Mu’awiya’s Tricky Triumph, 659

Posted on August 20, 2021 by Ruth

Back at the negotiating table, Mu’awiya sent Amr, the conqueror of Egypt, to represent him. Ali could have sent an equally astute general, his cousin al-Ashtar, but the fighting men insisted on Abu Musa, who had been Ali’s appointed governor to Kufa. Abu Musa had been a Companion of Muhammad, too, so he knew the Quran well. The problem with him was that he was a good man who told the truth and expected others to do the same.

They met halfway between the cities. The talks went on for two weeks, as such things did, and the whole process may have taken up to a year. But the outcome was pre-determined.

Abu Musa, as the older man, was honored by announcing the result first. In retrospect, he seems a Neville Chamberlain saying “Peace in our time!” He said that they had achieved a peaceful compromise based on the Quran. There would be a conclave, as there was after Umar’s death. This group of elders would choose a Caliph, between candidates Ali and Mu’awiya.

General Amr stood up next. “Yes, we have a peaceful agreement!” he said. “As Abu Musa just said, consider Ali deposed. I now confirm Mu’awiya as the true Caliph, the avenger of Uthman’s murder.” Mu’awiya’s supporters cheered.

The power structure in Damascus quickly swore allegiance to Mu’awiya as Caliph. Amr started for Egypt. Mu’awiya had promised him that if he played his part, “Caliph Mu’awiya” would appoint him governor of the territory he had conquered—and had twice been removed from. Amr wanted that more than anything, so he played his part. He had kept everything dark from Abu Musa until the right moment.

Ali sent his cousin al-Ashtar to govern Egypt, taking over for young Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr, who was too inexperienced to deal with the new state of things. Al-Ashtar took a ship from Jeddah to Egypt. But Mu’awiya and Amr had done their work well. At the port where he landed, he was welcomed and offered a cool, sweet drink. He didn’t taste the poison until it was too late.

Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr was quickly finished off. In an early battle against Amr, he lost badly and his men deserted. After all, Amr had been their popular general. Young Muhammad hid in a ruin, was starved and dehydrated to weaken him, and then arrested. He was killed and his corpse sewn into a donkey’s skin, then burned by some accounts. His half-sister A’isha grieved his death bitterly and adopted his children.

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The First Terrorists at Nahrawand

Posted on August 20, 2021 by Ruth

In a culture where it takes days to get anywhere and weeks to exchange messages, nothing happens fast unless it’s done with a knife. So once the battle had been set aside, with an agreement to find a negotiated path, the action was over. In my mind, they’d do it right there—but no. Ali’s army was to return to Iraq, and the summit between two Quranic judges would happen in another place chosen for being halfway between the cities.

As Ali’s army made the long march home, they began to rethink their choices. Right here, on the march, in their grumbling, we see the first rise of ISIS—or Al Qaeda. In spirit, it began here.

The Qurra, those privileged reciters who knew the entire Quran, were legalists to the core. Ali was not, probably because he had been there as the doctrine developed and saw the human choices that were being made by his stepfather. The Qurra probably included some men of the new generation, born in the territories. They had a healthy self-respect and had never met Muhammad, so they didn’t have any deep feeling toward Ali as the oldest men had.

As they walked back, they grumbled that it had all turned out wrong. They weren’t to blame for laying down arms and insisting on taking Mu’awiya’s deal, Ali was to blame for letting them. Mu’awiya was also to blame for being a corrupt pig. The more they thought about it, the more it seemed that nobody in power deserved respect. Only Allah could judge at all! “Judgment belongs to Allah alone” was their slogan. Any believer could make an assessment of Allah’s judgment that was more valid than a Caliph or someone in the Ahl al-Bayt (Muhammad’s small group of descendants). In fact, they themselves could make the best determination.

Oddly, the leader was named Abdullah ibn Wahb. That’s odd because in the 18th century, the Wahhabi sect arose following another man, Abd al-Wahhab. It’s not the same name but if you know the later name, the early one gives you a double-take. The one back then was nicknamed The Scarred One; it could have been from battle scars, but it also could have been from that now-famous bruise on the forehead from so much prostration. I feel like we know him already.

At the mosque, ibn Wahb heckled Ali. He accused him of being just as corrupt as Mu’awiya, since he made an agreement with Mu’awiya. When Ali reminded them that they had pushed for it, ibn Wahb had a ready answer: Yes, that had happened, and they had sinned in doing so, but now they had repented. Was Ali going to repent by breaking his deal with Mu’awiya? If he didn’t, they would declare him a traitor to Islam.

Ali had to be staggered by this turn of events. All his life, he had kept his word. Having been forced to give his word now, he felt bound by it. Why couldn’t they see that Muhammad would have considered it worse to break an oath than to deal with the unrighteous? The Prophet had made an agreement with the idolaters of Medina as well as with the believers. How could these men have twisted things so badly, when they knew the Quran so well?

Abdullah ibn Wahb declared that Kufa was in a state of ignorance, just like Mecca before Islam. Jahaliyah! Ignoring again that Muhammad had lived alongside the Meccans until they tried to kill him, ibn Wahb announced that all who followed him would now leave Kufa to set up a more righteous Islamic state. Three thousand (?) men followed him out of Kufa and northward to nearby the site of present-day Baghdad. They declared a new Islamic State in Iraq.

The name of this group in English is the Kharijites, after Arabic khawarij “those who go forth” to do Allah’s will, from a verse in the Quran chapter called “Repentance.” Having repented their sin, they went out to create a perfect ideological state where all sin would be instantly corrected or deemed apostasy worthy of death. Lesley Hazelton suggests in After the Prophet that we translate it as “Rejectionists,” and I like this idea.

