My boyfriend and I had an argument over whether or not Muhammed is considered a religious leader. I think that he was the message bearer,(although one held in high esteem), since God spoke through him, resulting in the Koran. My boyfriend, on the other hand, says that this is reason enough for him to be a religious leader. Which one of us is correct?
I would have to agree with your boyfriend. The example I can think of is the Pope. I would consider him a religious leader since he does, according to Catholicism, pass on the word of God.
I’m sure somebody else will go into this in more detail, but I’ll take a shot.
Besides the Qur’an, the great body of traditional Muslim religious law comes from the hadiths, which are sayings ascribed to the Prophet, his immediate family, and the first few Caliphs, and are not necessarily seen as revalations of God. The hadiths, in fact, tend to provide more clues as to how a devout Muslim is supposed to go about his/her daily religious life than the Qur’an does, as the latter largely consists of relatively abstract theology. If you can assume the St. Paul was a “religious leader” because of the epistles, it’s then safe to assume that the Prophet was a religious leader as well.
You can even look at it another way. The Caliphs were considered religious as well as temporal leaders, hence their title “Commander of the Faithful.” As the heirs to the Prophet, then, you can deduct that they were certainly ascribed no more social significance than the Prophet himself…
hell, I just did this in class today, so this is more like homework…