The second caliph {2}`Umar (634-644) continued to send out troops, harnessing the energy of the Bedouin tribes. In 636 the Muslims defeated the Persians at Qadisiyya in a battle which proved to be decisive. Thereafter the Persians continually retreated; the Muslims quickly conquered northern Iraq and moved into western Iran. After the battle at Nihavand in 642, the Persians could offer no more resistance and the remainder of Iran was left open to conquest. The last Sassanid king fled to Khurasan and was assassinated in 651.
Meanwhile Umar continued the offensive against the Byzantines in Syria. The Muslims reached Damascus in 635 but were forced to withdraw to Yarmuk; there they defeated the Byzantines decisively and thus faced little resistance in occupying the remainder of Syria and Palestine. The troops then marched into northern Iraq and Armenia, and into Egypt. The Byzantines relinquished Egypt to the Muslims under a peace treaty in 641.
The peace treaties concluded under Umar allowed the conquered peoples to retain their land and religion; they were given the status of "protected peoples" (dhimmi) and were required to pay a special tax, known as the jizya. Abandoned lands were confiscated to supply income for the treasury. Soldiers and notables such as Muhammad's relatives received compensation from the state; these pensioners were listed in a register, the diwan. Umar retained the local administrators but appointed governors to oversee their work. The soldiers were housed in garrison towns, which prevented them from interacting with the local population and also kept them mobilized. Among his many legal rulings, Umar is credited with the fixing of a new era to the year of the emigration from Mecca to Medina (hijra): 1 A.H. = 622 C.E.
Map of the Early Muslim Conquests
from The Cambridge History of Islam, 1:59
After Umar's assassination in 644, a six-member committee appointed by him to choose one among them as caliph selected {3} Uthman b. Affan (644-656). During his reign, grievances that had been stifled under Umar's heavy-handed rule rose to the surface; among the members of the opposition was one Ali b. Abi Talib, who was one of the members of Umar's committee and would become the fourth caliph after Uthman's death. It was in fact Uthman's continuation of Umar's policy of favoritism and state unity which generated complaints.
First, Uthman attempted to retain the unity of the empire by appointing members of his own clan, the Umayyads, to governorships; in particular, the governorship of his kinsman Muawiya was enlarged to include the whole of Syria and northern Iraq. These actions led to the charge of nepotism by Uthman's detractors. Second, he attempted to generate income for the diwan by continuing to push the borders of the empire further north, west, and east. However, the booty obtained was not enough to maintain the diwan, and this difficulty, along with the increase in the numbers of soldiers and Uthman's adding his governors and family members to the list of pensioners, forced a reduction in the soldiers' stipends. This naturally created more discontent. Third, Uthman was accused of religious innovation: he authorized an official version of the Qur'an and had all other copies burned. As the Qur'an reciters had enormous influence over the masses, this action helped to assert the hegemony of the caliphate in religious affairs and to further the unification of the empire.
Uthman was murdered at the hands of discontented Egyptians in 656 and the notables of Medina selected {4} Ali b. Abi Talib as caliph. His failure to punish Uthman's assassins quickly generated outrage. Civil war broke out under the leadership of Talha and Zubayr, two of Ali's former supporters, and Aisha, former wife of Muhammad and daughter of Abu Bakr. The rebellion was suppressed near Basra at the famous Battle of the Camel, so-called because Aisha watched the battle from her palanquin atop a camel.
Meanwhile, in Syria Muawiya refused to pay Ali allegience. The two men confronted each other with their armies at Siffin in early 657, where Muawiya called for an arbitration. The arbitration solved nothing, but it did serve to delegitimize Ali in the eyes of some of his supporters, who deserted Ali's army and withdrew to Nahrawan, east of the Tigris. The Syrians acknowledged Muawiya as caliph, and he was able to take control of Egypt later that year. In 658, the seceders in Nahrawan, known as Kharijites, were decimated by Ali's army. By this time Ali's rule had been reduced to central and southern Iraq; he was murdered by a Kharijite in 661. Muawiya became caliph of the entire Muslim empire, thus beginning the period of the Umayyad caliphate.
Later Muslim tradition, in reaction to the growing centralization of the state under the Umayyads, idealized the first four caliphs, calling them the Righteous Caliphs (al-khulafa al-rashidun).
They are considered to be the only caliphs who preserved the true tradition of Muhammad; this idea is certainly helped by the fact that all four were related to Muhammad in some way: the daughters of Abu Bakr and Umar were married to Muhammad, and three of Muhammad's daughters were married to Uthman and Ali.Bibliography
The Arab Kingdom and Its Fall, J. Wellhausen, Calcutta 1927
`Ali and Mu`awiya in Early Arabic Tradition, E. Ladewig Petersen, Copenhagen 1964
The Cambridge History of Islam, ed. P.M. Holt, Ann K.S. Lambton, and Bernard Lewis, Cambridge 1970
The Early Islamic Conquests, Fred McGraw Donner, Princeton 1981
The Encyclopaedia of Islam, first and second editions
Muhammad and the Conquests of Islam, Francesco Gabrieli, London 1968
The Murder of the Caliph `Uthman, M. Hinds, in International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 1972
Shiism, Heinz Halm, Edinburgh 1991
The Siffin Arbitration Agreement, M. Hinds, in Journal of Semitic Studies 1972
by
What should Christians know about Quran
on Facebook, September 30, 2010 at 5:05pm