With the death of the Prophet in 632, the future of the new religion of Islam was uncertain. Muhammad had held his small community of believers together, but without his guidance, the unity of the Muslim community, or umma, was threatened. Muhammad's close friends and advisors decided to select a leader to replace Muhammad and to continue spreading the Islamic faith. This leader was known as the khalifa, meaning "deputy" in Arabic, which has been anglicised as "caliph." In the years following Muhammad's death there would be four caliphs, sometimes called the "Rightly Guided Caliphs" or the "Four Medina Caliphs," before the first Islamic dynasty was established in 661 by the Umayyad family, who established the practice of hereditary succession. The Umayyads were overthrown in 750 by the Abbasids, who established a dynasty that would last until the Mongol invasion of Baghdad, the Abbasid capital, in 1258. This chapter will discuss the Four Medina Caliphs and the first Islamic dynasty, the Umayyad.
There are differing opinions about whether or not Muhammad designated his successor before his death. One group of his followers claimed at the time, and continues to believe today, that Muhammad named his son-in-law, Ali, as his successor. For this group, known today as Shi'ites, their belief that Ali was the rightful claimant to the leadership after Muhammad's death sparked centuries of disagreement with the other main group in Islam, the Sunnis. The schism between the Sunnis and Shi'ites remains a major issue in the Islamic world.
Regardless of whether or not Muhammad chose a successor, Ali did not become the first caliph. The title went to Abu Bakr, one of Muhammad's fathers-in-law (he had 10 wives) and close friend, who was chosen by the community to lead them as the "deputy" of God. One of the first problems Abu Bakr faced as caliph was a rapid renunciation of the Islamic faith by many Arab groups. As we saw in Chapter 1, these groups, known as the Bedouins, were present in the Arabian Peninsula before the coming of Islam. Many of them had converted to Islam under Muhammad, but the faith had not yet been strongly accepted by them by the time of Muhammad's death. The Bedouins abandoned Islam and refused allegiance to Abu Bakr, in a revolt known as the Ridda.
After several small battles with the Bedouins, the Muslim forces finally crushed the Ridda in 633. This conflict with the Bedouins demonstrated the fragility of the new faith and convinced Abu Bakr that with the Arabian Peninsula under Muslim control, Islam needed to expand past it. At this time, there were two empires on Arabia's borders, both of which Abu Bakr saw as a threat to Islam: the Sassanid Empire, which ruled much of Persia and Iraq, and the Byzantine Empire, which ruled southern Europe, Syria, and Egypt, and which had naval control of the Mediterranean Sea. Abu Bakr declared a jihad against the Christian Byzantines in Syria, but he was unable to carry out the invasion. He died in August, 634, only two years after taking power.
During his brief reign as caliph, Abu Bakr took important first steps toward spreading Islam beyond Mecca and Medina, the cities of its origin. His successful fight against the Bedouins claimed the entire Arabian Peninsula for Islam, and his declaration of hostility against the Byzantines and Sassanids, who surrounded Arabia, set the stage for his successors to spread Islam beyond the Arabian Peninsula. By 634, the foundations were in place for the rapid expansion of Islam, which would occur under the next three caliphs.
Before his death, Abu Bakr named Umar, another of Muhammad's fathers-in-law, as his successor. That appointment, unlike that of the previous caliph, appears to have gone virtually unchallenged. Umar added Amir al-Mu'minin, meaning "Commander of the Faithful," to his title, and from then on, all caliphs used this title. It denoted the fact that caliphs were not just the political leaders of the Muslim community, but the spiritual leaders as well. Despite this new title, however, Umar is remembered more for his military leadership than his spiritual leadership, because he focussed on expanding the realm of Islam outside of the Arabian peninsula. This focus on the secular would later reappear under the Umayyad dynasty.
The first territorial conquests Umar made were in Syria, which he took from the Byzantines in 635. Damascus, an important city in Syria, fell to the Muslim forces that year, and Jerusalem - considered by Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike to be a holy city - followed in 637. The Muslim policy of tolerance towards other religions had a positive effect on the people of Syria, especially the Christians and Jews, who had been persecuted under the Byzantines. Umar realised that the loyalty of his new subjects was paramount to the success of Islamic rule in the region, and he therefore tried not to alienate them with excessive taxation or oppression. He instituted the kharaj, a tax that landowners and peasants paid according to the productivity of their fields, as well as the jizya, paid by non-Muslims in return for the freedom to practice their own religion. He retained the civil service of the Byzantines, however, until he could establish his own system for governing his rapidly expanding empire, and for that reason Greek remained the language of administration in the new Muslim territories for over 50 years after the conquest.