One of their main points was Quranic fundamentalism, which makes sense since so many of them had been Qurra. The hadiths had not yet been written of course; but the stories were already circulating simply as memories of people like Ali. Those who knew Muhammad knew what he had said that was not part of the Quranic revelation, so they believed this could guide them as to priorities and interpretation. The Rejectionists didn’t see how anyone could know better than they did. They had the literal words of the Quran.

The Rejectionists also pioneered takfir, the idea that any Muslim who sinned and did not repent was placed outside the community as a complete unbeliever. This had not been one of Muhammad’s ideas, although we now widely identify it as a core Muslim belief. It is only a principle for those in the tradition of the Rejectionists, like the Wahhabis. This includes Al Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban. Once a Muslim has been declared an unbeliever, he may have the death penalty imposed. The Rejectionists began this practice, too.

There is a documented incident that must have been replicated many times without documentation. The son of one of Muhammad’s Companions had come to Iraq as a colonist. He was farming in their northern area, having married (a local?), and was expecting a first child. Some of the Rejectionists decided to pick on him. His father had been among those who warned Ali against civil war, so they posed a question.

I don’t really understand the implications of the question. As Hazelton gives it, “Didn’t your father say the Prophet told him, ‘There will be a fitna in which the heart of a man will die as does his body, and if you are alive then, be not the slayer but the slain’?” I suppose the point was that he should deny it, since it seemed to condemn the Rejectionists. (And it wasn’t a literal Quran quotation, it was just a memory.) He told them that yes, his father had said this. Then he added, “Ali knows more of Allah than you do.”

The really interesting thing is not that they killed him and his wife, because of course they did. It’s that as they were setting up to execute them, they had two small mishaps. One of them accidentally killed a cow by recklessly swinging his sword, and another ate a date in the market. The Rejectionists’ reaction was to stop everything until these two sins had been rectified. The village was turned out to locate the owners of these commodities, and they were duly paid. No thieves here! Then they disemboweled the woman, stabbed the fetus, and beheaded the man. A righteous day’s work.

They are so recognizable as today’s Salafi terrorists. The term “Salafi” to include Taliban, Boko Haram, ISIS, Al Qaeda and anyone else refers to their insistence on living without adaptation to the modern world. They follow only the ancestors—salaf—by which they mean the first three generations of Islam. It seems pretty obvious that they really only mean the Rejectionists of Iraq.

Ali heard of the killing. He sent word demanding that the murderers be turned over to him for justice. Ibn Wahb coolly replied that they were all responsible, and they all considered him, too, to be “halal” (legally available) for the killing. It was a declaration of war.

And so, the Battle of Nahrawand was Ali’s third challenge. He couldn’t hesitate this time, he had to put down the rebellion. Even so, Shi’ite history remembers that he spoke to the Rejectionists first, trying to sway some to cross back to his side. When battle came, his forces wiped out the Rejectionists, reducing them to a handful of about 300 survivors. The Rejectionists are said to have been fanatical to the end, crying out “Prepare for Paradise!” as they died. But their movement didn’t end there; the survivors kept it alive, though no longer a military threat. Some Rejectionists continued to live in that area for many generations.

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The Battle of Siffin, 657

Posted on June 5, 2021 by Ruth

At last, after refusing to resign and circulating insulting satire against Caliph/Imam Ali, Mu’awiya made a formal allegation that Ali had engineered the death of Caliph Uthman. Further, he challenged Ali’s position as Caliph at all. In his allegation, he said that if Ali handed over the murderers to authorities in Damascus, they would hold a shura, a council or conclave, to elect the next Caliph. This was the same process that Meccans had used after the deaths of both Muhammad and Umar to give power to one of their own. Mu’awiya was openly setting Ali aside as Caliph, and since he demanded that Damascus should handle punishing the murderers, he was all but declaring himself Caliph.

Ali couldn’t go on ignoring Mu’awiya’s rebellion. The de facto capital of the Muslim state had moved from Medina to Kufa simply because the northward point was better for staging this enforcement of his command. During the whole period when A’isha had led her rebellion, the question of Mu’awiya was in abeyance. Going home would have been a mistake, and in fact Ali never went home to Medina. Now Ali set out from Kufa with a large army drawn from Kufa and Basra.

As you know from other battle stories, a battle happened when both armies, voting with their feet, agreed on a place. The place where they met was near Raqqa, the Syrian city that was the capital of ISIS from 2014-7. This modern period of occupation saw the destruction of Shi’ite tombs, perhaps some dating from this time. To reach Raqqa, Ali’s army traveled 500 miles west along the upper Euphrates River. They probably stopped when they felt they had found a broad plain suitable for the battle.

Mu’awiya had been planning for this, so he easily raised his army and came to the Plain of Siffin. Neither side moved toward battle. Ali probably should have done so, since he was officially the Caliph and had a right to put down the rebellion. But as a person, he was very reluctant to force a battle if there was any chance for a negotiated peace. He didn’t want it said that he had used his Caliphate to attack others. Mu’awiya was even more motivated to be the victim, not the aggressor. His posture was that he was making a reasonable and just request, not a rebellion. And so for three or four months, the armies stared each other down.

But Mu’awiya far outstripped Ali in cunning. He was one of those rare individuals in each century who stands out for outsmarting everyone at every game. He began by suggesting to Ali that they divide the empire roughly along the lines of the old Roman and Persian empires. Ali refused and challenged him to a duel—in public, loudly, where the Syrian army could hear him. Mu’awiya was no fighter and Ali was one of the best, so of course Mu’awiya refused. The danger was that the Arabs would call him a chicken, so now the battle must happen.

