Caliph Abd al-Malik and Dome of the Rock, 688-90

Posted on September 25, 2021 by Ruth

Abd al-Malik had focused his main attention on consolidating power in Syria, leaving his rival Caliph Abdallah ibn Zubayr to battle against Kharijites in Iraq and Arabia. This allowed almost a decade in which Mecca was ruled by a power hostile to the Umayyads in general and Abd al-Malik in particular. If Muslims in his territories decided to journey there for the Hajj, they were likely to hear sedition against him. They might have their loyalty shaken by going to the Prophet’s birthplace, the city built by Abraham, only to hear propaganda in favor of Ibn Zubayr or even the family of Ali.

One of his early projects for showing off his wealth was to build a new shrine in Jerusalem. A new shrine would draw Muslim pilgrims away from Mecca, and it would compete with the continuing Christian presence in Jerusalem. He chose to build over a piece of exposed bedrock that legend claimed was the site of Abraham’s near-offering of Isaac (or Ishmael, as Muslims said).

Nearby, there was a church that sheltered another rock. This was the Church of the Kathisma, that is, the Sitting-down. Legend said that Mary grew tired as she journeyed from Jerusalem (where she had been staying with Elizabeth and Zachariah) to Bethlehem. She sat on this rock. The church was not built for congregations to fill; it was small and just sheltered the exact rock, with space for pilgrims to walk around it. It was octagonal so that pilgrims could walk in the eight-sided hallway, with chapels off to the side, and doorways opening into the central area with the rock. (It has long since fallen down, but it is currently exposed as an inactive archeological site in Israel, owned by the Greek Orthodox Church.)

Circumambulating a rock? That idea came straight out of traditional Arab religion, only this time, the rocks were not standing for a deity but marking a place where something holy had happened. Abd al-Malik wanted to build something very much like the church around Mary’s rock.

Either legend had already worked a Muhammad connection into the rock that Abd al-Malik chose, or legend followed the choice. Muslim legend is that this rock, where Abraham stood, was also the rock on which Muhammad stood when he was lifted into the heavens for a tour of its levels. This event is called the Night Journey, told in Surah 17. Muhammad journeyed at night from the Sacred Masjid/Mosque, to the Farther Mosque. There, he was taken into heaven on a flying horse. In order to connect Muhammad to Jerusalem, the Farther Mosque was taken to mean this place in Jerusalem.

Muslims today assume that this is what the text means, and now there is a mosque next to the Dome of the Rock that is literally named The Farther (al-Aqsa) Mosque. It seems obvious that it must be what the text refers to, but contrarian scholars point out that actually the Quran never says “Jerusalem”. “The Farther Mosque” could have been a shrine in Arabia that Muhammad believed was also connected to Abraham. We don’t know if Muslims in 690 believed that Jerusalem was “al-Aqsa,” because there is no reference to the Night Journey in the Quranic inscriptions inside the building. Lack of reference seems to suggest that it wasn’t a prime consideration at the time. The Abrahamic connection may have been enough.

Caliph Abd al-Malik may have begun with a Byzantine church that stood on the site, or his architects may have started from scratch. The Dome of the Rock shrine was eight-sided, like the nearby church, and decorated with mosaics inside and perhaps outside. It had a walkway that encircled the rock, as in the nearby church. Above the rock, there was a dome, which was not an Arabian type of architecture. The shrine needed a dome to compete with the Christian basilicas, especially the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Some of the inscriptions inside offered a direct rebuke to Christians, reminding them that Allah had no associate and no begotten son.

The appearance of the Dome now is entirely modern; the gold facing was added in 1964. In earlier times, the wooden domed roof was covered with lead to make it weatherproof. We think that some of the current interior is original, but the building has been rebuilt many times. The current blue tile exterior was added in the 1800s.