Umar realised the importance of creating a buffer zone around all of Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, and so while Syria was being invaded to the west, Muslim forces were also heading east through Iraq towards Persia, in an attempt to topple the 400-year-old Sassanid Empire there. The Sassanids were weak at the time of the Muslim invasion, having suffered a recent defeat to the Byzantines, and with an eleven-year- old boy on the throne. Despite this advantage, fighting Syrian forces to the west and Persian forces to the east proved difficult. Once Umar had consolidated his power in Syria, however, he was able to devote his full attention to fighting the Sassanids, and in 636 the Muslims won the decisive Battle of Qadisiyya near the Euphrates River. From there, the Muslims moved further east to occupy Ctesiphon, the Sassanid capital, on the Tigris River. Muslim forces continued further east into Persia, conquering one city after another. By 653, nine years after Umar's death, they reached the Oxus River in Central Asia, the eastern border of the Sassanid Empire.
After conquering Ctesiphon about 637, the Muslim forces again turned west, looking to spread the new faith into Egypt. With Syria firmly in Muslim hands, the army had no trouble crossing the Sinai Peninsula into Egypt. In 641 the ancient fortress of Babylon, south of present-day Cairo, fell to the invaders, and in 642 the Byzantine Patriarch Cyrus agreed to the surrender of Alexandria, on the Nile Delta. In 645 the Byzantines briefly reconquered that city, but the following year the Muslims reclaimed it. Christians never again ruled in Egypt.
The kharaj and jizya taxes, which had already been implemented in Syria after its conquest, were also introduced in Persia and Egypt. While Islamic tolerance towards other religions may seem surprising, considering the general practice of Christians to persecute people of other religions living in their empires, it was a policy based more on financial logic than religious indifference. Although from a religious perspective, an all-Muslim population would have been ideal, the new Islamic empire needed the funds provided by the jizya, which was paid by all non-Muslims. Hence, actively attempting to convert large numbers of their new subjects to Islam would have severely decreased the empire's coffers. Additionally, the Muslim conquerors did not want to trigger a revolt when they were so outnumbered by non-Muslims in their new territories. For these reasons, the Islamic rulers did not usually promote proselytising of their religion.
In newly conquered Persia, the Muslims faced different problems from the fiercely nationalistic people there. With a strong language, culture, and, especially, religion of its own, the Persians greatly resented their conquest by the despised Arabs. The Sassanid Empire had its own state religion, Zoroastrianism, and unlike the patchwork of religions that existed in Syria and Egypt under the Byzantines, most Persians adhered to Zoroastrianism as not only their state religion, but also as an integral part of their culture and identity. They considered the Arab Muslims an inferior people with an inferior civilisation. The Arabs and Persians were almost constantly in conflict with each other, even after many Persians converted to Islam, and this conflict created a number of problems for the ruling Arabs as the Islamic world continued to grow outside of Arabia.
The first sign of conflict between the Arabs and Persians came with the assassination of the Caliph Umar by a Persian Christian in 644. During his ten-year rule, Umar had furthered Abu Bakr's territorial gains in Arabia by conquering a great expanse of land surrounding the peninsula: Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and much of Persia. In the process he created the second largest empire in the world at the time, only slightly smaller than the Chinese Empire. Only twelve years after Muhammad's death, Islam had become a major player on the world stage.
With the death of Umar in 644, the rapid expansion of the Islamic world was temporarily halted and its unity was tested. Uthman, who was chosen as Umar's successor by a council of Muhammad's companions, was not necessarily the strongest candidate for the position, but he was a distant relative of the powerful Umayyad family that would later establish the first Islamic dynasty. Ali's supporters, who had been fighting for his right to the leadership position since Muhammad's death, were angry that Ali had been passed over for a third time.
Although Uthman did not expand the Islamic empire to the same degree as Umar, his military conquests were not insignificant. His armies thwarted the Byzantine attempt to reconquer Alexandria in 645, and in 647 he conducted raids west of Egypt, further into Byzantine North Africa. Meanwhile, Uthman named his cousin, Mu'awiya, governor of Syria, and commissioned the construction of a Muslim fleet to guard the Mediterranean against Byzantine naval attacks. The new naval capabilities of the Islamic empire helped in the conquest of the island of Cyprus in 649. The conquest of Persia, begun by Umar, was completed in 653 when Muslim forces occupied Khurasan, the eastern-most Persian province, and the eastern boundary of the old Sassanid empire.