Shi’ites recall an additional incident: that Mu’awiya sent Amr to be his champion, but at a moment of defeat, Amr embarrassed Ali by taking his pants off. Ali was too polite to kill a naked man. (Abbas, 148)

The Battle of Siffin lasted three days and killed many. Ali had four sons fighting with him; his stepson Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr was in Egypt, but he had Fatima’s sons Hassan and Hussein and two more sons from later wives. All of them survived the battle. A number of Companions of Muhammad fought with Ali, including veterans of Badr and the Oath of the Tree. He had a corps of Qurras, the Quran reciters. His top general, apart from self and sons, was a cousin named Malik al-Ashtar, whose nickname “Ashtar” labeled him as one of those who had survived the Battle of Yarmouk while losing an eye to Roman archers. (He’s worth remembering for later, when Mu’awiya goes full-bore villain.)

Mu’awiya’s officers were mostly Umayyads (his conspirator Marwan was there) and Syrians from his governing structure, with a few interesting exceptions. With Mu’awiya fought Ubaydallah son of Umar, who had a long history of enmity with Ali. He also had the famous general Khalid’s son, and one of the tribal leaders who had followed A’isha in the Battle of the Camel. He probably had more men on his side, 120,000 to Ali’s 80,000. But he was definitely lacking in virtuous old heroes.

One of the men who died at Siffin was about Muhammad’s age, by now in his mid-eighties. Ammar ibn Yasir had been the son of slaves who accepted Islam very early. His mother had been tortured to death by Abu Sufyan, precipitating the Muslim exodus to Abyssinia. Ammar himself was tortured until he cursed Muhammad, but it was only from the torture. The verse in Quran 6:106 is believed to be about Ammar; it suggests that it apostasy doesn’t count if Allah sees a true-believing heart. Years later, Ammar had backed Ali after Umar died, putting him on bad terms with the Umayyads—who had, after all, killed his mother. Now his story came to an end fighting the Umayyads, avenging his mother while defending the Prophet’s family. He apparently fulfilled a prophecy Muhammad had made, too: that Ammar would die fighting rebels against Allah.

At the end of three days, Ali’s forces were close to finishing off Mu’awiya’s Syrians. And this is where Mu’awiya’s cunning stepped in. He had no intention of losing this battle. He sent his remaining cavalry out with single parchment pages of the Quran on their spearpoints. Of course Ali’s men stepped back. And the Syrian cavalry leader cried out, “Let the Book of God judge between us!” Mu’awiya’s other officers took up the cry.

Many of Ali’s men fell for the ruse, especially those who were Qurra, official Quran reciters. Ali and his inner circle saw exactly how Mu’awiya was wriggling out of defeat, but his men laid down their weapons. “He is tricking you! You have been cheated of a certain victory!” shouted Ali, but they didn’t listen, and above all the pious Qurra did not listen.

Then Mu’awiya’s herald came with a proposal: each side should send a champion who is versed in the Quran. These two men will settle the dispute according to the Quran or some Islamic precedent. Let the Quran decide! The battle-weary men didn’t ask why Mu’awiya suggested this plan. They just welcomed it. It sounded very pious, and if Ali stood for piety, then they felt Ali had to accept it. He told his army that it was a terrible idea, shaming them as cowards. As their Imam, he forbade them to go down this route. But as the human being standing there with half his army refusing to fight, he had to accept it.

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The Umayyad Challenge to Ali

Posted on June 4, 2021 by Ruth

After the Battle of the Camel, Ali settled matters in Basra, paying those who had fought for him out of the official treasury. With Basra secured, he rode north to Kufa and stayed there. To some extent, the future of these cities as strongholds for the Shi’a, the Party of Ali, was laid now. He had been a revered Companion in Medina, but now they knew him. Instead of viewing Basra and Kufa as full of riffraff, he lived with them, and not in the luxurious walled-off house Uthman’s governor had built. He lived in a simple house by the mosque, as Muhammad had done. His sons Hassan and Hussein, as well as younger sons by other wives, lived with him and helped to rule, so they too formed many ties of personal loyalty in Iraq.

But in all of the garrison cities, a new faction was coming to prominence. The Quran had to be memorized and recited, but not every convert or fighter had the ability to learn the whole thing. The mosques recruited a corps of semi-professional Quran reciters who could always be called on to teach the recitation or simply recite for a group. They were called the Qurra. In the garrison cities, the Qurra were socially and politically powerful. The new generation who had grown up in Islam in the territories looked to them for leadership. They were the strictest of traditionalists who found fault with many things. They had criticized Uthman’s luxury, but they also criticized Ali’s becoming Caliph by acclamation of the crowd. The Qurra were to have an outsized influence on the second challenge to Ali. Worse, some of them would form the core of the third opposition—and become the first historical example of a militant faction like today’s ISIS.

Ali had fired and replaced Uthman’s governors. The second formal challenge to his authority was that Mu’awiya, Governor of Syria, refused to be fired and replaced. Mu’awiya had all of the political craft that Ali lacked, so while Ali was fighting the Battle of the Camel, Mu’awiya was setting things in place for himself. He made a separate peace with the Roman army (even paying tribute), so that he could forget about that border. He sent the tribes most likely to be loyal to Ali to guard frontier posts. He arrested any of Ali’s messengers to and from Egypt, and he sent his own messages to Amr, whom he knew well.