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The Divided Caliphate and lots of rebels, 683-692

Posted on September 25, 2021 by Ruth

Before the Syrian army could push farther into rebellious Arabia, it was called back to Damascus. Yazid had suddenly died. His son was a young man who died soon after him. (Shi’ite history records that he criticized his family for persecution of the Prophet’s family—and may have been helped to an early death?) Ironically, after Mu’awiya had worked so hard to make the Caliphate into a hereditary kingdom for his family, his line had died out. The only Umayyad strong enough to take over was Marwan, Mu’awiya’s cousin. We know he had the same street smarts and had been part of Mu’awiya’s ruling structure. Just looking at administrative continuity, Marwan was a good choice.

…But the Caliph was not a king! He was supposed to be the successor to the Prophet, who could lead the faithful and preach in the mosque. Marwan wasn’t that guy. Muhammad had envisioned a sort of egalitarian regime ruled by God-fearing judges, though he had never spelled it out. His Companions knew this, and their sons, now the leaders of the rebellion, were determined not to let the Caliph become just another king handing on power to his spoiled sons.

Abdallah ibn Zubayr acted quickly. He and the Quraysh in Mecca proclaimed him to be the new Caliph ruling in the Holy City, the Prophet’s birthplace, and on the Prophet’s principles. As Umayyad power in Damascus collapsed in chaos (it took a while for Marwan to seize power), Ibn Zubayr was recognized as Caliph by governors in many provinces, including Egypt and Iraq. He appointed his brother to govern Basra.

At least for a time, Ibn Zubayr became the first and only Caliph ruling from Mecca. While he controlled Medina too, he was hostile to the Prophet’s clan. He may have sought alliance with Hassan and Husayn previously, but now as Caliph in Mecca, he declared that he had never liked any of them. The surviving son of Husayn lived in Medina and did his best to shun all rebellions and conspiracies, staying strictly apolitical and focused on scholarship.

In 684, Marwan was declared Caliph in Damascus. The armies in Syria were loyal to the Umayyads and began fighting battles against tribes who had not submitted to Marwan. By 685, Marwan had taken back control of Egypt. And then—he died. His son Abd al-Malik now inherited the Caliphate as a king, exactly as the Umayyads wanted, so the rebellion against them continued.

It’s worth noting that the oldest biographical notes about Muhammad came from a series of letters exchanged between Abd al-Malik and Ibn Zubayr’s brother Urwa, who stayed neutral. Abd al-Malik wrote letters to Urwa asking him to clarify some of the events in the Prophet’s life. Urwa lived in Medina, where he and a handful of other scholars established fiqh, the methods by which Quranic principles could be applied to legal decisions.

In Kufa, some men were filled with regret that they had not fought for Husayn at Karbala. Their conspiracy was called the Tawwabin Rebellion, and at one point it numbered as many as 4000 men. But then a competing movement began when an old man named al-Mukhtar rejected both Marwan and Ibn Zubayr, in favor of Husayn’s half-brother, Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiya. Mukhtar proclaimed him the new Caliph and Imam, adding the title “Mahdi,” and he executed men who had been involved in killing Husayn. The Kharijites (Rejectionists) who had survived in the countryside joined Mukhtar’s cause.

On the 6th anniversary of Karbala, they won a battle against Umayyad forces, killing the Umayyad governor who had kicked Husayn’s head. Shi’ite historians say that after this, the women of Husayn’s family finally stopped wearing black.

However, al-Muhktar did not live long, himself; he was defeated by Ibn Zubayr’s brother, and eventually Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiya swore allegiance to Abd al-Malik. The whole episode would just be a blip, except that the first insular sect within Islam, the Kaysanites, came from this movement. They believed that al-Hanafiya, who had been proclaimed the “Mahdi,” really was the fourth Imam after his father Ali and half-brothers Hassan and Husayn. They promoted a legend that he did not die but rather was in supernatural hiding on a mountain near Medina. He was cared for by animals and he would return someday. Their Islamic beliefs mixed in some other religious beliefs prevailing in Iraq and Iran at the time. In one form or another, they stayed on in Iran and became an important force in early Shi’a Islam.

