Blessings of Khilafat — Page 11
11 Khalifah. Such people ask me, ‘Who are you? Are you a king’? I say, ‘No. ’ ‘Have you been directly appointed by God?’ I say, ‘No. ’ ‘How can you be the Khalifah then?’, they ask me. They imagine that it is compulsory for the Khalifah to be either a king or directly appointed by God. In fact, those who raise this objection have not pondered over the word ‘ Khalifah ’ at all. Their point of view in this regard is no different than that of a person who goes to the shop of a tailor and finds that a young trainee is addressing his master as ‘ Khalifah ’. Having heard this, he comes out of the shop and proclaims that ‘ Khalifah ’ is a title to be used only for a tailor. Similar is the condition of a person who, having visited a school, finds that students use the title of ‘ Khalifah ’ for their monitor [in the past Khalifah was the title used for the student who monitored a class] and then proclaims that a Khalifah is only he who monitors a class of school boys. Hence, one who does not monitor the students cannot be a Khalifah , because to his poor intellect being a Khalifah is conditional upon monitoring some students. Similar is the case of a person who, having observed that God made a Khalifah and ordered the angels to prostrate before him, starts inferring that Khalifah can only be he to whom the angels are ordered to prostrate. Otherwise, he concludes, no other person can be a Khalifah. Similar is the situation of the person who observes that the Khulaf a ’ of the Holy Prophet sa had kingdoms and sovereign governments, and therefore concludes that only a person who has a kingdom can be a Khalifah and no other person should be addressed as Khalifah , for being a Khalifah requires one to have a kingdom. Those who say this are absolutely unaware of what the word Khalifah stands for. In fact, the word signifies the one who is called someone’s successor and who should succeed his