A page from the Qur'an
Courtesy of About Islam and Muslims
www.unn.ac.uk/ societies/ islamic/ |
Despite these military accomplishments, Uthman's reign was marred by political difficulties. His promotion of his Umayyad kin to positions of power in his administration provoked criticism, as did the decrease in the treasury, which resulted from the Caliph's lavish spending habits and his belief that God would always provide for his people. Perhaps the one action which caused the most controversy for Uthman during his reign, however, was his attempt to develop a definitive text of the Qur'an at the expense of all others. His aim was simply to establish one true text of the revelation, in order for all Muslims to know what the Qur'an consisted of, what order it should be in, and how it should be written. Despite the controversy, Uthman was able to complete this task, which has since been recognised as a significant achievement in Islamic history. It reduced the number and frequency of disagreements over dogma, but many devout believers at the time accused Uthman of tampering with the sacred book.
All of these factors combined to create a climate of discontent throughout the new Islamic empire, and in June 656, a group of Egyptian rebels assassinated Uthman in his home. From that point on, the caliphate ceased to be a sacred position of leadership for the entire Muslim community, and became instead a prize to be violently fought over.
Shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, Iraq
Courtesy of the Ahlul Bayt Digital Islamic Library Project
www.al-islam. org/gallery/
The Islamic world erupted into civil war after Uthman's death, as the caliphate was contested and anarchy reigned. For the first time in Islam's short history, Muslims fought fellow believers. One of the main sources of unrest was the battle, which had been quietly raging since Muhammad's death, between Ali's supporters, the Shi'ites, and those who refused to recognise Ali's right to the caliphate. Since Uthman's death the main representative of the latter group, which included the majority of all Muslims, was Mu'awiya, Uthman's Umayyad cousin and governor of Syria. After Uthman's death, Ali declared himself the new caliph. Mu'awiya immediately challenged Ali's leadership and sought to keep Uthman's murder in public memory. Ali made no attempt to punish Uthman's killers, and he made further enemies by firing most of Uthman's administration. Besides Mu'awiya, Ali also faced challenges from Talha and Zubair, two companions of the Prophet, and one of the Prophet's widows, A'isha. The first physical fighting of the ensuing civil war occurred at the Battle of the Camel in December 656, during which the popular Talha and Zubair were killed and A'isha was taken prisoner.
Many Muslims were horrified at the carnage and insisted that the Prophet would not have sanctioned such violence over the caliphate. After further fighting, Ali and Mu'awiya agreed to have the succession decided by a Qur'anic tribunal, which would use the Qur'an as a reference point in deciding which man had the stronger claim to the caliphate. Both Ali and Mu'awiya agreed to abide by the tribunal's decision. When, after several months, the tribunal ruled that both men should abandon their claims to the caliphate, Ali reneged on his promise to obey the tribunal's decision and refused to step down. The civil war thus continued, while an important development occurred within the Shi'ite movement. One group of Ali's supporters was alienated by his agreement to put his fate in the hands of a human tribunal in the first place, believing that God was the only one who could decide such a matter as the succession. This group, known as the Kharijites, was the first to formally secede from orthodox Islam. They appointed one of their own members to a separate caliphate, and refused to recognise the authority of either Ali or Mu'awiya. The Shi'ites and the Kharijites fought a major battle in 658 at Nahrawan that severely decimated the Kharijite forces, but not their spirit. Three years later they would take their final revenge on Ali's supporters.
Meanwhile, in July 660, Mu'awiya took steps to push Ali from the leadership by proclaiming himself caliph in Jerusalem, one of Islam's holy cities. He had gained the support of the governor of Egypt, as well as the Syrian forces, who raided Ali's base in Iraq in Mu'awiya's name. In early 661, Mu'awiya received some unexpected assistance in his quest for power from the Kharijites, who had turned to violence in the wake of their defeat at Nahrawan three years earlier. The Kharijites had actually intended to kill both Ali and Mu'awiya, in order to establish the supremacy of their own candidate for the caliphate. They were only successful, however, in killing Ali. With Ali's claim to the caliphate permanently erased, Mu'awiya was able to consolidate his power over the Islamic empire. The civil war ended, and within a few months Mu'awiya established the first Islamic dynasty in the name of his family, the Umayyads.