There were still more Kharijite Rejectionists in central Arabia, and they now fought against Ibn Zubayr’s rule in Mecca. They succeeded in conquering Yemen and even occupied Ta’if, the nearest town to Mecca. Caliph Abdallah ibn Zubayr in Mecca still had control of Iraq through his brother Musab, who had defeated Mukhtar. But Iraq was unruly; one of Musab’s allies had turned into an independent warlord ruling from of all places Tikrit, later famous as Saddam’s birthplace. This warlord took more and more territory and then became loyal to the Caliph in Damascus. Now it was really down to just Caliph Abd al-Malik v. Caliph Ibn Zubayr—-Damascus v. Mecca.

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The Sack of Medina, 683

Posted on September 25, 2021 by Ruth

Don’t imagine that Medina and Mecca took the news of Husayn’s head on a lance quietly. They may have imagined that Yazid’s men would not dare to hurt the Prophet’s grandson, or they may have been prepared for news of his life lost in a battle. The actual series of events, the brutality with which his family and tents had been destroyed, shocked them to the core and ended any chances Yazid had.

In Medina, the leader of the Ansar was Abdallah ibn Hanzala, whose father had died in the Battle of Uhud just before his birth. (This will be a story with far too many Abdallahs in it; clearly it was the baby name of choice for new converts.) The original emigrants who came to Medina with Muhammad also opposed Yazid; they were not Umayyads, but they were of the Quraysh tribe with ties to Mecca. They had an additional reason to oppose the Umayyads, since recent “fiscal reforms” had threatened the loss of their pensions. The Umayyad power in Damascus had bigger fish to fry than just paying out tax money to the children of Muhammad’s companions.

Together, the Ansar and Quraysh of Medina turned against the Umayyad governing apparatus; about a thousand Umayyads fled to the large house of Marwan, just outside the city. It was probably defensible; Marwan was no fool. Marwan sent messages to Yazid asking for an army to deliver them, and Yazid did send one. It was drawn from the tribes in Syria and Palestine, led by the tribe that Yazid’s mother came from, so none of these invaders had personal memories of Medina or Mecca.

The Medinans let the Umayyads go north to Syria, on condition of taking an oath not to assist the invading army. Marwan’s son, Abd al-Malik, broke his oath to assist them with inside knowledge of the city’s defensives. (Abd al-Malik later became Caliph himself.) Father and son turned back to ride with the Syrian army to their former home. In the most ironic event of this rebellion, the Ansar and Quraysh of Medina re-dug the trench that had defended Medina from attacking Umayyads back when they were still Meccan pagans. The lines were drawn for the Battle of al-Harrah.

Muhammad’s defense of Medina in the Battle of the Trench had depended on unity among all residents, since a disloyal tribe could allow enemies to enter the oasis through their lands, elsewhere. And that’s what happened now. After three days of fighting, Marwan’s battalion entered from the back, and Medina was lost. The Quraysh leaders fled to Mecca, as once they had fled from Mecca to Medina.

Medina was probably sacked by the Syrians. I say “probably” because some historians think reports of the destruction were exaggerated, the way claims about wars often are. But it was a rich city by now, and it looked like the biggest obstacle to establishing a stable Umayyad rule in Damascus. The commanders let their men overrun the city, destroying, taking, and raping. On Yazid’s orders, Ali ibn Husayn was not harmed: they had enough trouble with martyrs already. The greatest claims are that thousands of Medinans died; the smallest claim is that there were public executions of their leaders. But “Medinat al-Nabi,” the City of the Prophet, was now reduced to a much lesser town, its riches carried away. It remained a center of Islamic scholarship where Ali ibn Husayn lived quietly.

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The Road to Karbala, 680

Posted on September 25, 2021 by Ruth

Mu’awiya had promised Ali’s son Hassan that he would set up a council to choose a ruler after his death, but he didn’t keep his word. His son Yazid, whose mother was a Syrian Arab princess, just took over in Damascus and called for loyalty oaths all around.

