LESSON 11
DEATH & SUBSEQUENT HISTORYIn March 632 Muhammad made his final hajj. At this time all central Arabia was under his control. In the south and east Muslims were still just a minority. In the north the border tribes were Christian. Just beyond, three years after the beginning of Muhammad's public preaching in 610, Chosroes II of Persia had overrun Syria-Palestine and in 616 took Egypt. Muhammad raided the border town of Dûmat al-Jandal in August-September 626, but the situation changed completely when the Byzantine emperor Heraclius raided the heart of Persia in December 627. In February 628 Persian nobles assassinated Chosroes and made peace with Heraclius, evacuating Byzantine territories by 629. Meanwhile Muhammad made border raids against Mu'ta in September 629, and Tabûk in October 630. The war between Persia and the Byzantines hurt trade going through Arabia, but by this time the Muslim economy had changed from trade to booty.
Muhammad's final illness began in April 632. After going to the cemetery at night to pray God to forgive the dead their sins, he came back to `Â'isha complaining of a headache. This became worse as he went the rounds of his wives. While with Maymûna he had to stop. After ordering Abû-Bakr to lead the salât in the mosque, he died in `Â'isha's arms at noon on 8 June 632. Immediately different groups met and a power tussle began. Before long the choice fell on Abû-Bakr, probably because he was old and would not upset the plans of younger men. After allegiance had been pledged to him the men prepared Muhammad for burial the next day. The bed on which he died was taken up and a grave dug beneath it.
The main challenge to Abû-Bakr (632-4) was a revolt of the Arabian tribes. They did not renounce Islam as such, but refused to accept the political authority of the caliph or to pay him zakât. Khâlid ibn-al-Walîd, returning from war against the Byzantines, conducted a campaign which reduced the Arab tribes to subjection. Khâlid then led the Muslim forces over the south of Iraq and the southern Byzantine territories up to Jerusalem.
Abû-Bakr recommended `Umar ibn-al-Khattâb (634-644) as his successor. This energetic man continued the conquests, taking Persia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. Jerusalem surrendered peacefully, and `Umar ordered a mosque built on the site of the Temple ruins, which was later replaced by the present Dome of the Rock. `Umar died, stabbed by a Persian slave.
`Uthmân (644-656) was a pious man, yet opposition to his rule grew constantly. The soldiers fighting in the first campaigns became rich from loot, but little was left for the hordes who enlisted later. With the booty boom ended, soldiers returning from Egypt joined dissidents in Medina to demand `Uthmân's abdication. He refused, and they broke into his house and killed him. Muslims of note, including the son of Abû-Bakr, were among the murderers of `Uthmân, while `Alî kept a complicit silence in the background. The scandal of this event shook the Muslim world.
The coup leaders chose `Alî (656-661) to be caliph. Mu`âwiya, the governor of Syria in Damascus, refused to recognize `Alî. As next of kin to `Uthmân, he said that he had the authority (Q 17:33) to avenge `Uthmân's death. Muhammad's widow `Â'isha and two men from Mecca, Talha and az-Zubayr, led another group in revolt and moved to Iraq to gain support. `Alî defeated them near Bara. Talha and az-Zubayr were killed, and `Â'isha was sent back with due respect to Medina.
`Alî next turned against Mu`âwiya. The two armies met in June 657 at Siffîn, along the upper Euphrates. As the tide began to turn against Mu`âwiya, some of his men suggested that his soldiers should tie copies of the Qur'ân to their lances, appealing in this way to `Alî not to fight his brother Muslims, but to accept arbitration. Some supporters of `Alî urged him to accept this proposal.
As the arbiters leaned towards a decision against `Alî, other supporters of `Alî decided that Alî had sinned by accepting arbitration with a rebel (Q 49:9). These dissidents withdrew and were given the name "Khârijites", meaning "those who go out". They themselves accepted the name with the meaning given in Qur'ân 9:81: to go out and fight as God commanded. When the expected verdict of the arbiters came in April 658 Mu`âwiya was acclaimed caliph by his followers. `Alî did not accept this, but first had to deal with the Khârijites. He persuaded some of them to return to his camp; the rest he massacred. That caused many more of `Alî's followers to leave him. On 24 January 661 a Khârijite killed `Alî.
