The government system of the prophet Muhammed : a comparative study in constitutional law
Abstract
The majority of Muslims believe that the best
era in their history was that of the Prophet Muhammad and
his orthodox successors, and that the best rulers who
ever governed Muslims are the Prophet and his successors.
Therefore the Muslims in our own time are inspired by
their works and words in many aspects of life, and hope
still to follow their model behaviour. This attitude
became clear immediately after the creation of Pakistan
when the people began to discuss the necessity of
establishing a constitution which should be based on the
rules of Qur'an, the practice of the Prophet, and, the
precedents of his orthodox successors.
Yet the nature of the governmental system of
the Prophet Muhammad is still ambiguous in the minds
of Muslims, and it is hard to find any scientific study
on this subject. Therefore it was felt that it might
be useful to choose "the governmental system of the
Prophet Muhammad" to be the subject of this thesis, and
to study it in the light of the theories of state which
are known in the field of constitutional law, in order
to clarify the form and nature of "the Prophetic
government".
The thesis consists of five chapters and a
conclusion. The first chapter explains how the Islamic
state was established and extended to govern most of
Arabia. The second chapter presents the idea of
sovereignty and authority in the Islamic state. The
third deals with the three authorities - legislative,
executive, and judiciary - in the Islamic state. In the
fourth chapter the writer tries to define the nature of
the governmental system of the Prophet and the relations
between its powers. The fifth chapter is devoted to
explaining the position of the Islamic state on the
rights of equality and liberty. The conclusion contains
the summary of the main points dealt with in the thesis.
It will be a source of satisfaction to the
writer if this work should participate in clarifying the
governmental system which the Prophet Muhammad
established, and if in the near future an opportunity is
found to study the development of this system in the era
of the Prophet's successors.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
Collections
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.