The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS (41 page)

THE CALIPHATE’S BLOODY HISTORY

T
he caliphate, for all its importance in Islam, was not constructed by Muhammad, or (by most accounts) attributed to Allah in the Qur’an—at least in any clear or explicit way. Rather it was born out of necessity.

According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad had just completed unifying Arabia and was beginning to move against the Byzantine Empire in Syria and Palestine when his final illness struck. Such severe pain came upon him that he feared he had been poisoned, as he had been several years earlier after his massacre of the Jews at the oasis of Khaybar in Arabia. He called out to his youngest and favorite wife: “O Aisha! I still feel the pain caused by the food I ate at Khaibar, and at this time, I feel as if my aorta is being cut from that poison.”
¹

On his deathbed, Muhammad is said to have uttered the incandescent phrase: “I have been made victorious with terror.”
²
He also gave the order to “turn
Al-Mushrikun
(polytheists, pagans, idolaters, and disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah and in His Messenger Muhammad) out of the Arabian Peninsula.”
³

He is not recorded as saying anything, however, about who should succeed him as the political, spiritual, and military leader of the Muslims. He had no sons who had survived to adulthood; Aisha said that if he had chosen a successor, it would have been Abu Bakr, one of his most devoted followers.
⁴
However, other Muslims insisted that Muhammad had actually chosen one of his earliest followers, his son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib, to succeed him.

Even traditions revered by Sunnis (as distinguished from Shi’ites, the party of Ali—
shiat Ali,
whence the word Shia) contain evidence for Muhammad’s choice of Ali. One hadith has Muhammad asking Ali, “Aren’t you satisfied with being unto me what Aaron was unto Moses?”
⁵
This could signify that Ali was to be Muhammad’s successor (
khalifa,
caliph), for the Qur’an depicts Moses saying to Aaron, “Take my place among my people” (7:142).

Aisha, however, haughtily dismissed Ali’s claim (for a variety of reasons the two of them had been at odds for years): “When did he appoint him by will? Verily, when he died he was resting against my chest (or said: in my lap) and he asked for a washbasin and then collapsed while in that state, and I could not even perceive that he had died, so when did he
appoint him by will?”
⁷
She quoted Muhammad as saying, “It is not befitting that a group, among whom is Abu Bakr, be led by other than him.”
⁸
Ali was duly passed over for Abu Bakr, one of Muhammad’s most fanatical followers.

The controversy over Ali continued. He was passed over for caliph twice more, when Muhammad’s companions Umar and then Uthman were chosen to succeed Abu Bakr. Finally, according to Islamic tradition, Ali got his chance in 656. Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali are considered the four “Khulafa Rashidun” or “Rightly Guided Caliphs,” and the period of their reigns (632–661) is known as the first and greatest golden age of Islam.

It was a golden age awash with blood.

Abu Bakr, the First Rightly Guided Caliph: The Wars of Apostasy

Islamic tradition records that Abu Bakr’s reign as caliph was brief (only two years) but eventful. The first crisis he faced was the one of legitimacy: he wasn’t the charismatic prophet who had unified Arabia, and with that prophet dead, the
umma
was in danger of breaking apart. Prophets started arising all over Arabia and rejecting Abu Bakr’s authority: Aswad al-Ansi in Yemen; Talha ibn Khuwaylid of the Asad tribe; the prophetess Sajah of the Tamim tribe; and Musaylima of the Hanifa tribe.
⁹
Other Arabic tribes simply preferred to govern themselves rather than be ruled from Medina. All these rebels declared that while they had pledged allegiance to Muhammad, that allegiance ended with his death, and it wasn’t transferable to any successor.

Abu Bakr and the Muslims maintained that the rebellious Arabs had not just pledged allegiance to Muhammad as a person; they had entered Islam, and the penalty for leaving Islam was death, as per Muhammad’s dictum: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.”
¹⁰
Abu Bakr sent his best warrior, Khalid ibn al-Walid, to crush the most virulent rebellions, and
three other commanders (one of whom being his rival, Ali ibn Ali Talib) to defeat the rest in what became known as the Wars of Apostasy (the “Ridda” Wars). The prophets were defeated and their followers forced back into Islam, and the other rebellious Arab tribes were likewise brought back into the fold.
¹¹

