The Rashidun Caliphate and the Islamic Conquests Casual Historian Islamic History

This video was sponsored by viewers like you at patreon.com/casualhistorian. Click the top link in the description to learn more. In the wake of Muhammad's death, the nascent Islamic community of Arabia was unprepared for succession crisis. This was the first time that the Arabian Peninsula had been unified under single political authority. And so there was no precedent for how to pass on power at this scale. They also didn't have the experience of deciding who should succeed God's chosen messenger. In his revelations, Muhammad had revealed that he would be God's last and most perfect prophet. How many times have we heard that before? This meant that whoever succeeded Muhammad would need to have his political authority and spiritual leadership, but not his direct connection with the divine. There were number of candidates for the succession, but the two that get the most attention are his close friend and father-in-law Abu Bakr and his cousin Ali. Abu Bakr was one of the early converts to Islam, and he was even disowned by his own clan for his allegiance to Muhammad. He had also journeyed with Muhammad during his nighttime escape from Mecca to Yathrib. Ali, however, was blood relative to Muhammad, and within the context of Arab culture, he had about as many different familial roles as one could have to another person. Ali's father was Abu Talib, the brother of Muhammad's father Abdullah, making the two of them cousins by blood. But on top of that, Muhammad was adopted by Abu Talib before Ali was born, making the two of them brothers. And of course, he was Muhammad's son-in-law by marrying his daughter Fatima. Ali's considered to be, by many, the first male convert to Islam. And during the prophet's nighttime escape from Mecca, Ali slept in Muhammad's bed in order to distract those who were trying to kill him. Ali was also crucial part of numerous battles in the early days of Islam, helping preserve the Muslim forces from complete collapse at the Battle of Uhud. So needless to say, Ali had some strong credentials, but there were few things holding him back from being the direct successor. Firstly was his age. He was only about 30 at the time of Muhammad's death. In Arabian culture, leadership of clan usually passed down to the oldest male relative of leader. Secondly, Islam began as movement against the clans entrenched power structures of Mecca, and the idea that leadership should pass to Ali just because of his blood relations to the prophet would seem to go against this message. However, given the fact that after he conquered Mecca, Muhammad gave his clan, the Hashems, perpetual control of the Kaaba. So, that argument doesn't seem to hold as much water. At least not to me. Sunni Muslims hold that the leadership of the community should go to the most worthy, but Shia Muslims would contend that Ali had right by both piety and blood. And thirdly, and probably the most understated, was the opposition by Muhammad's youngest, and according to tradition, favorite wife, Aisha. While on his deathbed, Muhammad was surrounded by his wives, who ultimately controlled who got to see him in his final hours. Aisha was the daughter of Abu Bakr, and so Abu Bakr was allowed to come and see Muhammad. Aisha hated Ali for an incident years earlier referred to as the affair of the necklace. The short version of the story is that Aisha was once suspected of being an unfaithful wife to Muhammad, and the spread of this rumor threatened his reputation. The story, at least according to Aisha, was that Muhammad sought out Ali's advice, and supposedly Ali told Muhammad to divorce Aisha and put the rumors behind him. Aisha was eventually cleared of these charges via divine revelation, but the damage between Aisha and Ali was done. And for the rest of their lives, there would be tension and struggle. On top of this, Aisha was jealous of Ali's wife, Fatima. Aisha never bore Muhammad any children, but Fatima gave him two grandsons, and considering the value of boys in Arab culture, this must have stung Aisha fiercely. Due to all of this and more, Aisha forbade Ali from seeing Muhammad in his final hours. After Muhammad's death, Ali was finally able to be with the family and care for the body and the funeral rights. It was at this time, however, that an attempt to find new leader was put into action. At first, the natives of Medina tried to elect their own leader, but Abu Bakr and Umar discovered this and hijacked their meeting, demanding that the new leader must be someone from the Quraysh. Some of the sources seem to suggest that the Medinans would have preferred Ali to succeed Muhammad, but the presence of Abu Bakr and Umar was