Q3: Describe political situation after the death of Muhammad.

Q3: Describe political situation after the death of Muhammad.

After being selected caliph, Abu Bakr chose Medina as his capital. He had the support of the people of Mecca and Medina, as well as some of the area tribes. Still other tribes, however, had broken away from Islam upon the death of Muhammad.

Abu Bakr moved swiftly to conquer these defecting tribes and bring them back into the fold of Islam. He placed Khalid ibn al-Walid (d. 642), known as the Sword of Islam, in charge of the fighting. Khalid turned tribal people into a formidable fighting machine. The general excelled in the surprise attack.

The recapturing battles are known as the Ridda (defection from religion) wars. As the tribes were subdued, they once again gave their loyalty to Islam and the new caliph. As a result, the number of troops fighting for Islam swelled. This marked the beginning of the first standing Islamic army.

By the time he died in 634, Abu Bakr had united the entire Arabian Peninsula under the banner of Islam.  Before his death, Abu Bakr picked Umar ibn al-Khattab (c. 581–644) as his successor, the second “rightly guided” caliph. Umar was the first caliph to use the title Commander of the Faithful. All future caliphs would also claim this title. Umar chose a simple. He ruled for 10 years.

Umar quickly picked up where his predecessor had left off. He was responsible for introducing Islamic law and administrative functions to the conquered territories. Under Umar’s command, Islamic troops continued their attacks on Byzantine and Sassanid Empires. Before long, the Byzantine regions of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt were all in Muslim hands. The Muslims had a huge advantage: knowledge of the desert. Khalid himself was a master of desert warfare.

In early 635, Omar ordered his greatest general to make a 200-mile march across the desert to attack Damascus, the capital of Syria and a stronghold of the Byzantine Empire. After a six-month siege, Khalid and his men eventually took control of Damascus. At the same time they also attacked Sassanid Empire. Umar chose Saad ibn Abi Waqqas (d. 674) to lead the jihad against Sassanid. In 637, Saad and his troops conquered Ctesiphon the old capital of Sassanid Empire in a fierce battle on the banks of Euphrates. By the mid 650s, the Muslims had conquered a vast area that included the whole Arabian Peninsula, parts of North Africa, chunks of the Byzantine Empire, and most of the Sassanid Empire. One conquest that was especially important to the Muslims was the capture of Jerusalem in 637. All three of the great monotheistic religions thought of Jerusalem as a holy city. The Muslims controlled Jerusalem for most of the next 1,300 years.

Umar was killed in 644 by a Persian Christian slave. Uthman ibn Affan (c. 574–656), a member of Mecca’s important Quraysh family and Muhammad’s son-in-law, was chosen as the third rightly guided caliph. During his 12 years as caliph, Uthman continued the conquests that the two caliphs before him had begun. The Islamic Empire extended north as far as the Caucasus Mountains in southeastern Europe. He pushed further into North Africa and finished off the Sassanid Empire to the east.

Uthman, was unpopular because of corruption. He was the first caliph who did not have widespread support of the Muslim community. Armed revolts soon sprang up against him. In 656, Uthman was murdered by a group of Muslim soldiers. This was the first time a caliph had been killed by other Muslims, and it set a bloody and dangerous precedent.

The murder of Uthman sparked the First Civil War, which lasted from 656 to 661. During the war, known in Arabic as fitna, which means “time of trial”, most important Muslim families struggled for control of the growing empire. One of those groups supported Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, however, many people—especially the Umayyad family, Uthman’s relatives—held Ali responsible for the third caliph’s murder and did not think him worthy of being the caliph. The leader of the Umayyad opposition was Muawiya (602–680), governor of Damascus.  In the battle of camel in Basra, opponents of Ali were defeated.

After his victory, Ali moved the capital of the empire from Medina to Kufa. Later Ali and Muawiya decided the conflict should be resolved through arbitration. Some of Ali’s Shiite supporters did not agree. They argued that right or wrong must be decided on the battlefield. They became known as the Kharijites. This group opposed many other caliphs.

Ali ruled for five stormy, war-torn years. Throughout his reign, problems within the Muslim community grew and deepened. In 661, Ali was murdered in the Kufa when a Kharijite assassin stabbed him with a poisoned dagger. His death marked a split among Muslims (Shiites and Sunni).

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