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352chapter sixthe Book reminds us that they were ‘a nation which passed away.I shall reap what it has earned, and you shall reap what you haveearned. You shall not be questioned about what they were doing’( Al-Baqara 2:141, MF).Indeed, we would not be so critical of our early history if thatspurious concept of (punishment for) apostasy, which provided theperfect legal pretext for the elimination of political opponents duringthe Umayyad and Abbasid periods, did not today play such adominant role in the tactics of Islamist groups and their terroragainst the political establishment. Ironically, by allowing the killingof political rulers on the basis of (alleged) apostasy, Aimanal-£aw§hirÊ and other ideologues are using precisely the sameweapon of terror as the ancient political regimes did in order tointimidate their opponents. Because of the confusion between religion(disbelief ) and politics (secession) from the time of the early‘wars of apostasy’, apostasy has attained a political dimension andhas thus been fixed in the Arab-Muslim mind ever since. And sincethe fuqah§" were so involved in power politics during that period,apostasy, with these political overtones, has come to be formulatedin Islamic law with exactly that fusion of religion with politics,rendering what happened during the appointment of Abå Bakr asMuÈammad’s (ß) successor (eliminating the influence of the al-Anߧr)as perfectly legal. 24 Once these apostasy wars, and in particularAbå Bakr’s military expedition in the years 10–11 A.H., weredefined as ‘fulfilling God’s words’, they became the legal norm ofhow to deal with (any) apostate (individual or group), so that thepossibility of being persecuted as an apostate hung over the politicalopposition like a sword of Damocles and is today, because theagainst rebellion (Abå Muslim in Khur§s§n; Kharijites in Transoxania; #Alids inPersia) and secessionist movements (Berbers in North Africa) while at the same timeestablishing the claim of a divinely sanctioned absolute sovereignty of the ruler afterthe theocratic model of ancient Byzantine monarchs. See Abå’l-\asan al-Mas#ådÊ,The meadows of gold: the Abbasids, translated and edited by Paul Lunde and CarolineStone (London: Kegan Paul, 1989).24The al-Anߧr belonged mostly to the two Medinan tribes of the Aws andKhazraj and are believed to have initially supported #AlÊ and not Abå Bakr in thesuccession to the Prophet but (either by pressure, intimidation or change of heart)eventually gave their allegiance to Abå Bakr. For an alalysis of the rivalry betweenthe Anߧr and the Muh§jirån, see Maya Yazigi, ‘‘AlÊ, MuÈammad, and the Anߧr: TheIssue of Succession,” Journal of Semitic Studies 53, no. 2 (2008): 279–303.