Destiny Disrupted (a history of the world through islamic eyes)

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Birth of the Khalifate 11-24 AH 632-644 CE
DEVOTED MUSLIMS SEE the whole of Mohammed's life as a religious metaphor illuminating the meaning of existence, but the religious event does not end with the Prophet's death. It continues through the terms of his first four successors, remembered as the Rashidun, "the rightly guided ones": Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman, and Ali. The entire drama, from the revelation in the cave through the Hijra to the death of the Prophet's fourth successor almost forty years later, forms the core religious allegory of lslam, analogous to the last supper, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ in Christianity. Islam emerged well within literate times. People were writing journals, diaries, letters, bureaucratic documents, and other works. For this period a rich documentary record exists. It seems, then, as if the origins of Islam should lie squarely within the realm of journalism rather than legend. And yet, what we know about the life and times of these first four successors derives largely from a history written decades later by the writer Ibn Ishaq, who died in 151 AH (768 CE).​

 

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Ibn Ishaq came from a long line of traditionists, the archivists of oral culture: men and women whose job it was to gather, remember, and retellsignificant events. He was the first of his line to write the whole story down, but most of his book has been lost. Before it disappeared, however, other writers quoted from it, referred to it, included excerpts from it in their own works, wrote synopses of it, or paraphrased its stories. (Recently, in fact, some academics have been trying to reconstruct Ibn Ishaq's work from the fragments of it found in other works.)​

 

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One historian who used Ibn Ishaq as his major source was Ibn Jarir al Tabari, who died about three hundred years after the Hijra. He wrote the thirty-nine-volume History of the Prophets and Kings that begins with Adam and ends in the year 292 AH (915 CE). His work has survived into the present day, and most of the anecdotes and details we read about Mohammed and his successors come to us through him. It is he who tells us what color hair these men had, what their favorite food was, and how many camels they owned. He includes their key speeches and conversations as direct quotations. His history is not exactly a readable narrative, however, because each story is nested in a mind-numbing list of names, the isnad, or "chain of transmission": "X reports that Y told him that he heard from Z that ... and finally the anecdote." After each anecdote comes a different version of the same anecdote, nested in a different isnad: "A reports that he heard from B that C said that D recounts that ... [anecdote]." Tabari doesn't say which version is true; he just puts them out there for you the reader to decide. Over the centuries, writers have compiled their own versions of the most compelling anecdotes, some of which make their way into popular and oral accounts and eventually turn into the Islamic version of "Bible stories," told to kids like me at home by our elders and in grammar school by our religion teachers.​

 

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Overall, these stories chronicle a tumultuous human drama that unfolded in the first twenty-nine years after the Prophet's death, a story of larger-than-life characters wrestling with epic issues, a story filled with episodes that evoke wonder and heartbreak. It's quite possible to take sides in retelling these stories, for there are sides to take, and it's quite possible to speculate about motives and make judgments about people's decisions. On the other hand, these anecdotes have acquired allegorical status: different judgments and interpretations support different doctrines and represent various theological positions. We cannot know the hard facts of this story in a journalistic way because no untouched eyewitness accounthas survived. We have only the story of the story of the story, a sifting process that has drawn the mythological significance of the raw events to the surface. Here, then, is that story of the succession.​

 

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THE FIRST KHALIFA (I I-I 3 AH)
The moment Mohammed died, the community faced an overwhelming problem. It wasn't just "Who is our next leader?" but "What is our next leader?" When a saint dies, people can't simply name some other saint in his place, because such figures aren't created by election or appointment, they just emerge; and if they don't, oh well; people may be disappointed, but life goes on. When a king dies, by contrast, no one says, "Wouldn't it be nice if someday we had another king?" The gap must be plugged at once. When Prophet Mohammed died, it was like a saint dying but it was also like a king dying. He was irreplaceable, yet someone had to take his place. Without a leader, the Umma could not hold together.​

 

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The new leader had to be more than a king, however, because this was not a community like any other. It was, its members believed, the embodiment of the revelations, existing to express Allah's will and thereby transform the world. The leader of this community could not get by on brains, bravery, strength, and such traits. He had to have some special religious grace or power. Yet Mohammed's successor would not be a God-guided messenger, because Mohammed himself had said there would be no more of those. So if the leader wouldn't be a king or a God-guided messenger, what would he be?​

 

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Curiously enough, the nascent Muslim community had given no consideration to this question before the Prophet died; and it gave no consideration to it in the hours immediately after his death either, for this was not a time for grand philosophical discussions. With the Prophet's body scarcely cold, Abu Bakr heard a disturbing report: the native Muslims of Medina were meeting to elect a leader of their own, as if they and the immigrants from Mecca were separate groups: here, quite possibly, was the beginning of the end of the Umma!​

 

