Schismatic Movements in Early Islam

Hodgson says the harsh rigors of life in the desert bred a society which "rejected authoritarian governmental norms and based itself on individual prowess and on mean lineage group loyalties" (145). The primary units of society were family, clan and tribe.

Muhammad died without a male heir and without having made any provision for the succession. His ansar or Helpers of the Prophet with other Muslim leaders agreed very(prenominal) quickly that his closest colleague, Abu Bakr, then 70 years previous(a), would travel khalifat, Successor to the Apostle of God. During his two years as caliph, Abu Bakr and his able military general, Khalid, put down by force upheavals among various tribes which were called the Ridda and unify the peninsula under the banner of Islam.

Sources of Conspiracies and Revolts (634-661)

His successor, Umar (634-644), effectively directed the great Islamic conquests. He, however, planted the seeds of later conflicts by showing "a marked preference for ap shoot foring long-established members of the muharjirun [Muhammad's followers in Mecca] to the most important posts" and by favoring in particular the Umayyad clan of the Quraysh tribe (Kennedy 57). On his deathbed, Umar and six-spot notables selected Uthman as his successor. This offended Ali, Muhammad's cousin, and son-in-law. Ali was bypassed in 644 because he refused to swear to " guaranty the policies of his predecessors by which was meant the continued pred

Hitti, Philip K. The Arabs A Short History. New York: St. Martin's P, 1968.

After calif Harun al-Rashid (786-809), the disintegration of the authorities proceeded apace until finally the Mongols took Baghdad from them in 1258. It, however, more often than not crumbled from within, the growth of oversumptuous living at the top, "growing unrest in the provinces, ruinous civil wars" [between the sons of al-Rashid between whom he tried to divide the conglomerate at his death], the later domination of the caliphate by the caliph's own Turkish slave soldiers, declining state revenues and ruined agriculture (Kennedy 145-147).

Mu'awiya proposed that his son, Yazid, succeed him.

Hodgson says that "the old Muslim families of Medina refused to recognize him [Yazid] and encouraged resistance to him" (219). During Yazid's rule (680-683), underground centered around the Shi'a and the Alid parties in Iraq. Ali's oldest son, al-Hasan, yielded to Yazir, "but his younger pal al-Husayn took up the cause" (Kennedy 88). Husayn was martyred by Yazid's forces at Karbala in 680. The frequent revolts of those three years were the Second Civil War. Yazid's Syrian army put them down and at one point besieged Medina into submission. Yazid's son Mu'aiwiya died a few weeks after decent Caliph. There then followed the Marwan Caliphs, first Abd al-Hakam (683-864) and Abd al-Malik, his son, (685-701), who suppressed a snatch of plots and revolts. During this period and later, disputes erupted between two Syrian-based Arab factions, the Qays, who supported centralization of place and expansion abroad, and the Yemenis, who were more moderate. Their rivalry intensified under Caliph al-Walid (705-716) and his brother, Suleyman (715-717). Their growing dependence on the Syrian-based armies and elites further antagonized the enemies of the Ummayads in Arabia and Iraq. Iraq was largely independent of Damascus by the 680s.

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