I Will Place on Earth a Khalīfah

Allah (swt) says: wa idh qāla rabbuka li-l-malāʾikati innī jāʿilun fī al-arḍi khalīfah. Allah (swt) says: and remember when your Lord said to the angels, verily I am going to place mankind, generations after generations, on earth. Allah (swt) says: innī jāʿilun fī al-arḍi khalīfah. Allah is telling the angels: I will place on earth a khalīfah.

What does khalīfah mean? Khalīfah comes from the word khalaf. And khalaf means to succeed someone else, or to assume the position of someone else. These are the meanings of the word khalaf.

Allah (swt), for example, says in the Qur'an: fa-khalafa min baʿdihim khalfun aḍāʿū al-ṣalāta wa-ttabaʿū al-shahawāti fa-sawfa yalqawna ghayyā. A generation followed them who lost prayer and followed desires; so they will be misguided. In this ayah it means a generation that came after them.

And that is why we have salaf and khalaf. We say salaf: who are the salaf? The salaf are the early three generations. Everyone who comes after them, we call them khalaf. And then, what was Abū Bakr called when he assumed responsibility after the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him)? Khalīfatu Rasūli Allāh: the khalīfah of the Messenger of Allah. Why? Because he assumed responsibility after the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and he came after the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him).

So we see that this word, which was used in reference to Abū Bakr, has two meanings. The first meaning is that he's assuming the responsibility of leading the ummah after the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). And the second meaning is that he's coming after the Messenger of Allah: khalīfah, he comes after.

If we would apply these two meanings to the responsibility, or the title, that was given to humanity — Allah (swt) said: innī jāʿilun fī al-arḍi khalīfah, I will place a khalīfah on earth — we find two explanations were given. One explanation says that Allah (swt) has appointed Ādam and his children, his descendants, in the position of responsibility to apply the laws of Allah (swt). So they are representing the law of Allah (swt) on earth; they are given the responsibility of applying the law of Allah (swt) on earth. And that is the explanation given by Ibn Masʿūd. The second explanation is that human beings would succeed each other in this world, generation after generation. And this is the opinion of Ibn ʿAbbās.

Our responsibility on earth is to establish earth according to the laws of Allah (swt). And also we see that we are succeeding each other. We're not like the angels, who are living and they're not marrying and having children; and we succeed each other on this earth. And that's why Allah (swt) says about the people of ʿĀd — Allah (swt) says — that you became the khalāʾif^*** of the earth, which is the plural of khalīfah, after the people of Nūḥ. So this is the meaning of the word khalīfah.