It’s possible that Amr was Mu’awiya’s half-brother, though legally he was not. (Insert complicated tale about Amr’s mother.) Amr had twice conquered Egypt and twice been fired as governor, each time replaced by Uthman’s half-brother. Now, with the Umayyad governor fired, Amr wasn’t the new choice. He was to be replaced again by the very young Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr, who had led the assassination of Uthman. Mu’awiya suggested that if Amr helped him stay in power, he would help Amr become Governor of Egypt. But their pact was kept strictly secret so that Amr could act independently on the surface.

I think Ali had a blind spot: his foster son, Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr. Caliph Umar (had he been alive) would have executed the young man and his friends for killing Uthman. But Ali didn’t. Shi’ites point out that Ali was supposed to succeed Muhammad from the start, and he had tolerated three Caliphs who moved increasingly away from the Prophet’s ways. Uthman wasn’t a legitimate ruler, they argue, so killing him was merely an act of war, not regicide. Additionally, Ali held A’isha, Talhah, and Zubayr equally responsible since they had incited revolt against Uthman.

But by appointing young Muhammad Governor of Egypt instead of punishing him, Ali was leaving open a big vulnerability. And by not appointing Amr, he was making a powerful enemy.

Mu’awiya’s rebellion was framed this way: he said that Ali could not dismiss him until Syria had been pacified by seeing Uthman’s killers punished. Uthman’s bloody shirt was circulating among Syrian mosques, and so were the cut-off fingers of his Syrian wife. Mu’awiya had spent months securing the loyalty of every Arab tribal chief in Syria and telling preachers to talk up how pious and holy Uthman had been. He had even brought out the old conflict between the Roman Arabs of Syria and the Persian Arabs of Iraq. His local converts had always viewed it as their duty to fight the Arabs of Iraq, even if that was supposed to be defunct now that they were all Muslims. So Mu’awiya could count on all of Syria to back him as he demanded justice.

The only way to defuse this crisis was for Ali to confirm to Mu’awiya that he could continue being governor and then make some sort of gesture about the murder. But Ali had no inclination to do this. To be fair, Umar would not have done it either. Umar’s policy had been not to let some governor build up independent power, which is why he had fired Amr in Egypt. But Uthman had wanted power built up in Syria, and now Ali faced the outcome. He could take actions like Umar, firing the arrogant governor, but the only way to enforce it was to confront him in battle. He was as reluctant as ever to force a battle with fellow Muslims, but some of his men were calling for an end to Mu’awiya’s corruption. Ali could count on Iraq to back him, even if he didn’t want it to come to that.

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The Battle of the Camel, 656

Posted on May 30, 2021 by Ruth

Ali’s army from Medina, joined by several thousand men from Kufa, camped on a wide plain outside Basra in Iraq. Facing them on the plain was an equally large army from Mecca, joined by several thousand men from Basra. But everyone was reluctant to begin a battle. Ali rode out to meet Talhah and Zubayr, both of them men who had been close to him all his life. They set up a tent in the no man’s land and began a conference. A’isha doesn’t seem to have been invited, but she received updates. Ali criticized the other two men for bringing along a woman, the Prophet’s wife, while leaving their wives safely at home.

Three days passed, and the others in the army crossed over to visit friends on the other side. Nobody had a heart for creating this battle. I imagine that both armies could see the others praying at the same time, with the same motions. It didn’t make sense. The leaders finally emerged to announce a sort of truce. They didn’t agree about the killers of Uthman or who should be the Caliph, but all of them promised that they would not begin an attack. With the heavy weight of future blood removed, the Muslims of both armies were deeply relieved. A night passed.

Someone began an attack in the pre-dawn hours. Nobody knows whose idea this was. Had Marwan recovered from his wounds in the revolt and joined A’isha’s army? He was underhanded enough to do this. What about secret agents from Mu’awiya? Or had some angry young men from Mecca listened to A’isha’s grievances and lost their heads? Were those who started the attack afraid that they would be held to account for rebelling? Later, some men in Iraq rebelled against Ali; were they the same ones who started the fighting now?

When men are awakened by the sound of screams and metal, they don’t stop to think, they run out of their tents and begin to defend themselves. Fighting spread very fast, like fire. Both armies were fully engaged, and by noon, Talhah and Zubayr were both dead. Some say that Marwan shot Talhah; Zubayr may have left the battle heading for home and been killed along the way.

A’isha joined the battle by riding her camel into the middle of things. She was in a howdah draped with chain mail, and then red silk over the mail. Inside, she watched through the chain mail and sent messengers with battle commands. When the two men were dead, she was the only general left. She also cried out as Arabian women had always done, only they were always at the back of the battle screaming at their men not to give up. She was in the middle. When the battle was winding down otherwise, a knot of men around A’isha would not stop fighting. Someone was always holding the camel’s lead rope and A’isha’s banner; they say seventy men died in this role.

The battle ended when Ali sent someone, perhaps his son Hassan, to cut at the camel’s legs. The camel screamed and fell down, and A’isha was at their mercy. Ali sent Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr to open the howdah, since he was A’isha’s blood relative. One arrow had gotten into the howdah and was stuck in her arm. But Ali treated her gently. When she had recovered, he sent her half-brother to accompany her home to Medina.

There’s one last story about A’isha. Maybe a year later, she rode a donkey through Medina when she found some men quarreling. She rode up to the quarrel to try to intervene. Someone drew her aside and said, “Mother of the Believers, we have had a Battle of the Camel. Do we need a Battle of the Donkey?” She retired to her quieter role, telling stories of the Prophet to students in the nascent Islamic school of Medina.