Some key men refused to swear loyalty to him. Abdallah ibn Zubayr was the grandson of Abu Bakr and son of a close Companion of Muhammad. He was in Medina at the time, with Abdallah ibn Umar (whose sister had been a wife of the Prophet) and Husayn, Ali’s second son. The Ansar, the early believers in Medina, were 100% against the way the Umayyads were now turning the Muslim community into a hereditary kingdom. They had been against the way the clan of Abu Sufyan flipped from enemies to rulers, suspecting that their faith was a front. Now Medina itself was ruled by a grandson of Abu Sufyan, instead of by a Medinan.

Yazid sent a command to Medina for these men to swear loyalty immediately. Abdallah ibn Zubayr went to Mecca. He and the others urged Husayn to make Mecca his base and begin an opposition movement. But Husayn’s cousin in Kufa urged him to come back to Ali’s most loyal city and begin an insurrection there. In his letters, he said he had 12,000 men who would follow them into battle.

Husayn decided to go to Kufa. The story is odd from the start, because he didn’t ride fast with only some fighting men, rather he took his entire household, women and children and babies and servants. They rode slowly north. Tribes who lived along the way came out in enthusiasm, joining ranks with the Prophet’s grandson. But as they went, they started receiving messengers telling them to turn back. Some were from his friends in Mecca, who had heard rumors that his mission would fail.

The last messenger was from Kufa, where the cousin’s last act before being executed by Yazid’s men was to send this messenger. Don’t come to Kufa! Go back to Mecca. The Arabs who had joined along the way deserted their caravan, but Husayn didn’t turn back. He said, “Man journeys in darkness to meet his destiny.”

What did this mean? Shi’ites believe that he knew he was going to die in Iraq; certainly the outcome was obvious by this point. The only reason to go forward was to make a point by dying. They also believe that more esoteric knowledge about Allah had been handed down to Ali, to his sons, and that Husayn knew more of the spiritual dimension and the future than ordinary men. He knew that the worldly takeover of Muhammad’s ideal spiritual society was so far gone that no worldly actions could stop it. So he was going to do an other-worldly action.

Husayn didn’t go right into the city of Kufa, but rather to a nearby camping site that is now the city of Karbala. His family set up their tents. It wasn’t long until Yazid’s new governor of Kufa came with a large army. By now, the family and friends camped at Karbala were down to their original number who followed Husayn from Mecca. There was no need for a large army to defeat them.

The first action of Yazid’s governor was to put guards all around the family’s tents to blockade them from going to get water from the river. Water deprivation was a tried and true method of war in Arabia. History refers to “The Battle of Karbala,” but really there was no battle. The family could be picked off one by one.

Husayn’s half-brother Abbas went bravely out at night to get water, but he was killed on the way back. One of Husayn’s nephews announced that he was going to be married that day, so he married Husayn’s daughter. His wedding gift was permission to go out alone to the surrounding army. Of course, he was cut down by arrows. Husayn’s oldest son went out to challenge the entire army to single combat, rather than die of thirst. Husayn himself carried his youngest son, a baby wailing from thirst, out to the besiegers to shame them, but someone shot an arrow into the baby.

The tenth day of Muharram, also the tenth day of the siege, was to be the last; the family prayed all night and were anointed as if already dead. Then, one by one, the men walked out to the besiegers and were shot down. Husayn was last. Enemies beheaded him and put his head on a lance. Then they found all seventy-two male corpses and beheaded them, too. They left the bodies unburied, but later the local people buried them.

One of Husayn’s younger sons survived because he was sick inside one of the tents, and his aunt, Husayn’s sister Zaynab, put her body between the swords and him. He was the only male to survive. They didn’t kill the women and girls but took them captive in chains to be displayed in Kufa and then brought to Damascus.

Husayn’s head was tossed onto the floor in the governor’s room in Kufa, and Yazid’s governor poked at the head with a stick. A very old man who had come to Kufa with the first conquerors, and who had known Muhammad, cried out in disgust and fury that he had seen the Prophet himself kiss that head. He went out to speak to the people of Kufa, saying they had chosen the degradation of killing Fatimah’s son and would now suffer.