Mu`âwiya induced `Alî's son al-Hasan to accept a retirement in Medina. The supporters of `Alî's family (later called Shî`ites) followed `Alî's other son al-Husayn, but Mu`âwiya ruled the Muslim world, with Damascus as his capital. The Umayyad dynasty that he founded, fostered Arab supremacy over non-Arab Muslims, and Muslims over non-Muslims. Under the Umayyads Muslim rule spread west to the Atlantic, and upwards to Spain and the south of France; it spread north of Arabia to Armenia, and east into modern Pakistan.
The Umayyads fell to Abû-l-`Abbâs (750-54), who founded the `Abbâsid dynasty, named after an uncle of Muhammad from whom they descended. The Umayyad dynasty continued only in Spain, which since 711 had been a Muslim province and never acknowledged `Abbâsid authority. Making Baghdad their capital, the `Abbâsids organized a prosperous state and promoted secular learning with the help of translations of Greek scientific works. This learning brought many blessings, but produced tension between the philosophers and the theologians and between different schools of theology.
Social discontent under the `Abbâsids found expression in the Shî`ite movement. Beginning in Algeria around 900, the Fâimid caliphate made Cairo its capital in 969, founding the famous al-Azhar mosque-school. Persian Shî`ites took Baghdad in 945, reducing the `Abbâsid caliph to a puppet role, and giving their own leader the title "sultân". Also in the 10th century the Turks of Asia became Muslim and began expanding into India, and westward to Baghdad in 1055. The Seljûq Turks were Sunnites and their leader, as sultân of the `Abbâsid caliph, held the real power in the East. The Turks later migrated west and occupied modern Turkey.
During the 11th century Europe began reclaiming the north of Spain and the islands of the Mediterranean from the Arabs. In the first crusade against the East, Jerusalem was taken in 1099. The Muslims rallied under the leadership of Turkish and Kurd officers, capturing Egypt from the Fâtimids in 1168, before the Crusaders had a chance to do so. Their leader Salâhaddîn expelled most of the Crusaders before his death in 1193.
In 1225 the Mongol, some of whom were Nestorians Christians, invaded Muslim lands and in 1258 devastated Baghdad. They moved on towards Egypt but, because some of their forces had to return home, they were defeated by the Turkish Mamlûks of Egypt. By 1300 the Mongol leaders who remained in Muslim Asia chose Islam; thus the conquerors were assimilated. In the 16th century, the Mongol took control of most of India. At the same time Shî`ites took over Persia, where they have been dominant ever since.
Another empire began under the Ottoman Turks, who had moved into Turkey under the Seljûqs. In 1453 they captured Constantinople, and in the 16th century took over the Middle East, the Mediterranean Sea and its southern coast. They threatened the heart of Europe by conquering Hungary and besieging Vienna. In the 17th century Turkish power began to decline, and during the 19th century Europe ate away at its provinces until the First World War left the Turks with nothing but modern Turkey.
The Ottomans were for a long time content to recognize the titular `Abbâsid caliph. But when their empire began to slip into the hands of non-Muslim powers, the sultân of Istanbul assumed the title of caliph in order to preserve a spiritual jurisdiction (like that of the Pope) over the lost lands. The title was first taken in 1774. After the First World War the Turks set up a secular government and in 1924 abolished the caliphate.
In the 19th and early 20th century most of the central lands of Islam came under European rule or influence, giving them the challenge of struggling for independence and catching up with the West. In much of Asia and tropical Africa, Islam has the different challenge of adjusting to an ethnically and religiously pluralist society.
QUESTIONS
- Outline the expansion of Islam under Muhammad and each of his next three successors, as well as the immediate and long-range effect on Christianity in those areas.
- Name and describe the three divisions of the Muslim community that emerged the civil war involving `Alî.
- What were some of the major dynasties or empires in Islamic history?
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