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Abu Bakr gathered some of Mohammed's closest companions, crashed the meeting, and begged the Medinans to reconsider. Muslims should elect a single leader for the whole community. He pleaded, not a prophet, not aking, just someone to call meetings, moderate discussions, and hold the community together. "Choose one of these two," he suggested, pointing to the irascible Omar and to another of the Prophet's close companions. Omar himself was appalled. Take precedence over Abu Bakr? Unthinkable! He grasped the older man's hand and told the assembly that only Abu Bakr could serve as leader, now that the Prophet himself was gone. Through tears, he swore allegiance to Mohammed's closest friend, a dramatic gesture that electrified the room. Suddenly Abu Bakr did seem like the obvious and only choice, this sensible, lovable man who had distinguished himself all his life by his wisdom, courage, and compassion. In a gush of enthusiasm, the meeting gave unanimous consent to letting Abu Bakr assume the modest tide of khalifa {or, as most Western accounts would have it, "caliph"), which meant "deputy."​

 

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This title did not exist until Abu Bakr took it on. No tribe or nation at that time was headed by a khalifa. No one knew what the title meant or what powers it conferred. The first titleholder would have to fill in those details. For now, Abu Bakr went to the mosque, where a crowd had gathered. His accession was announced. In a gracious inaugural speech he told that assembly, "I am not the best of you. If I do well, support me. If I make mistakes, do not hesitate to advise me .... Ifi neglect the laws of God and Prophet, I forfeit claim to your obedience." Everyone at the mosque gave him the same acclaim he had received from everyone at the meeting. "Everyone," however, was not at the mosque or the meeting. One leading candidate for the role of successor did not even hear that the issue was being discussed. The Prophet's cousin Ali was washing the Prophet's body when the elders met. By the time he heard anything about the discussion, the decision had already been made.​

 

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You can see how this might have rankled. In the last months of Mohammed's life, Ali may well have felt like he was the Prophet's successor, no discussion needed, for he stood closest to the Prophet in every way. Mohammed had several cousins, but Ali was special because his father Abu Talib had adopted Mohammed and raised him as a son, which essentially made Ali and Mohammed brothers. But Ali was almost thirty years Mohammed's junior, and in tribal Arab culture a much-older brother had a near paternal status with his sibling. In fact, as a little boy, Ali had moved in with Mohammed and Khadija andhad grown up mostly in their household, so in addition to being practically like a brother to Mohammed, Ali was practically like a son to him too. What's more, Ali was the first person after Khadija to accept Islam: the first male Muslim.​

 

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When the assassins were coming to murder Mohammed in his bed, it was Ali who wrapped himself in the Prophet's blankets and risked taking the knife meant for Mohammed. In Medina, when the Muslims were in danger of annihilation, it was Ali who proved himself repeatedly as the virtual Achilles of Islam-for in those days, battles often began with individual challenges leading to single combat, and at each confrontation, when the Quraysh called on the Muslims to send out their best, Mohammed nominated Ali. At the battle of Uhud, when all seemed lost and some Muslims fled for home, Ali was among those who rallied around the Prophet, and bore him home wounded but safe. As the community flowered and the Prophet became a head of state, he kept Ali by his side as his right-hand man. Indeed, on the way home from his last sermon, Mohammed told the people, ''Any of you who consider me your patron should consider Ali your patron." Now, didn't that amount to saying that after he was gone, the Umma should consider Ali their leader?​

 

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While all of Mohammed's close companions had charisma, Ali's glow seemed uniquely spiritual to a committed group of partisans, many of them younger Muslims, who felt something of the same authority radiating from Ali that everyone had felt radiating from Mohammed. All the points mentioned marked Ali as special, but one further factor elevated him above all others, and it might have been the most important factor of all, or so it seemed in retrospect to later Muslims: Mohammed had no sons. Only one of his daughters produced sons who lived past childhood, and that one daughter was Fatima, who was married to Ali. Ali's sons were therefore Mohammed's grandsons, and Ali's descendents would be the prophet's descendents. Ali and Fatima were Mohammed's family.​

 

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Set all this aside, however, and picture Ali indoors with the womenfolk, drowning in grief as he bathed the Prophet's body. Then, picture him emerging finally into the terrible first day of the rest of his life, still reeling from the enormity of what had happened, only to find that while he waspreparing Mohammed's body for burial, Mohammed's peer-group companions had been picking a successor for Mohammed, not only passing over Ali but failing even to consult him, failing even to inform him that the meeting was taking place. Surely, Ali felt he deserved some greater consideration than that! On the other hand, every point in Ali's favor counted against him from another perspective. Ali was close to the Prophet? Part of his family? Good for him, but when did Allah ever say He was conferring special privileges upon a particular family? Dynastic succession was the old way, the sort of thing Islam proposed to overturn!​

 

