Bay'ah

Bay'ah is the pledge of allegiance, the solemn undertaking by which a person bound himself in loyalty and obedience to the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ, and after him to his successors. The word derives from the root meaning of selling or striking a bargain, the one who pledged being likened to one who concludes a sale, giving his hand upon the agreement; and indeed, the pledge was customarily sealed by the clasping of hands. In the sīra the bay'ah appears at several decisive moments, from the pledges of the Anṣār before the Hijra to the pledge beneath the tree at al-Ḥudaybiya, and it became, after the death of the Prophet ﷺ, the instrument by which authority passed to the caliphs.

The earliest and most consequential of the pledges were the two given at al-ʻAqaba, near Makkah, by the people of Yathrib who would become the Anṣār. At the first ʻAqaba, a small number of the men of the Aws and the Khazraj pledged to the Prophet ﷺ that they would associate nothing with God, would not steal nor commit unlawful intercourse nor kill their children nor utter slander, and would obey him in what was right; this came to be called the Pledge of the Women, for it laid upon them no obligation of war and resembled the terms later set for the pledge of the women. At the second ʻAqaba, in the following year, a far larger company pledged to protect the Prophet ﷺ as they would their own families and to fight in his defense, a pledge of war that prepared the way for the Hijra to Madīnah.

After the establishment of the community at Madīnah, the bay'ah continued to be given to the Prophet ﷺ on various terms. Men pledged themselves upon Islam, upon the hijra, and upon jihād; and the Qurʼān speaks of the believing women coming to the Prophet ﷺ to pledge that they would not associate aught with God, nor steal, nor commit unlawful intercourse, nor slay their children, nor utter calumny, nor disobey him in what was right, the pledge of the women (bay'at al-nisāʼ) being taken by word and not by the clasping of hands. The terms of these pledges, preserved in the Qurʼān and the ḥadīth, defined the obligations that the believer undertook toward God and His Messenger ﷺ.

The most celebrated of the pledges given in the lifetime of the Prophet ﷺ was the Pledge of al-Riḍwān, also called the Pledge of the Tree (bay'at al-shajara), sworn at al-Ḥudaybiya in the year 6 AH. When the Prophet ﷺ had sent ʻUthmān ibn ʻAffān into Makkah and a rumor reached the Muslims that he had been slain, the Prophet ﷺ called his companions to pledge themselves beneath a tree, and they pledged that they would not flee, and, by some reports, that they would fight to the death. The Qurʼān declared God’s good pleasure with the believers as they pledged allegiance beneath the tree, and the pledge was reckoned a signal honor to those who took part in it, who were thereafter known for having given the Pledge of al-Riḍwān.

The act of pledging was marked by certain forms. The one who pledged would place his hand in the hand of the Prophet ﷺ and speak the terms of his undertaking, and the pledge was held binding upon him, a covenant whose breach was a grave matter. The Prophet ﷺ is reported to have taken the pledge upon hearing and obeying in ease and hardship, in what one liked and disliked, and upon not disputing the authority of those set in command unless open unbelief were seen; and he warned against the breaking of a pledge once given, likening the one who withdrew his hand from obedience to one who would meet God with no argument in his favor.

Upon the death of the Prophet ﷺ, the bay'ah passed from a pledge of allegiance to him into the constitutional instrument by which his successors were invested with authority. At the portico (saqīfah) of the Banū Sāʻidah, the leaders of the Emigrants and the Anṣār, after deliberation, gave their pledge to Abū Bakr as the first caliph, and the general body of the Muslims followed with their pledge in the mosque the next day. Thereafter the giving of the bay'ah became the recognized means by which a caliph was acknowledged, the pledge of the people of authority (ahl al-ḥall wa-al-ʻaqd) followed by the general pledge of the community binding the ruler and the ruled in mutual obligation.

The jurists and the theorists of government accordingly made the bay'ah a foundation of their doctrine of the caliphate, treating it as the act by which the contract of rule was concluded and the obedience of the subjects engaged, in return for the ruler’s upholding of the law and the common good. They discussed the pledge of the people of authority and the general pledge, the conditions of its validity, and the obligations it created on either side, drawing upon the pledges of the Prophet’s ﷺ lifetime and upon the pledge to Abū Bakr as their precedents. Thus, the bay'ah of the sīra became the model for the constitutional practice of the later community.

In the sīra tradition, the bay'ah is remembered as the bond of allegiance that joined the believers to the Prophet ﷺ at the turning-points of his mission: the pledges of ʻAqaba that opened the way to the Hijra, the pledges upon Islam and jihād and the pledge of the women at Madīnah, and the Pledge of al-Riḍwān beneath the tree that the Qurʼān honored. From these beginnings the pledge passed into the life of the community as how authority was conferred and loyalty engaged, so that the bay'ah, first given to the Prophet ﷺ, became one of the enduring institutions of Islam.

## References

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