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A’isha in Opposition, 656

Posted on May 30, 2021 by Ruth

The first challenge to Ali as Caliph or Imam came quickly. A’isha had gone to Mecca during the revolt against Uthman, and she was returning to Medina when she heard that Ali had been acclaimed as the next Caliph. A’isha did not go home. Instead, she turned her caravan around and went back to Mecca. Her kinsmen and brothers-in-law, Talhah and Zubayr, soon followed her. In Mecca, they conferred.

A’isha was livid at the idea that Ali was now the Caliph. They were roughly the same age and had known each other well since childhood. Ali had spoken against A’isha when she was accused of adultery, and neither she nor her father ever forgave him. Whereas A’isha had been speaking out against Uthman, shaking the old sandal at him, calling him corrupt, now she set all that aside. In Mecca, in the mosque, she made another impassioned speech in which she said Uthman had been a pious man who was murdered. She called for revenge against his killers; did she know, did the listeners know, that the main killer was A’isha’s half-brother, Abu Bakr’s son?

Talhah and Zubayr joined A’isha in a plan to dislodge Ali quickly. Raising as many men from Mecca as possible, they would move north into Iraq. The city of Basra, in southern Iraq, may not have been as heavily represented in the revolt against Uthman as Kufa and Fustat had been. Talhah and Zubayr had a strong network in Basra, and they may both have owned estates on land purchased during Uthman’s Caliphate. If they went to Basra quickly, they could force its army to join them. They could move to Kufa, presenting a united front and sweeping the Kufan garrison into their cause. Mu’awiya, the governor in Damascus, would lead his army to join them. By the time they faced Ali, he would be numerically overwhelmed.

At an overnight stop, wild dogs howled in the night, and A’isha asked where they were. Muhammad had once said, sadly, to his wives, “One day, the dogs of Hawab will howl at one of you, and that one will know she is in error. ” Yes, they were at Hawab. A’isha realized she was fulfilling the prophecy, so she was in error. No good could come of this trip. But they still went. Did they talk her out of her fear, or did she later play up the fear, once she had the bad outcome confirmed?

At Basra, they met Ali’s newly appointed governor. They said they had only come seeking support for revenge on Uthman’s killers, but the Basran governor (no stranger to Mecca vs. Medina politics) was cautious. The Meccans were to wait for Ali to arrive. But during one night, the Meccans moved to seize Basra. Arresting the governor, they whipped him and pulled out his hair.

One detail portrays how the garrison cities were at this time. The treasury was guarded by recent converts from Pakistan, the farthest reaches of their conquest of Persia. When soldiers cannot understand each other, they are less likely to cooperate, so these non-Arabic guards could not be won over. In an assault at night, the Meccans killed them and seized the city center’s complex: treasury, mosque, guardhouse, offices. And this was a new low in the Muslim community: a deliberate, unprovoked attack on fellow Muslims. Sympathizers in Basra were shocked and many deserted the Meccans’ cause—though their support was why A’isha had come to Basra in the first place.

Ali had heard of these things and was riding from Medina with as many men as he could raise. He sent his son Hassan to ride faster to Kufa and persuade some fighters to join them. Their forces joined at a camp halfway between Basra and Kufa. In Basra, the army had made its loyalty choices based on tribes, with at least one large tribe walking away from Basra rather than be embroiled in fighting against members of the Prophet’s family.

By late in 656, Ali’s forces moved to Basra, camping across a plain from A’isha’s army.

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Ali: Caliph or Imam? 656

Posted on May 28, 2021 by Ruth

For some period of time, probably two days but perhaps more, the people of Medina processed what had just occurred. The rebels, and some of the citizens, went to Ali to insist that he should become Caliph next. The six-man commission that had elected Uthman in 644 was now down to just three still alive: Ali, Talhah, and Zubayr. There was no process for handing on power; it had been done differently each time, and Uthman had expired before he could appoint a new process.

Ali recalled later that he had been physically mobbed by those begging him; they pushed and shoved and tried to grab his hand so they could swear allegiance. He says he drew back, trying to get away. Although Ali had seen himself as the successor to Muhammad all his life, the situation here in Medina was obviously radioactive. The next Caliph would have to sort out the murder of Uthman, the controversial appointments, and many possible reforms that would be very unpopular with the new aristocracy. Umar and Uthman had both been appointed or elected in an orderly way, and Ali would have accepted that. But this process had begun with murder.

In the end, Ali had to accept what was at hand. The mob was too insistent, and someone had to take charge or their beloved Muslim community might fracture. Perhaps the turning point was when Talhah and Zubayr showed up to swear allegiance, which was as close to a regular procedure as they were going to get. Umar’s oldest son refused to swear allegiance until he saw how many others—-maybe he had in mind the Umayyad nobles—-swore allegiance. Ali waved this off, perhaps recalling the scene of misery when Abu Bakr and Umar tried to force him to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr.

The original men of Medina, the Ansar (Helpers), were in favor of Ali. Recall that after the Prophet died, they had met privately to select leadership from Medina but had been stopped by the Meccans’ power play. They considered Ali a Medinan since his great-grandmother was from Medina. The men of Medina, too, had been left out of the wealth and power that Umar and Uthman handed out. They started to see the Meccans elevated over them even as Muhammad was accepting the Meccans’ surrender. Now they were living the austere, simple life that Muhammad had told them to embrace, while the Umayyads rose in power. They looked forward to the elevation of a simple Medinan to bring the community back to the ideals and standards of Muhammad. This may be part of why, as Ali recalled, people poured out of their houses to cheer him, stretching their hands out to him.

Indeed, one of Ali’s first actions was to open Uthman’s treasury and empty it in alms. He also undid some of the Umayyad promotions of Uthman, promoting Medinans at last. This was against pragmatic advice from the old guard: don’t fire the Umayyads, win them over by confirming them and promising rewards. Ask them to quickly administer a loyalty oath to the troops. Do what you want later. That’s how to be a Caliph.

