| Second,
it was years after the death of the Prophet that the theory of
leadership (caliphate) was worked out by Muslim jurists, and under
this theory, it has been clearly understood that the prophetic
function had ended with the death of Mohammed and that his
successors inherited only the political function and the duty of
administrating the laws set out in the Koran and the Prophet's
sayings and practice. The caliph had three functions. He was the
vice regent of the Prophet as temporal head of the ummah; he was the
imam of the community and upholder of the law; and finally, he was
commander of the faithful for the defence and expansion of Islam.
The central issue in Islam has not
been whether the state can be separated from religion but whether
society can be separated from religion. It is because the answer to
the second has to be firmly in the negative that the answer to the
first has also to be in the negative. In posing the first question -
whether the state can be separated from religion - without
simultaneously posing the second - whether society can be separated
from religion - scholars have, to use the old cliche, sought to put
the cart before the horse.
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