Questions on kingship

Executive Summary

Following the posting of the article, ‘There is no king but Allah,’ a series of five-questions were submitted in response.  The questions have sought to challenge a large number of findings that were presented.

As received, the questions were as follows:

1. Allah mentions kings and kingship in the Qur’an in a positive way, saying it is a Ni’mah or a divine favour [5: 20]
2. In reply to your argument that Allah is the only king, we know from the Qur’an that Allah made kings [5: 20] including mentioning a specific king, Taalut [2: 247]
3. I quoted a hadith in which the Prophet (alayhis salaam) says: “Khilaafah shall remain for thirty years, after that Allah will give Kingship to whoever he wishes [Sunan Abu Dawud]
4. The Prophet (alayhis salaam) wrote the letter to Caesar inviting him to Islam, writing Aslim Taslam meaning convert to Islam and you will be safe. This means had Caesar converted to Islam he would have remained secure upon his throne.
5. The king of Ethiopia, the Negus, converted to Islam in the lifetime of the Prophet (alayhis salaam) who never instructed him to abdicate his throne. The Negus remains kind of Ethiopia until his died, whereupon the Prophet (alayhis salaam) offered funeral prayers for him in absentia.

Our response to these questions is included in the download link below.  Given the large number of points that were raised, it was deemed fitting to present this as a separate document altogether, as opposed to detailing answers to each of the questions.