Debating the Takeover After the Death of the Prophet Mohammad

As we know after the death of Prophet Mohammad, the Muslim community turned into disorder and people started to wonder what would happen now that he is dead as it was understood that he was the last to come in prophets’ chain and there will be no one coming after him. Many debates began about who should take over all the responsibilities he had as he was the spiritual, legal, political and military leader of the community, so in other words, the debates were whether Muhammad had already appointed a successor, if not, then who should be the leader. In this paper, I will discuss the issues of Divine guidance between the two main political views that took the debates over when deciding the successor after Muhammad and how the split between them has shaped the community. We know that sometimes many events of history are told differently by different groups. The Sunni view, which has become majority amongst Muslims, believe that there is no such procedure laid by either Muhammad or by Qur’an stating who was to become a successor. As stated â€Å"the theory as well as the practice of Sunnism had been to recognize only one caliph: as God’s religion is only one, reflecting the divine unity, so should God’s ‘best umma’ be one† explains that, for Sunnis, as long as the leader ruled under God, following the guidance of Qur’an and Sunna, it was a role that could be fulfilled out with any man, based on his piety and wisdom. Leadership was to be merit not by inheritance, birth or family.