The Impact of the Leadership Style of the Four Caliphates on the Politics of Islam in Contemporary Time

Abstract

This article is about “The Impact of the Leadership Style of the Four Caliphates on the Politics of Islam in Contemporary Time”. The article investigates the historical development of the four Caliphs and caliphates in the early Muslim community, during their reign of Caliphates. The study explores into the different   leadership styles of the four caliphs, in managing the community safely and peacefully. Highlighting the impact of the leadership styles of the four Caliphs on the politics of Islam and their effects on the leadership in Muslim communities, whose resonances still resounds in the contemporary times. These effects remain patterned in the leadership styles of some Muslim leaders in Africa today. Adaptation and synthesis, conservative and fundamentalism are the leadership styles of the Caliphs during their reign. In their leadership, they promoted democracy, good governance, and centralization of the power and standardization of the Qur’an, consultations, fairness, justice, accountability, transparency and established the administrative structures in Muslim empire. Their leadership styles have a connection with autocratic, democratic and delegating as the conventional leadership styles. The impact of leadership styles of four Caliphs resonate in the contemporary politics of Islam. These influences are in different African Islamic countries. The article aims to bridge the academic gap by examining the effects that influence the current politics of Islam including the African context. The article adopts a literature-based approach, relies completely on library sources in collecting the data, conducting an inclusive review of academic works, books and journals or articles. This approach aims to collect insights from historical development of Caliphs, and their leadership styles. It also aims to amass comparative perceptions and contribute to a systematic exploration and analysis of the subject issue.