the succession of the early caliphs and Imams and then claim that Shi'ism is undemocratic. All the Twelve Imams were of one family while the first four Caliphs were of different clans. They conclude that the Sunni school of thought is democratic in principle, which is supposed to be the best system of governance. Shi'ism, in their opinion, is based on hereditary rule and therefore not a good system.

Firstly, no system of government is good or bad of itself; it is as good or bad as the person who holds the reins of the government in his hands. Accordingly, the Shi'ite belief that an Imam is ma'sum, free from every shortcoming and defect and superior in virtue, means that his rule would be the most perfect and just. On one side is the uncompromising justice of al- Imam 'Ali(as), the first Imam, during his short term of Imamate; on the other, the accepted hadith of the Prophet about the last Imam, al-Mahdi, that "he will fill the earth with justice and equity as it will be full of oppression and injustice." 

Our premise is not merely an abstraction.

Secondly, we should bear in mind that all the Sunni caliphs from Abu Bakr to the last 'Abbasid caliph al-Musta'sim Billah (killed by Hulagu Khan in 656/1258) were from the Quraysh. Does it not mean that one family had ruled over all Muslims from eastern China to Spain for six and a half centuries?

Thirdly, the Sunni system of the caliphate, as already mentioned, was never based on democracy. The first Caliph was thrust upon the Muslims of Medina by a handful of the Companions; the second was nominated by the first; the third was selected nominally by five people, but actually by one. Mu'awiyah took the caliphate by military overthrow. Before him it was, at best, oligarchy; after him it became monarchy.

So much for the democracy of the constitutional principles utilized. What of the performance of those early governments from the point of view of the equality which democracy implies?

'Umar made a decision that a non-Arab cannot inherit from an Arab unless that heir was born in Arabia. [1]

Again, the Sunni law going back to early times, for the most part, does not allow a non-Arab man to marry an Arab woman, nor is a non-Qurayshite or non-Hashimate man allowed to marry a Qurayshite or Hashimite woman, respectively. According to the Shafi'ite law, a slave, even a freed one, may not marry a free woman. [2]

This is in spite of the well-known declaration of the Prophet that: "There is no superiority for an Arab over a non-Arab, nor for a non-Arab over an Arab, nor for a white man over a black, nor for a black over a white, except by piety. People are from Adam and Adam was from dust." [3]

Also, it is in spite of the precedents the Prophet established when he married his cousin to Zayd ibn al-Harithah, a freed slave, and gave the sister of 'Abdu 'r-Rahman ibn 'Awf (a Qurayshite) in marriage to Bilal, a freed Ethiopian slave. [4]

The Shi'ite shari'ah clearly states: "It is allowed to marry a free woman to a slave, an Arab woman to a non-Arab, a Hashimite woman to a non-Hashimite and vice versa. Likewise, it is allowed to marry women of learned or wealthy families to men of little learning or wealth or of undignified professions." [5]

In the matter of distribution of war-booty, the Prophet had established a system of equality; it was to be distributed equally to all who had participated in a particular battle. Abu Bakr continued that system, but 'Umar in 15 A.H., just four years after the Prophet's death, changed the system. He fixed annual stipends for various people, clans and tribes: 'Abbas, the Prophet's uncle, was allotted 12,000 or 25,000 dmars per year; 'A'ishah, 12,000; other wives of the Prophet, 10,000 each; the participants in the battle of Badr, 5,000 each; those who joined between Badr and Hudaybiyyah, 4,000 each; those who joined after Hudaybiyyah and before Qadisiyyah, 3,000 each. The amount gradually decreased to two dinars per year. [6]

This system corrupted the Muslim community to such an extent that wealth became their sole aim in life and the only benefit of their religion. Their outlook became materialistic and, as mentioned earlier, they could not tolerate the system of equal distribution which 'Ali reinstated in the first speech he gave after taking over the caliphate. 'Ali is quoted to have said: Well, any man from the muhajirun and the ansar, from the Companions of the Prophet, who thinks that he is superior to others because of his companionship (let him remember that) the shining superiority is tomorrow before Allah, and its reward and wages are with Allah. ( He should not expect its reward in this world.) Any man who answered the call of Allah and His Prophet, and accepted the truth of our religion and entered into it, and faced towards our qiblah, is entitled to all the rights of Islam and bound by its limits. You are the servants of Allah; and all property is the property of Allah; it will be divided among you equally; there is no preference in it for one against the other.

Those who during the twenty years preceding 'Ali's caliphate had grown used to the unfair distribution, advised and requested 'Ali to compromise; and when he proved unrelenting on matters of Islamic principle, they conspired against him.

After the victory of the Umayyads this inequality between Muslims was carried further. Even if someone accepted Islam, he or she was not accorded the rights of the Muslims. In some way their condition was worse than that of their compatriot non-Muslims. The latter were obliged to pay only jizyah, but the Muslims had to pay that and the zakat (the tax paid by the Muslims). During the Umayyad period (except for two and a half years during 'Umar ibn 'Abdi 'l-'Aziz's reign), jizyah was levied on all non Arabs including the Muslims. [7]

It is not difficult to imagine how little this policy helped the cause of Islam. For centuries entire countries whose cities and capitals were "Islamic", refused to convert. Even the Berbers (who responded after initial resistance to the Arab invasion and served so brilliantly in Spain and on into France), as a whole were not converted until the establishment of the first Shi'ite kingdom in al-Maghrib. When Idris ibn 'Abdillah, a great -grandson of al Imam Hasan and the founder of the Idrisid dynasty (789 985 A.D.), marched against them, most were non- Muslims. This was the result of the ill-treatment in earlier times. We hear that when Yazid ibn 'Abdi'l Malik occupied the Umayyad throne and assigned Yazid ibn Abi Muslim Dinar as Governor of al-Maghrib, the latter re-levied jizyah on those who had become Muslims and ordered them back to the villages where they had lived before their conversion. The Idrisid change of policy and the extension of full Islamic rights to all the Muslims, brought the conversion of the Berbers.

This exaltation of Arabism is seen to be even more deeply interwoven in the decision of those early rulers that if a subject in a conquered country accepted Islam, he could not be accepted as a Muslim or accorded his Islamic rights unless he attached himself as a client to some Arab tribe. Such clients were called mawali. Even then they were objects of ridicule and unequal. treatment by their aristocratic patrons and at the same time continued to be exploited by the growing bureaucracy.

By restricting the right of rule to the twelve infallible Imams. Allah cut at the roots of strife, dissension, chaos and false electioneering, as well as social and racial inequality.

        

1. Malik : al-Muwatta', vol. 2, p. 60.

2. al-Jaziri: al-Fiqh ala 'l-madhahibi 'l-arba'ah, vol.4, p. 60.

3. as-Suyuti: ad-Durru 'l-manthur, vol. 6, p. 98.

4. Ibnu 'l-Qayyim: Zadu 'l-ma'ad, vol. 4, p. 22.

5. al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli: Shara'i`u 'l-Islam, ("Kitabu' n-Nikah"), vol. 5, p. 300; al-Hakim: Minhaju 's-salihin,("Kitabu'n-Nikah"), vol. 2, p.279.

6. at-Tabari: at-Tarikh, (Annales I), vol.5, pp.2411- 4; Nicholson, R.A.: A Literary History of the Arabs,p.187.

7. at-Tabari: at-Tarikh, (Annales II), vol. 3, pp.1354,1367

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