But Ali announced that he did not want to be named the Successor, or Caliph. In his first sermon, he praised Abu Bakr and Umar, but he said that the title “Caliph” had been tainted by corruption. Therefore, he said, he would simply be the one who stands in front as he was doing then, when he preached and led prayers. So he would be the Imam, not the Caliph. In pragmatic usage, I’m sure everyone referred to him as the Caliph, and in Sunni history, he is considered the fourth Caliph. But the Shi’a took this seriously and they do not recognize the Caliphs at all, only this Imam. For now, Imam was a very real-world title, but eventually when the Sunni-Shi’ite split was complete, Imam became the spiritual title of the heirs of Muhammad through Fatima and Ali.

Ali was right to see this post, at this time, as radioactive. He would face three major challenges in quick succession, all of them representing different stages of Islam’s development. It might have forestalled the challenges if he had followed pragmatic advice, but Ali was idealistic. He is a tragic figure in history: so well suited to succeed his father-in-law, but by the time he actually did, other forces were overpowering the old ideals.

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Revolt And Death of Uthman, 655-6

Posted on May 27, 2021 by Ruth

Another Umayyad cousin named Marwan was Uthman’s chief secretary, or probably Chief of Staff. As in the White House, access to the ruler goes through the Chief of Staff. Marwan could determine who got to talk to Uthman, and he may have acted in the Caliph’s name sometimes. Marwan was entirely in favor of the new Umayyad aristocracy and entirely against the provincial complainants. If the young half-Arabs felt like second-class citizens, it was entitled Umayyads like Marwan who really hammered home that lesson.

Marwan had been against recalling Walid from Kufa. He wanted Uthman to man up and refuse all concessions. It’s hard to know how much influence Marwan had in the events that unfolded, but it’s possible he was the author of, in particular, a famous letter signed with Uthman’s seal.

Hard on the heels of Kufans came a delegation from Fustat to complain about their governor, Abdullah. (Recall this was the Abdullah who was so crooked that even the Prophet didn’t want to pardon him.) Abdullah and Marwan had gone shares in embezzling tax money from Egypt. But Marwan was an insider, while Abdullah was out there visible in the province as the money made its way into his bank.

One of the interesting details of the series of protests and revolts is the role the Hajj played. Just as the Meccan Hajj had brought men from Medina to where they could meet secretly with Muhammad, now the Muslim Hajj mixed together men from all over Arabia and the territories. Uthman led the Hajj in 655, and he made a point of meeting with top generals who had also come to Mecca. He asked their counsel about the unrest, and Amr told him bluntly to demote his Umayyad clan or resign as Caliph. Mu’awiya may have saved his advice for a private meeting: he told Uthman to move to Damascus or set up a proper bodyguard.

But officers from Fustat, Kufa and Basra also met privately. They would have little communication until the following Hajj, so they made a plan to leave early and bring armed men. They would meet at Medina three months before the next Hajj. They would demand meaningful reform. They would draw in power players like A’isha and Ali again. In fact, one of the leaders was Muhammad, A’isha’s brother and Ali’s stepson.

When the time came in 655, the young officers “left early” from their garrison cities “to go to Mecca.” Governor Abdullah knew what was happening; he slipped out of Egypt and took refuge with his cousin Mu’awiya. Arriving at Medina, the rebels set up an army camp around the city instead of staying with their relatives. They sent messages to A’isha, Ali, and Talhah and Zubayr, two men of Ali’s generation who had been close to Muhammad. The older men told the young rebels they were wrong to bring weapons on Hajj. But the stand-off continued, so gradually they all fell into diplomacy between the rebels and the Caliph. Weeks, perhaps months, passed.

A’isha argued to Uthman that it was time to reinstate Amr, the popular general, who had proven himself worthy of trust after all. The rebels argued that the new governor of Egypt should be Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr, their age-mate and friend. Marwan argued that it was wiser for the Caliph to persist in doing wrong and then ask mercy from Allah, than to show fear and compromise. He went to the rebel camp and loudly cursed them, leaving Ali to talk the rebels down from immediate violence. Ali came back to argue with Uthman that Marwan needed to be fired. Interestingly, in the received narrative Uthman’s favorite wife, a young woman from Syria, also put in her two cents. She voted for compromise.

When Uthman came into the mosque one Friday to lead prayers, men in the crowd jeered and cursed. They began throwing stones, and eventually one struck the old man on the head, knocking him out. But Uthman did not order his assailants to be executed. He said he would not kill fellow Muslims, but neither could he resign the office Allah had given him. Finally, Uthman offered the rebels a compromise: yes, Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr would be the new governor in Fustat. They agreed to head back to their cities. It appeared that the crisis was over.

Then came the real crisis.

The Fustat delegation rode west for three days, when a man on a horse rode up behind them and rushed past. Spurring ahead faster, some riders caught and brought him back. He was a slave of the Caliph, sent to overtake them and get to Fustat first. In his saddlebag was a letter that directed the governor to have the rebels all executed. It was presumably written by Uthman, with his seal.

They wheeled around and went back to Medina, while the armies from Kufa and Basra did the same. Now they were really angry. This order went against the first principle of Islam: not to shed the blood of fellow believers. Nobody had claimed that the rebels were apostates! And the letter showed the Caliph to be openly lying to fellow believers, too. They suspected that in his old age, Uthman had either lost his principles—-or lost control and was just someone’s puppet. The most likely someone: Marwan.

