ابن تيمية
Henri Laoust said that Ibn Taymiyyah never propagated the idea of a single caliphate but believed the Muslim ummah or community would form into a confederation of states. Laoust further stated that Ibn Taymiyyah called for obedience only to God, and the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and he did not put a limit on the number of leaders a Muslim community could have. However Mona Hassan, in her recent study of the political thoughts of Ibn Taymiyyah, questions this and says laoust has wrongly claimed that Ibn Taymiyyah thought of the caliphate as a redundant idea. Hassan has shown that Ibn Taymiyyah considered the Caliphate that was under the Rashidun Caliphs; Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, as the moral and legal ideal. The Caliphate in his view could not be ceded "in favour of secular kingship (mulk).