When the party of captives reached Damascus, Yazid was shocked. Things had gone much farther than he had planned—as they so often do. He wanted a living Husayn to swear loyalty, not Husayn’s head on a lance and his women in chains. Yazid freed the survivors and the surviving son, Ali ibn Husayn, preached a sermon at the mosque. Husayn’s head received a shrine in Damascus, but there are other shrines that claim to be where his head came to rest. Shi’ites believe his family got it back and buried it at Karbala with his body.

Ali ibn Husayn became the fourth Imam. His mother was probably a Persian princess brought back after one of the major defeats of the last dynasty. Islam had no princes to marry such girls to, so they were given to sons of prominent Companions. He lived in Medina, teaching and passing on stories of his great-grandfather as the transmission of these hadiths began in earnest. He never sought political power.

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North Africa: from Libya to the Atlantic Ocean, 670-683

Posted on August 22, 2021 by Ruth

The Roman province of Africa consisted of a long, narrow strip of coastland in Libya and a much larger zone around ancient Carthage, comparable in size to Ireland or even Greece. The climate was much like Italy’s and this part of the province was comparably wealthy, much from the export of olive oil. They also made ceramic dishes known as Red Slipware.

It was also a Christian powerhouse, seat of Bishop Augustine, who wrote his memoir Confessions among other things. Augustine noted that in his lifetime, the Punic (Phoenician) language was still spoken by some rustics, while the Berber language was native inland among the nomads. The church structure did not reach much into the countryside; it was an urban, Latin institution. By contrast, Egyptian Christianity was strong in the countryside along the Nile and down into Nubia. When Muslim Arabs began ruling Egypt, there was little cultural impact on the popular Christian culture.

Roman North Africa had fallen on hard times since Rome’s glory days. The old buildings were there, but some were already ruins. A period of rule by invading Vandals had broken the old Imperial economy. Then, during Muhammad’s lifetime, Emperor Heraclius had launched his coup to become Emperor from North Africa, taking his best troops. Undefended, many settlements were abandoned. The “Roman” government made mostly perfunctory attempts to protect North Africa from Muslim invasion.

Berber tribesmen had little or no emotional connection to Rome, and it wasn’t hard for early Muslim invaders like Amr to conquer them. Amr’s treaty allowed the Berbers to sell their children into slavery to pay their tribute, but left the Berbers in charge of settling how the sum would be raised. The Roman port of Cyrene, renamed Barqa by the Arabs, was governed by Amr’s nephew Uqba ibn Nafi.

During Mu’awiya’s reign, Uqba ibn Nafi began to push for expansion in Africa. He had learned to know the Berbers, and many local Luwata Berbers had accepted Islam. There’s a dark side to his connection with the Berbers: he also sent Berber girls back to Syria as slaves. One of these girls became the mother of a future Caliph. The Berber slave trade continued for a long time.

With an army of Arabs and Berbers, he conquered many inland towns and established the misr garrison-city of Qayrawan (modern spelling Kairouan) in Tunisia. It was 30 miles inland, making it hard for the Byzantine Romans to attack. The legend is that Uqba gathered the few Arabs who had known Muhammad and commanded the lions and other wild beasts to leave the area, so that the city could be built. They claim that for 40 years, not even a scorpion was found nearby. Additionally, there is a legend that Uqba’s men found a buried golden goblet from Mecca, dug it up and found a spring, so the spring was thought to be holy like the Zamzam well in Mecca.

The next governor sent out to Africa arrested Uqba and shipped him back to Damascus. This governor’s first move was to meet with the ruler of the Berbers of Algeria, who had become nominal Christians. He explained Muhammad’s message and persuaded the Berbers to adopt Islam. The King of the Berbers even moved to Qayrawan, effectively joining the Muslim government.

When Mu’awiya died and Yazid duly took over, the new Caliph sent Uqba back to Africa. He arrested both the Muslim governor and the Berber king, put his own son in charge at Qayrawan, and set out westward. The angry Berber king repudiated his adoption of Islam, now preferring to join the Romans to drive the Muslims out.