overbearing. And so, with Ali nowhere to be seen, this impromptu council chose Abu Bakr to succeed Muhammad. Needless to say, Ali was upset and at first didn't recognize the succession. Umar came to Ali's home with number of his men in order to force Ali's submission. However, when Umar burst through the door of Ali's home, Fatima was on the other side and was violently knocked to the ground. What made the situation worse was that Fatima was pregnant at the time and later had miscarriage. Some sources, especially Shia ones, blame Umar for this, but there's nothing about this that can be certain from the incident. After seeing what his violent action had done, Umar retreated from Ali's home. Ali eventually accepted Abu Bakr's ascendance, wanting to prevent civil war, but one would still be had. bunch of the nomadic tribes that had either signed treaties with or sworn allegiance to Muhammad decided to break away from the leadership of Abu Bakr. These tribes claimed that their allegiance was to Muhammad the man, not his political apparatus in Medina, and therefore they had no legal obligation to follow the rule of any new leaders in Medina. Well, Abu Bakr, on the other hand, considered these tribes breaking away as apostasy. He pushed forward narrative that politically breaking away from the Islamic state was the same as committing apostasy and therefore was punishable by death. This resulted in the Ridda Wars, usually referred to in English as the Wars of Apostasy, which consumed the first year of Abu Bakr's reign as caliph. Towards the end of his reign, he sent military expeditions into Byzantine and Persian territory, but he died before the campaigns were finished. Unlike Muhammad, Abu Bakr made sure to name an actual successor before dying, Omar. Again, Ali was not consulted on who should succeed, but he acquiesced to Omar's succession. It would be under Omar that the true Islamic conquests would begin with the rapid advance into both Sassanid and the Byzantine empires and expanding the caliphate into North Africa. One of the reasons for the fairly easy conquest of these lands were the religious conflicts in the region. If you remember from the previous episode, the Byzantines spent lot of time trying to spiritually unify the empire under single kind of Christianity, which brought them into conflict with many local variances of it. The Sassanids were also having problems with Christians in their empire, believing they were all fifth column for the Byzantines, which resulted in their persecution as well. The invading Muslims didn't really care how non-Muslims practiced their religion, so long as it was monotheistic. This resulted in Jews within both empires actively siding with the Muslims against their Christian oppressors and non-Orthodox Christians within both empires either siding with the Muslims or simply not resisting them. At first, the Muslims didn't want the Christians and Jews to convert to Islam due to special tax that was placed on them called the jizya. With most of the population non-Muslim, it served as valuable source of taxation to help fund further conquests. Omar would reign as caliph until 644 when he was assassinated by Piruz Nahavandi, also known as Abu Lu'lu'ah in Arabic. Piruz had been soldier in Persia, but was captured in battle by Omar and brought back to Arabia as slave. The reason for him assassinating Omar is uncertain. Some sources claim it was revenge for Omar's conquest of Persia, other sources claim Piruz was Christian, but Sunni sources tend to imply that he was Zoroastrian. Since he was Persian, this isn't unbelievable, but Sunni sources tend to denigrate all Persians as Zoroastrians. This denigration extends to Shia Muslims as well, who are sometimes referred to as those who worship fire, which is reference to Persia's Zoroastrian past. Regardless of the reason why Omar was dead, and now we needed new caliph. On his deathbed, he appointed council of six men who were to choose new caliph from amongst themselves. This time around, however, Ali was finally placed in formal consideration for the role. But, due to his own piety in refusing to vote for himself, Uthman, member of the Umayyad clan which had once dominated the Quraysh, was elected caliph. At the time of his election, Uthman was pretty old, and most of those in the council probably assumed that he wasn't going to live very long, and so they didn't mind serving him. However, Uthman would go on to become the longest-reigning of the rightly guided caliphs. Uthman was very hands-off caliph, allowing regional governors to handle most of the day-to-day affairs, including military operations. He ensured that the military governors would stay loyal to him, and theoretically the caliphate, by appointing