Page:The young Moslem looks at life (1937).djvu/123

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AND RELIGION 109

elations lie received related not only to how to worship God, but also how to rule men. In addition to ritual there was also law, and the law was the law of God.

As long as Mohammed lived there was direct access to the ultimate Lawgiver, and new laws were issued with divine authority as occasion arose. But after Mohammed died divine revelation ceased, and the Moslems were then left with only the sacred Koran and the Traditions of the Prophet as their guide and rule of conduct. The first caliph, Abu Bakr, who was elected to succeed Mohammed, could, of course, only succeed him as the religious ruler of the Moslem peoples. From then on the caliph remained in theory the nominal head of all Moslem peoples and all Moslem lands. These different lands and peoples might have kings or sultans of their own, but theoretically, at any rate, each king was supposed to derive his authority of kingship from the caliph of the Moslem peoples. Each ruler was in a sense regarded as the viceroy of the caliph, who, in turn, was regarded as the head of a vast Moslem empire made up of independent Moslem states. In each separate state the king was the head of the Moslem religion as well as of the affairs of government, and king and people alike looked to the caliph as the head of all Islam.

HOLY WAR

Because Islam started with the theory that the message of the Prophet must be given to all peoples and