Fatima.Mernessi_The-Forgotten-Queens-of-Islam-EN

The Criteria of Sovereignty in Islam 79
action, up at dawn and busy reconciling a pious life with military
discipline, and they thought that the faithful had no time to waste
either. Abu Bakr, the first caliph (11/632-13/634), who took power
after the death of the Prophet, was concerned that a Muslim leader
should not drown the faithful in words. He advised one of the
generals whom he sent to conquer Syria to be brief: 'In your
relations with those under your jurisdiction, be sparing with words;
one part of a long discourse makes one forget another part.' 26
The Friday khutba thus obliged the sovereign to develop his ability
to communicate directly with the group, to pass information along
rapidly by sticking to the essential facts, and to assume political
responsibility for what he said. The leader's heavy responsibility
was linked as much to what he chose not to say as to what he said.
One can easily understand why the Muslim sovereign very quickly
tried to get out of such an obligation and thus avoid the anxiety of
direct contact with the group. But he thereby deprived the mosque
of its political function, its function as the assembly of the faithful,
who are well informed and asked to give their opinion. The caliphs
rapidly cut themselves off from the community and deserted the
mosque-residence of Muhammad, where the leader lives and works
next to the mosque. Between themselves and those they governed
they raised the hijab, literally the veil. The institution of the hijab,
that is, a curtain in the sense of a barrier that separates the sovereign
from the people and impedes their access to him - which was
considered by the Prophet and the first four caliphs as a grave
failure in duty by the leader - was very quickly adopted in political
practice. 27
The name of the official responsible for controlling access to the
sovereign was coined from the same linguistic root as hijab; he was
called al-hajib, literally, the one who veils the caliph. The hajib was
the one who acts as a buffer; he received the applicants for an
audience in place of the caliph and decided who should be received
and who sent away. The institution was strongly challenged at the
beginning, especially by the ashraf, the elite, who were upset by
the caliph's decision to put a hajib, a man-veil, between them and
him, thus shattering the intimacy and solidarity that had united
them before. The famous epistle of al-Jahiz on the hijab is an
attempt to document the incidents that took place when the caliphs
ceased to be visible and accessible. 28 Once the institution of the
hijab was adopted, the caliph faced another problem no less thorny
than had been direct contact: the choice of the ideal hajib. According