Uqba took a lean, experienced expeditionary force and went as fast as possible on the main westward road. They skirted Carthage, staying inland, fighting Roman forces when necessary, but mostly moving fast. Uqba went all the way to Morocco, capturing Tangier and a Berber/Roman city called Walila (Volubilis). Instead of crossing the Gibraltar Strait, he continued into Morocco as far south as modern Marrakesh, and into the Atlas Mountains. By legend, when he came to the Atlantic Ocean, he rode into the waves and called out to God that if the ocean didn’t stop him, he would keep going to spread and defend the faith.

Uqba let his guard down on the way back. He allowed some of the men to return home, keeping only a small guard. This was a big mistake, as the escaped Berber King joined a Byzantine army to hunt him down. Uqba was killed in the battle. He had forced his rival governor to come along, so they both died, with the 300 men of his guard. Their burial place in Algerian later became a mosque named Sidi Okba, the grave of Uqba.

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Caliph Mu’awiya, 660-680

Posted on August 21, 2021 by Ruth

Let’s remember that Mu’awiya was raised in Mecca by clan chief Abu Sufyan and his wife, Hind. Hind is the woman who paid a slave to kill Muhammad’s kinsman at Uhud, and then cut a piece from his liver and ate it. After the fall of Mecca, the family begged mercy from Muhammad, and Mu’awiya not only professed Islam but became a scribe for Muhammad. Within a short time, he followed his older brother to the war in Syria, but he never went home. Apart from two years as Muhammad’s scribe, he spent his life in the home of a pagan chief, then at war, then as a powerful regional ruler. He knew enough about Islam to use the right words, but nobody considered him pious.

When people are unjust to someone, they often justify it to themselves by become even more unjust. Mu’awiya began publicly cursing Ali and his memory in the mosque, where as Caliph he was expected to lead prayers.

The other side of the story is that Mu’awiya had a genius for administration. He knew how to use power. In Damascus, he hired Christians, allowed the churches much freedom, and repaired Roman baths. His regime was viewed as at least as good as the previous Roman one, so the Christian majority was not tempted to cause any trouble. He made friends and alliances with existing rulers, using money freely as needed. He appointed governors who were worldly enough, like himself, but had clan ties that kept them loyal. For example, he sent an old Meccan to Kufa, but this man was not one of his relatives, he was from a wealthy tribe in the Meccan area. He didn’t choose as Uthman had, just among his family.

He dealt creatively with one Ali-backing rebel, Ziyad, who holed up in an old Persian fortress. It’s classic Mu’awiya: first he threatened to kill Ziyad’s three young sons; then, after a reluctant submission, he rewarded him by legitimizing Ziyad as his brother (the mother had been a prostitute, so that was up for grabs). Mu’awiya had chosen his favorite well: Ziyad governed Basra and eastern provinces with intelligence and loyalty. He also cruelly suppressed pro-Ali movements, although he himself had first backed Ali. I guess there’s no hater like a convert who used to be part of the target.

What we see is the (I think inevitable) crack-up of Muhammad’s ideal of a ruler in both secular affairs and faith. Had Ali been the first Caliph, the empire probably would not have happened. He would have focused on turning a united Arabia into an ideal faith-based society, and I don’t think that would look like Wahhabi Saudi Arabia. But with the rapid expansion under the actual first three Caliphs, the empire had grown such that pure faith was not enough as a job skill. Mu’awiya was in some respects a better secular ruler than Ali could have been, while Ali was a vastly better faith leader. To our modern minds, it seems simple: just divide the roles. But they weren’t there yet.