There was an even more cynical idea circulating among Uthman’s supporters in Medina: that one of the rebels had staged this “letter” stunt to create an incident. It didn’t seem likely to most that Uthman had actually written it. It’s a very familiar situation: both sides accusing each other of false flag operations and disinformation. But to the young men who had read the letter on the desert road, it was Uthman’s work, and if not him, his creature Marwan.

Now they called for Uthman’s resignation. They probably talked of making Ali Caliph in his place, but Ali would not back their violent demands. He withdrew into the mosque to pray. A’isha was torn, because it was all spinning out of control till she didn’t know who to support. She decided that she, too, would withdraw by going to Mecca. Marwan went to her privately and begged her not to leave. She had moral standing with the young rebels. When she left, it would signal that they could do what they wished. She left.

There was a stand-off at Uthman’s grand house. He and his family were besieged, with no well. (How did Uthman manage to build a grand house and not think of a well?) Now the Companions of Muhammad were in a bind. The Quran gave clear orders that they should remain neutral as long as possible, until one of the parties did something morally wrong. Uthman was not giving in, but unless you believed he really wrote that lying letter, he had not done wrong. The rebels, too, so far had not done worse than make demands (except for the rock-throwing incident, previously).

The senior statesmen on hand were Ali, Talhah and Zubayr. They tried to send water to Uthman’s house, and they sent their sons to stand guard. One of Muhammad’s widows (an Umayyad) also tried to take water into the house, but the rebels stopped her. Weeks passed.

Then the city heard that Mu’awiya was coming from Syria to put down the rebellion. It’s not clear to me if he was or wasn’t. But the rebels felt pressured to act, so they assaulted the house twice. The first time, they wounded the sons of Ali and Talhah. The second time, a larger mob rushed the house, used ladders to climb the walls, and set the house on fire. Uthman heard the commotion, but he ordered his household not to fight back or die on his account. Marwan did lead an armed defense, and he was so seriously wounded that he was left for dead and dragged away by his old nursemaid. (He’ll be back.)

Uthman sat in his bedroom with his Syrian wife Naila, reading his copy of the new Quran. When men burst in, he didn’t react. Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr grabbed him by the beard. Uthman rebuked the young man, saying his father would never have done this. But Muhammad, who didn’t remember his father, said he had stronger medicine for the Caliph’s corruption than just holding his beard, and he struck him with the sword. The other rebels joined in until Uthman died. His wife Naila lay across his body to protect him, and the young men cut off two of her fingers, still trying to stab him more. The Quran, on its low stand, was splashed with blood.

The city was in chaos for a few days. Every Umayyad who could fit into the house went to take refuge with Umm Habiba, the Umayyad widow of the Prophet. The rebels roamed the streets looking for targets, though they would not be so impious as to assault the widow’s house. The Caliph’s body was carried out for burial, but they blocked it from being buried with the other Muslims. Caliph Uthman was buried in a cemetery made by one of the old Jewish clans of Medina.

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Protests Against Uthman, 654

Posted on May 27, 2021 by Ruth

Twenty years before this time, Abu Bakr had been Caliph and the first conquests in Mesopotamia and Syria had planted the first Arab Muslim towns. Approximately sixteen years before this time, the garrison cities of Kufa, Basra and Fustat had been built, with Damascus serving as another garrison city. Thousands of men from all over Arabia had poured into the new garrison cities. Sometimes they were on active campaign in Persia or North Africa, but they established families in the garrison cities. They brought back captives, too.

Captive women who were handed over as part of a fighter’s profit share could be sold or just absorbed into their own households. Many of the Arab men kept at least one female slave to help their wives, and of course some kept more. The Quran permitted them to marry no more than four women, but it also permitted them to have a sexual relationship with a slave as long as she consented. In the post-conquest years, there was a baby boom. The oldest of this boom generation were turning twenty in 654, with a flock of younger men coming into their teens. Many of these kids were bilingual, speaking Arabic in town, but Armenian, Aramaic, Turkic, Coptic or even Berber with their mothers.

In Arabia’s past, there had been standard ways of supporting children, especially since its wealth consisted mostly of animals that could reproduce. But in the garrison cities, they did not have land or flocks. They lived on a paycheck from the government, with pay rising with experience, but especially rising with racking up more battles. When men died, their widows were enrolled for the stipend, but it was not clear what the children would inherit. If a man sired twenty children, his town house and army stipend did not go far.

There was a very large rising generation of Muslim teenagers who felt insecure about their economic futures. Islam’s philosophy was ferociously egalitarian, but the reality in the territories was unequal. Many of the young men felt that there was social discrimination against the half-Arabs, since their mothers came from the conquered people. They wanted land and animals, but during Uthman’s Caliphate, they saw land captured from the Persian nobles being given to Arab aristocrats. Uthman was doing this partly to secure land for the Islamic State near Medina, trading the Arab men land near at home for land far away. Naturally, those who owned land near to Medina and Mecca tended to be Qurayshi relatives and even Umayyads. Naturally, the land that they were handed tended to be rich alluvial soil that everyone coveted.

One of the leaders among the dissatisfied young people was Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr, the baby who had been born to Abu Bakr’s young wife while they were traveling to Mecca for Muhammad’s last Hajj. When Abu Bakr died, Ali took in the young widow and her son, which made extra sense given that she had also been married to Ali’s brother, so most of her children were already his kin. Young Muhammad grew up at the center of power in Medina, with his stepfather Ali acting as leading teacher and judge, his half-sister A’isha still deeply involved in politics, and his half-brothers and their kin in the army. He would have been raised with very strict austerity and piety, so as he became a man during Uthman’s years, criticism of the new luxury and aristocracy would come naturally.