members of his clan to administrative roles. This policy was combined with change in the laws regarding land. Under Omar, the conquered lands could not be purchased or sold to men in the military. Omar wanted to preserve peace with the local populace, but this also restricted trade. Uthman, merchant by profession, decided to lift this ban and allow Arabs to buy land in the conquered territories. This is how local Arab elites were set up throughout the Middle East. He also began giving out loans from the public treasury to Arabs who wanted to buy land in the conquered territories. Long-term, this policy was good for Islam as whole, but bad for the caliphate as political entity, because it entrenched the Arabs in other parts of the caliphate in which they could build up their own power bases in opposition to the caliph in Medina. Also, under Uthman's reign, we see the Quran come into its final form. Well, this is traditionally believed to be its first and final form, but that's story for another video. Uthman's administration, or more accurately the administration of his appointed governors, was quite corrupt. And in Egypt, these issues would boil over. group of protesters from Egypt traveled to Medina and petitioned Uthman to address the problems. The caliph complied with these demands and sent an order to the governor to step down and accept new governor. The protesters, initially satisfied, began their return to Egypt, but speeding up behind them was messenger on horseback. The protesters intercepted this messenger and found letter with Uthman's seal telling the sitting governor to arrest the protesters when they arrived back in Egypt. Feeling betrayed, they returned to Medina and began to besiege Uthman's palace. They eventually made their way in and killed the caliph. There is mystery as to who was sent the letter. Although it did have Uthman's seal, he denied having written the letter. Some sources claim that Uthman simply lied in order to give himself cover, but others claim that the letter was sent by someone else who had access to Uthman's seal. Those proposing this letter narrative usually place the blame on Uthman's relative, Muawiyah, who had been appointed as governor of Syria. Muawiyah had ambitions of his own to become caliph and had built up power base in Syria thanks to Uthman's policies. Regardless of which is the case, upon Uthman's death, council decided to finally name Ali as caliph, but Muawiyah refused to recognize it claiming that Ali was responsible for Uthman's death. This is because Ali didn't punish Uthman's murderers, partly because it was these men who had made him caliph afterwards. Seeing potential conflict with the Mayeds coming, Ali built his own army and began traveling northward to face off with Muawiyah, but before he could get there, he was challenged by Aisha, once again standing in his way. After hearing about Ali's ascension, she put together her own army and although initially Ali and Aisha's generals tried to avoid battle, some overzealous soldiers decided to launch an attack on the early morning of November 7th, 656. This battle, known as the Battle of the Camel, did nothing but weaken both forces. Ali eventually won, but with his army weakened, he would fight with Muawiyah to draw at the Battle of Siffin in 567, after which both sides decided to have the conflict arbitrated. However, the arbitrator was biased towards Muawiyah and the settlement eventually reached was that the caliphate would be split between the two. Although nobody liked this, it was the only compromise that would keep Ali as caliph and end the fighting. One of the groups not satisfied with the settlement were the Kharijites, segment of Ali's supporters who opposed the Battle of Siffin being settled by arbitration. They believed that the results of battles were to be determined by God, not man. And by allowing the fate of the battle to be determined by an our human arbiter and subsequently giving up half the caliphate, Ali had lost his right to rule. In 659, Ali would have to fight the Kharijites at the Battle of Nahrawan, where he decisively defeated them on the field, but number of them escaped and settled across modern-day Iraq. Two years later, Ali would be assassinated by Kharijite, thereby ending the Rashidun Caliphate. And that's where we're going to end the story for now. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss the next installment, where we cover the rise and fall of the Umayyad Caliphate. If you liked this video and haven't seen the first Islamic history video, go ahead and click here to watch that. You also might like my Jewish history series, which you can find the playlist for it right here. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.