Historians continue to argue, as they have for centuries, over whether the Wars of Apostasy were primarily religious or primarily political.
¹²
In Islam, however, this is a distinction without a difference. The apostate Arabs refused to pay the compulsory alms (
zakat
) into the treasury, which could arguably be seen as a rebellion against the caliph as a political leader (though the requirement to pay zakat is also a religious duty—one of the five Pillars of Islam). But they also refused to pray the mandatory Islamic prayers. “Islam,” explains a modern-day proselytizing article, “is an all-embracing way of life. It extends over the entire spectrum of life, showing us how to conduct all human activities in a sound and wholesome manner.”
¹³
As far as Abu Bakr and his supporters were concerned, to reject his authority was a political act, but it also amounted to the religious act of rejecting Islam—the two were not separable. Eulogizing Abu Bakr, Umar put it this way: “he successfully waged the apostasy wars, and thanks to him, Islam is now supreme in Arabia.”
¹⁴

In the same way, as we have seen, the Islamic State today has declared that to reject its authority is to place oneself outside the fold of the Muslims.

The Wars of Apostasy successfully concluded, Abu Bakr began to expand
his domains, launching wars against both of the two great powers of the day, the Persian Empire and the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. During his caliphate, the Arabs invaded Iraq and began the process of wresting it from the Persians. As Abu Bakr was dying in August 634, Khalid ibn al-Walid won a decisive battle against the Byzantines at Ajnadain in Syria. The Byzantines’ hold on their Syrian province was drastically weakened. Two years later, Khalid and his forces defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Yarmouk in Syria, further weakening the Christian empire and paving the way for more conquests.
¹⁶

Islamic tradition also credits Abu Bakr and his successor, Umar ibn al-Khattab, with beginning the process of collecting the various revelations of the Qur’an and establishing the definitive text for the Muslim holy book. During the Wars of Apostasy, according to Islamic tradition, many people who had memorized parts of the Qur’an were killed during a battle, and the Qur’an was in danger of being lost altogether.
¹⁷
Umar realized what was at stake and urged Abu Bakr to act; Abu Bakr chose a Muslim named Zaid bin Thabit, who was said to be a
hafiz
—one who had memorized the whole Qur’an—to consult the people who had memorized parts of the Qur’an, collect the Qur’an’s revelations together, codify, and publish them (although if he had really been a hafiz, he wouldn’t have needed to do anything but sit down and write it all out himself from memory). Islamic tradition ultimately credits Uthman, the third caliph, with completing this work.
¹⁸

Umar ibn al-Khattab, the Second Rightly Guided Caliph: The Empire Expands

In his final illness Abu Bakr chose Umar to succeed him, and the transition went smoothly.
¹⁹
Umar’s ten-year caliphate was a time of energetic expansion, as his men completed the conquests of Persia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, and more.
²⁰
He oversaw the conquest and Islamization of a significant portion of the Byzantine Empire.

Islamic tradition holds that the conquering Muslims offered the conquered people conversion to Islam, submission as inferiors under Islamic rule, or death—just as the Islamic State does today. In 636, when the Arabs took Basra in Iraq, Umar instructed his lieutenant Utbah bin Ghazwan to “summon the people to God; those who respond to your call, accept it from them, but those who refuse must pay the poll tax out of humiliation and lowliness. If they refuse this, it is the sword without leniency. Fear God with regard to what you have been entrusted.”
²¹

Umar emphasized that the Muslims must be sure to collect the jizya tax from the subjugated peoples, as it was nothing less than the Muslims’ source of livelihood: “I advise you to fulfill Allah’s
dhimma
(financial obligation made with the
dhimmi
) as it is the
dhimma
of your Prophet and the source of the livelihood of your dependents.”
²²

It is a myth commonly believed nowadays that the conquered people welcomed Umar’s armies as liberators, as their tax rates were lower than those of the Byzantines, and that the Muslims were generally less oppressive rulers. John Esposito, the Catholic apologist for Islam at Georgetown University, has said, “In many ways, local populations found Muslim rule more flexible and tolerant than that of Byzantium and Persia.”
²³
The online “MacroHistory and World Timeline” states flatly: “In Egypt, Constantinople’s Catholic authorities had persecuted, flogged, tortured and executed Monophysite Christians, and the Monophysites saw the Arabs as liberators. So too did Egypt’s peasants, who had felt oppressed by tyrannical, mostly Greek, landlords.”
²⁴