In 662, Armenia became a tribute-paying vassal of Mu’awiya, so that Armenian troops began fighting alongside Arabs, where previously they had been the backbone of regional Roman power. Muslim and Christian Armenian troops began raiding farther and farther into Asia Minor, while a growing navy assaulted Roman targets around the sea. In 668, Arab ships were in the Sea of Marmara and land forces set up the first siege of Constantinople. It didn’t last long, but it’s remarkable that Mu’awiya pulled this off so soon. The loot hauled in by these lightning raids cheered the morale of his fighting men, so it was a relatively cheap way for him to become popular with the army. On the other hand, by the end of his reign, Mu’awiya had to negotiation another truce with Constantinople. He had over-reached. The next Caliph would inherit a duty to pay tribute!

Mu’awiya’s oldest son was named Yazid. His mother had been a chieftain’s daughter of an Arab tribe in the Syrian region. They were among the Arabs who had become Christians under Roman rule. Yazid was thus a good candidate to rule Syria as a king, which is essentially what the office of Caliph now became. In 676, an ageing Mu’awiya named Yazid as his heir apparent, violating his agreement with Hassan to set up a shura. In Medina, his second cousin Marwan viewed this move sourly. No fan of Ali’s or Hassan’s, Marwan could have used the shura process to confirm himself as successor.

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The Story of Hassan

Posted on August 20, 2021 by Ruth

When his father Ali was assassinated, Hassan was about 35. Ali’s supporters in Kufa quickly gave their allegiance to him as Caliph and Imam. “Imam,” the leader who stands in front, was the title Ali had taken when he felt “Caliph,” successor, had been corrupted.

Mu’awiya saw Hassan as the last obvious problem remaining before he could turn the Caliphate into a dynastic succession for his son, Yazid. He wrote to Hassan, offering him income from Iraq and a promise to be Mu’awiya’s successor if he would disavow the Caliphate now.

Hassan seems to have been more inclined to study and prayer than to war. He is on record refusing to carry out a whipping that Ali ordered (on someone who deserved it), and he may have disliked his father’s decisions to engage in warfare against Mu’awiya and the others. He had no inclination to war, and he also had few resources. Mu’awiya had been stockpiling cash and war materiel for several decades, but Ali had used Iraq’s tax revenue not only for his three short wars, but also for alms. Kufa did not have a cash reserve; Damascus did. Mu’awiya used his money to start buying loyalty from Arab tribes in Iraq, pulling them away from the cause of Ali.

Hassan decided that he would renounce his claim to the Caliphate. He stipulated that the next Caliph should be chosen by a shura, a conclave of elders. His supporters could live in safety and raise their children without persecution or war. The entire Muslim community could recover from so much war and try to rebuild. He didn’t have many other choices.

The problem for Mu’awiya is that Hassan was the witness to these promises he had made. Like the shura nonsense…don’t make him laugh, he had no intention of that. So an ex-Caliph Hassan was less of an urgent problem, but still a problem. Some years of peaceful study in Medina passed by.

Mu’awiya arranged for one of Hassan’s more recent wives to poison him. She may have done it on her own volition, on “spec” as it were. She had expected to be a Caliph’s wife, and instead she was stuck in Medina doing charity work. She hoped to become Mu’awiya’s daughter-in-law, so a wife of the next Caliph. Knowing Mu’awiya, he may have led her to believe in this hope. It was a vain hope; when she came to Damascus to claim her reward, he asked, “what, marry my son to a poisoner?” and passed her off to a court official.

So in 669, Hassan died from poison; he was around 45. He was survived by more than 20 children, his brother Husayn, and their two sisters. He asked to be buried next to his grandfather, but added that “if you fear evil,” just bury him in the regular Muslim cemetery. Both Marwan and A’isha objected to his being buried near the Prophet. A’isha reminded everyone that the hut was still her property, while Marwan declared that his cousin Uthman had more right, and yet he was buried with the Jews. So in the end, Hassan was interred in the cemetery with his mother. As to Uthman’s resting place, eventually the cemetery was enlarged so that the Jewish plot became included, which solved that problem.