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Besides, the Prophet had said there would be no more Messengers after him. If this was true, Ali's charisma had no religious significance, in which case, shouldn't Muslims separate the Prophet's bloodline from leadership roles in the community to prevent undue concentrations of power from distorting the egalitarian universalism of the Islamic message? Seen in that light, in fact, wasn't Ali's charisma precisely the quality that made him questionable? Might it not encourage his more fervid partisans to declare him a new prophet? No, said Abu Bakr's proponents, what the community needed at this point was steady judgment, not youthful passion. Ali was just over thirty years of age at this time; Abu Bakr was almost sixty. In the Arabia of that time, choosing a thirty-year-old man as leader over a sixty-year-old probably struck most Arabs as unthinkable. Why, the word sheikh, the title for tribal leader, literally meant "old man."​

 

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Some say it took Ali six hard months to concede the election, during which some of Abu Bakr's more unruly followers threatened him and roughed up his family. In one such shove and scuffle, they say, a door was slammed against his wife Fatima's belly, who was pregnant at the time, and this manhandling may have caused her to miscarry what would have been Prophet Mohammed's third grandson. Others claim that Ali swore allegiance to Abu Bakr just a few days after the latter took office; they minimize the abuse that Fatima suffered and attribute her miscarriage to an accident. A disagreement like this can never now be resolved by an appeal to evidence. It can only reflect the position one takes on the theological schism that developed out of the succession, for the disagreement between proponents of Abu Bakr and Ali eventually engendered two different sects of Islam, the Sunnis and the Shi'i, each of whom has a different version of these events. Ali's partisans developed into the Shi'i, a word that simply means "partisans" in Arabic, and they remain convinced to this day that Ali was the Prophet's only legitimate successor.
In either case, within six months the rift had closed, and just in time, for a new crisis was threatening the survival of Islam. All across Arabia, tribes were seceding from the alliance that Mohammed had forged. Most claimed they had never pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr or the Umma but only to Mohammed himself, and that pledge had been voided by Mohammed's death. Nominally, these tribespeople had all converted to Islam, and many of them insisted they were still Muslims. They still acknowledged the singleness of God and Mohammed's authority. They would still pray, still fast, still try to keep the drinking and debauchery under control-but zakat? The charity tax payable to the treasury at Medina? No, that they could no longer tolerate: no more payments to Medina!​

 

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A few tribal leaders went further. They claimed that they themselves were now Allah's living Messengers. They claimed they were receiving revelations and had permission to issue divinely authorized laws. These upstarts thought to use the model pioneered by Mohammed to forge sovereign "sacred" communities in competition with the Umma. Had Abu Bakr allowed these departures, Islam would surely have gone in a very different direction. It might have evolved into a set of practices and beliefs that people embraced individually. But Abu Bakr responded to the crisis by declaring secession to be treason. The Prophet had said, "No compulsion in religion," and Abu Bakr did not deny that principle. People were free to accept or reject Islam as they pleased; but once they were in, he asserted, they were in for good. In response to a political crisis, Abu Bakr established a religious principle that haunts Islam to this day-the equation of apostasy with treason. Braided into this policy was the theological concept that the indissoluble singleness of God must be reflected in the indissoluble singleness of the Umma. With this decision Abu Bakr even more definitively confirmed Islam as a social project and not just a belief system. A Muslim community was not just a kind of community, of which there could be any number, but a particular community, of which there could be only one.​

 

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The new khalifa proved himself a formidable strategist. It took him a little over a year to end the rebellion known as the Apostate Wars and reunite Arabia. At home, however, in his dealings with the Muslim community, he exhibited nothing but the modesty, affection, and benevolence people knew and loved him for. A stoop-shouldered man with deep-set eyes, Abu Bakr dressed simply, lived plainly, and accumulated no wealth. His one affectation was to dye his hair and beard red with henna. When disputes arose, he dispensed justice with an even hand, involving a council of elders in all his decisions, ruling as first among equals, and asserting no claim to religious elevation. His word had no greater weight than any other Muslim's, and his authority came only from his wisdom and his devotion to the revelation. No one was obliged to follow his rulings except when he was right, the caveat being, he was pretty much always right.​

 

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Back in Mecca, before the Hijra, Abu Bakr had been a prosperous merchant. By the time Muslims emigrated to Medina, however, he had spent much of his fortune on charitable causes, especially buying freedom for slaves who converted to Islam, and he forfeited the rest of his wealth in the course of the move. As khalifa, he took only a small salary for guiding the Umma and continued to ply his old trade to make a living, getting by as best he could on the fruits of his shrunken business. Sometimes, he even milked his neighbor's cow for extra cash. 1 As portrayed in the religious stories of Islamic tradition, children would run up to him shouting, "Papa! Papa!" when he walked through the streets of Medina, and he would pat their heads and give them candy-he was that kind of guy.​

 

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THE FIRST KHALIFA (I I-I 3 AH) completed

 

[احمدقاسمی]

اس سیکشن پر انتظامیہ نظر رکھنے سے قاصر ہے اس لیے اس کو بند کیا جارہا ہے ۔