The caliphate’s legitimacy rested on personal treaties with a dead prophet

Evidence

The Koran says nothing about the political order that was meant to follow the prophet’s death. Many of the Bedouins decided that their treaties had been made with Muhammad personally and that they no longer owed either allegiance or the zakât to anyone. Muhammad’s associates, however, declared that Abû Bakr was to be Muhammad’s khalîfa (caliph), or successor. Meccans and Medinese rallied around him and fought to resubmit the Bedouins to the Islamic state. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 237

Categorization

• QUESTION: The tension between treaty loyalty to a person versus loyalty to a state institution is a recurring pattern in political transitions worth comparing across cases.