There’s an interesting footnote to the story. In 2016, a small group based at Nashua Community College in New Hampshire decided to study clues in the old records to determine what poison was used on Hassan. Their conclusion, published in Medicine, Science and the Law, is calomel, a mineral form of mercury chloride. This was mined in now-Turkey, then-Byzantine/Roman heartland. A collection of Shi’a hadiths, the Bihar al-Anwar, recalled that Hassan’s drink had been tainted with “gold filings.” Calomel minerals would look golden, so perhaps this is the answer. Calomel has been used as medicine at times, but in enough quantity, it causes internal bleeding and other damage. Hassan was probably given a poisoned drink more than once, and one hadith says that the last drink was very large. It was a painful, gory death. But if this group is correct that the poison was calomel, it certainly points the finger at Mu’awiya, since a wife in Medina could not have obtained a mineral from Asia Minor.

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The Rule and Death of Ali, 661

Posted on August 20, 2021 by Ruth

All of these events had taken just over a year to play out (though the arbitration process may have gone on longer). Ali remained Caliph of the eastern portion of the Islamic Empire, with nominal control of Arabia. Mu’awiya ruled Syria and Egypt. Effectively it was the solution Mu’awiya had proposed before the Battle of Siffin, which Ali had refused; but Ali was not willing to go to war for this cause again. He felt enough blood had been shed.

Ali lived an austere life, as had Umar. He ate simple food; Shi’ite history remembers him as eating a diet of barley, greens, and occasional milk. The traditional Arab diet had majored in meat from sheep, goats and camels, but Ali ate some meat only once a week, saying that the stomach should not be a graveyard. (Abbas, 155) He wore old clothes and spent time with the poor. He preached the Friday sermon in Kufa every week, too. The Najul al-Balagha contains 240 sermons, probably from these years.

He was focused on scrupulous justice and forgiveness. An interesting detail about Ali’s rule: Abbas (The Prophet’s Heir) reports that he continued to pay veterans’ stipends to Rejectionists. If they were owed money from having fought in a historic battle, they still got it, even if they had been rebels.

The Rejectionist survivors were still around. Their attitudes had hardened even more; they saw things as a defeated Bedouin tribe with a duty to take revenge for their relatives’ deaths. They blamed Ali first, but also Mu’awiya. There are two ways the final chapter can be told.

In 661, a Rejectionist assassin went to the Kufa mosque and hid, waiting to kill Ali when he entered. As Ali prostrated himself in prayer, the assassin struck him with a poisoned blade. Ali might have survived the wound, since of course there were many men around him to seize the assassin before he could strike again.

The story can also be told as of three assassins who all set out to kill Mu’awiya, Amr and Ali at (roughly) the same time. This is more the Sunni version, since it emphasizes an attack on all authorities, not just on Ali. Mu’awiya and Amr survived, though. One didn’t go to prayers that day, and another man was killed by mistake; the other had guards to wrestle the assassin to the ground.

In the Shi’ite telling, Ali foresaw his death and felt happy to be finally going to Paradise. He lingered for two days, his body battling the poison. He forbade revenge, saying that if he died, the assassin should be simply beheaded for murder, no torture or painful extras. His last words told his sons not to value the world, nor to weep for anything that was taken from them. He died on the 21st day of Ramadan, which is the same day (by Arab lunar calendar) that Muhammad had his first revelation. In a sermon after his death, his son Hassan claimed it was also the same day that Moses received the Commandments and Jesus was crucified.

Ali wanted a secret burial, since he could be fairly sure that the Rejectionists or Umayyads would want to violate his grave. He left orders for his sons to put his body on his camel and allow it to wander. It was the same method Muhammad had used to choose two key places. The camel wandered toward present-day Najaf, finally stopping at a random place. They buried him there. But several more “burials” were carried out as decoys, including the honored public funeral in Kufa that everyone expected.

The place was a secret for a long time, marked very simply so that only those in on the secret could know. Years later, Caliph Haroun al-Rashid found the marker, and at last the keepers of the secret decided to tell him. He honored the gravesite. Ali’s shrine in Najaf has been a pilgrimage destination for Muslims, especially the Shi’a. Of course, in our time it has also been a bombing destination. So far, the mosque has survived with only superficial damage.

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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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