In every garrison city, an Umayyad was the Governor. The oldest of them, Mu’awiya, had been ruling in Damascus since it was conquered. Uthman’s foster-brother Abdullah was Governor in Fustat, Egypt, having replaced the popular general Amr. The governor of Basra was another cousin, Abdallah ibn Amir. Kufa had been governed by two cousins of Uthman’s; the first was Uthman’s half-brother Walid. Walid was famously unfit for office. He was arrogant and entitled, and he drank. When he drunk-vomited in the mosque, his career should have been over.

The Kufans sent a delegation to Medina to ask for him to be sacked, but Uthman turned them away. They went to A’isha, who was no friend to Uthman. By this time, Uthman was about eighty, and A’isha said publicly that he was heading into dementia. A’isha took up the cause of getting Walid fired. She stood up in the mosque and waved a sandal above her head. She called out that it was the Prophet’s sandal and it hadn’t even fallen apart from age yet, but Muhammad’s sunna (tradition) was already forgotten. The people in the mosque took off their sandals, waving them in the air to support her. Walid was recalled, but nobody was satisfied, since Uthman was so reluctant to fire him and refused to give any other punishment.

The second and current governor in Kufa was a better choice, though another Umayyad. He was Sa’id who had been on the Quran editing committee. He was respected in every way, but he too ran into conflict with the new generation in Kufa. He was overseeing the transfer of state land to Arab aristocrats, while the dissatisfied generation petitioned for the land to be kept by the state. The man who complained loudest was severely beaten by the Kufan elite, so to pacify the city, Sa’id exiled those men. When Uthman called him to Medina to confer, the elites took over the city and would not let Sa’id back in. He retired to Medina in disgrace.

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The New Islamic Navy, 649

Posted on May 25, 2021 by Ruth

In 647, Governor Abdullah ibn Sa’ad led an army west toward Libya. In Amr’s original sweep through Egypt, he had occupied the Libyan coast, but North Africa stretched far into the west and it was still a Roman stronghold. Tunisia, with rebuilt Carthage as its capital, was fervently Christian and determined not to fall under Muslim rule. The Romans had been strengthening Tunisia by sea.

Caliph Uthman sent newly-raised units of South Arabians with directions that it was time to move west. Abdullah moved across Libya into Tunisia, but the Christian Governor led his army south to the edge of the desert, choosing to fight at Sbeitla, or Sufetula, where an old Roman temple had been turned into a fortress. There he was closer to the homeland of the Berbers, who joined him. The Governor’s daughter came to Sbeitla with him; we know this because her marital fate hung in the balance. The Governor promised her to any chief who would decapitate Abdullah; but Abdullah made the same promise to his men: the Christian Governor’s daughter to any man who would decapitate her father. In a bloody battle, the Arabs prevailed, and the daughter was indeed captured, though she may have died on the way back to Egypt.

At that time, the Muslim invasion of North Africa went no farther; Egypt was secure. But now for the second time, the Arabs in Egypt had faced an invasion army that arrived by sea and was fed by sea-borne provisions. It was clear that if the Muslims were going to keep their territories around the Mediterranean Sea, they needed a navy.

Uthman permitted a trial navy, but he had two demands. First, all participating ships and sailors would be volunteers. (I imagine some East Arabians stepped right up.) Second, if the generals and captains were so sure it was all right to be at sea, they would prove it by bringing along their wives.

Naval ships in the Mediterranean Sea had rows of oarsmen, in addition to sails. This type of ship was generally called a galley, and this particular one was a dromon. The ships were less for speeding across the sea, and more for quickly backing up or turning in a sea battle. Just having some dromons would not be enough to fight effectively. It would take time to drill teams of oarsmen to change their rowing strokes on command, so that the captain could “steer.” One shortcut to having an effective navy was to capture existing ship’s crews and take over rowers who were already trained.

The first navy was manned by Syrian and Egyptian sailors, and it made only a short journey to Cyprus. Arab fighters stood on deck; they were not part of the sailing apparatus, they were just ready to board enemy ships or disembark on land. Mu’awiya and Abdullah led the invasion together. The notable death in this invasion was one of the wives, who was famous as a Medinan lady who had known Muhammad well. She fell off her mule as they moved inland, fulfilling Muhammad’s prediction that she would die a bloodless death. Her tomb was since rebuilt as a mosque.

A few years later, the Roman/Byzantine fleet came back to Alexandria to try ousting the Muslims again. This time, the small Muslim fleet could engage it at sea. The Romans backed off and sailed to Sicily, where outraged Sicilians lynched the admiral. But Mu’awiya believed that the island of Cyprus had given some assistance to this fleet as it passed. The treaty made in 649 had certainly forbidden this assistance to Islam’s enemies.

So in 653, Mu’awiya used the fleet to attack Cyprus again. This time, the Arabs took captives to sell as slaves and set up a major military garrison. Then the Muslim fleet headed along the coast of Anatolia, the Byzantine heartland, to challenge the main Roman fleet. In 654, they fought a major battle at sea; the Roman Emperor Constans was there in person. The Muslim crews still had poor technique, but they turned the sea battle into a land battle by tying their ships together and fighting on deck, instead of ramming ships as in the old Greek strategy. It was a bloody battle, if that can be said of a blood that’s constantly washed away by sea water. Emperor Constans narrowly escaped.

The Mediterranean Sea had been a Roman lake since the defeat of Carthage in 146 BC. For the first time in 800 years, a hostile navy made parts of the coast closed to Roman ships. The Muslim navy became stronger as the years passed, until half the Mediterranean was essentially a Muslim lake.

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