History
The four caliphs
Thirty years after the Prophet
5 min, Intro
After the Prophet died in 632, four of his closest Companions led the Muslims, one after another. Sunni Muslims call them the Rightly Guided Caliphs. In thirty years the community grew from Arabia into an empire. And it divided.
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The thread
The Prophet dies in 632, with no successor everyone accepts. Four of his closest Companions lead in turn. Abu Bakr holds Arabia together. 'Umar builds a state. 'Uthman sends out one Qur'an. 'Ali inherits a civil war. In thirty years the community becomes an empire. And divides.
1. Abu Bakr holds it together (632 to 634)
Picture Madinah in 632. The Prophet ﷺ has just died. He had named no political successor in a way everyone accepted. So who leads now?
At a meeting in Madinah, the Companions chose Abu Bakr, his oldest friend and father-in-law. 'Ali and his family were busy with the burial. They were not there. That would matter later.
Then Arabia began to come apart. Many tribes broke away. Some refused to pay zakat. Some followed new self-declared prophets. Abu Bakr fought them in the Riddah wars and reunited Arabia.
Those battles had a cost. Many who knew the Qur'an by heart died in them. So Abu Bakr had the Qur'an collected, from written pieces and from memory, into a single copy.
Under Abu Bakr, the Qur'an was gathered into one copy within two years.
2. 'Umar builds a state (634 to 644)
Abu Bakr had held Arabia together. Under 'Umar, Muslim armies went far beyond it. They defeated both great empires of the region, the Byzantine and the Persian, and took Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Jerusalem.
Winning land is one thing. Running it is another. 'Umar set up a treasury, paid salaries and appointed judges. He also started the Islamic calendar, counted from the Hijrah.
He was famous for strict fairness and plain living. In 644, while he was leading the dawn prayer, a Persian slave named Abu Lu'lu'ah stabbed him.
'Umar built the institutions of a state: a treasury, salaries and judges.
3. 'Uthman and the one Qur'an (644 to 656)
After 'Umar, a council of six chose 'Uthman ibn 'Affan. One of his acts was about the Qur'an. He ordered official copies sent to the main cities, so that every region recited the same text. The Qur'an in use today goes back to these copies.
Another choice caused trouble. As governors he appointed relatives from the Umayyad clan. That caused anger.
In 656 rebels from Egypt and Iraq besieged his house in Madinah. They killed him there. He was reading the Qur'an, the sources say, when they did.
The Qur'an Muslims read today goes back to 'Uthman's copies.
4. 'Ali and the first civil war (656 to 661)
'Uthman had been murdered. In the chaos that followed, 'Ali ibn Abi Talib became caliph. He was the Prophet's cousin, and the husband of his daughter Fatimah.
Some demanded that he punish the killers first. That dispute led to war. First came the Battle of the Camel, against 'A'ishah, Talhah and al-Zubayr. Then came Siffin, against Mu'awiyah, the governor of Syria.
In 661 'Ali was killed in Kufa. The killer was a Kharijite, one of a group that had turned against both sides.
His son al-Hasan was pledged as caliph. After about six months, al-Hasan handed power to Mu'awiyah to end the fighting. Sunnis count Hasan's months in the thirty years of rightly guided rule. Shi'a honour him as the second Imam.
Mu'awiyah founded the Umayyad dynasty. Muslims call this first civil war the Fitnah, the trial.
The first civil war, the Fitnah, still shapes Muslims today.