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Second Fitna
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Second Fitna
The Second Fitna was the second civil war in the Islamic community during the early Umayyad Caliphate. It followed the death of the first Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I in 680, and lasted for about twelve years. The war involved the defeat of three main challenges to the authority of the Umayyad dynasty, the first by Husayn ibn Ali, as well as his supporters including Sulayman ibn Surad and Mukhtar al-Thaqafi who rallied to avenge his death in Iraq, the second by Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr who proclaimed himself caliph in Mecca and Medina and would be nominally recognized throughout most of the Caliphate, and the Kharijites who took over central Arabia and southern Iraq and Persia.
The roots of the civil war go back to the First Fitna. After the assassination of the third Rashidun caliph Uthman, the Islamic community experienced its first civil war over the immediate question of retribution for his murder. Following the assassination of the fourth Rashidun caliph Ali in 661 and the abdication of his successor Hasan the same year, Mu'awiya became the sole ruler of the caliphate. Mu'awiya's unprecedented decision to nominate his son Yazid as his heir sparked opposition, and tensions soared after Mu'awiya's death. Husayn ibn Ali was invited by the pro-Alids of Kufa to overthrow the Umayyads but was killed with his small company en route to Kufa at the Battle of Karbala in October 680. Yazid's army suppressed anti-government rebels in Medina in August 683 and subsequently besieged Mecca, where Ibn al-Zubayr had established himself in opposition to Yazid. After Yazid died in November the siege was abandoned, and Umayyad authority would soon collapse throughout the caliphate following the death of his son except in parts of Syria where Marwan I was proclaimed caliph; most provinces recognized Ibn al-Zubayr as caliph. A series of pro-Alid movements demanding to avenge Husayn's death emerged in Kufa, beginning with Ibn Surad's Penitents movement, which was crushed by the Umayyads at the Battle of Ayn al-Warda in January 685. Kufa was then taken over by Mukhtar, who rallied Husayn's supporters and the disenfranchised mawali to his cause. Though his forces routed a large Umayyad army at the Battle of Khazir in August 686, Mukhtar and his supporters were slain by the Zubayrids in April 687 following a series of battles. Under the leadership of Marwan, the Umayyads would consolidate their power over Syria and retake Egypt from the Zubayrids, and under his successor Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, the Umayyads would reconquer Iraq after defeating the Zubayrids at the Battle of Maskin in 691 and would reassert their control over the Caliphate after killing Ibn al-Zubayr in the second siege of Mecca in 692, while their general Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf would suppress the Kharijites in the years afterwards.
Abd al-Malik made key reforms in the administrative structure of the caliphate, including the centralization of caliphal power, restructuring the army, and implementing Arabization and Islamization policies on the bureaucracy. The events of the Second Fitna intensified sectarian tendencies in Islam, and various doctrines were developed within what would later become the Sunni and Shi'a denominations of Islam.
After the third Rashidun caliph Uthman ibn Affan's assassination by rebels in 656, the rebels and the townspeople of Medina declared Ali ibn Abi Talib, a cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, the next Rashidun caliph. Most of the Quraysh (the grouping of Meccan clans to which Muhammad and all the early caliphs belonged), led by Muhammad's prominent companions Talha ibn Ubayd Allah and Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, and Muhammad's widow Aisha, refused to recognize Ali. They called for revenge against Uthman's killers and the election of a new caliph through shura (consultation). Ali emerged victorious against these early opponents at the Battle of the Camel near Basra in November 656, thereupon moving his capital to the Iraqi garrison town of Kufa. Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, the long-time governor of Syria, and a member of the Umayyad clan to which Uthman belonged, also denounced Ali's legitimacy as caliph, and the two confronted each other at the Battle of Siffin. The battle ended in a stalemate in July 657 when Ali's forces stopped fighting in response to Mu'awiya's calls for arbitration. Ali reluctantly agreed to talks, but a faction of his forces, later called the Kharijites, broke away in protest, condemning his acceptance of arbitration as blasphemous. Arbitration could not settle the dispute between Mu'awiya and Ali. Ali was assassinated by a Kharijite in January 661, after Ali's forces had killed most of the Kharijites at the Battle of Nahrawan. Ali's eldest son Hasan was proclaimed caliph in Kufa, but Mu'awiya challenged his authority and invaded Iraq. In August, Hasan abdicated the caliphate to Mu'awiya in a peace treaty, thus ending the First Fitna
The treaty brought a temporary peace, but no framework of succession was established. As it had in the past, the issue of succession could potentially lead to problems in the future. The orientalist Bernard Lewis writes: "The only precedents available to Mu'āwiya from Islamic history were election and civil war. The former was unworkable; the latter had obvious drawbacks." Mu'awiya wanted to settle the issue in his lifetime by designating his son Yazid as his successor. In 676, he announced his nomination of Yazid. With no precedence in Islamic history, hereditary succession aroused opposition from different quarters and the nomination was considered the corruption of the caliphate into a monarchy. Mu'awiya summoned a shura in Damascus and persuaded representatives from various provinces by diplomacy and bribes. The sons of a few of Muhammad's prominent companions including Husayn ibn Ali, Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, Abd Allah ibn Umar and Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr, all of whom, by virtue of their descent, could also lay claim to the caliphal office, opposed the nomination. Mu'awiya's threats and the general recognition of Yazid throughout the caliphate forced them into silence.
Historian Fred Donner writes that contentions over the leadership of the Muslim community had not been settled in the First Fitna and resurfaced with the death of Mu'awiya in April 680. Before his death, Mu'awiya cautioned Yazid that Husayn and Ibn al-Zubayr might challenge his rule and instructed him to defeat them if they did. Ibn al-Zubayr, in particular, was considered dangerous and was to be treated harshly, unless he came to terms. Upon his succession, Yazid charged the governor of Medina, his cousin Walid ibn Utba ibn Abi Sufyan, to secure allegiance from Husayn, Ibn al-Zubayr and Ibn Umar, with force if necessary. Walid sought the advice of his kinsman Marwan ibn al-Hakam. He counseled that Ibn al-Zubayr and Husayn should be forced to give allegiance as they were dangerous, while Ibn Umar should be left alone since he posed no threat. Walid summoned the two, but Ibn al-Zubayr escaped to Mecca. Husayn answered the summons but declined to give allegiance in the secretive environment of the meeting, suggesting it should be done in public. Marwan threatened to imprison him, but due to Husayn's kinship with Muhammad, Walid was unwilling to take any action against him. A few days later, Husayn left for Mecca without giving allegiance. In the view of the Islamicist G. R. Hawting, "tensions and pressures which had been suppressed by Mu'awiya came to the surface during Yazid's caliphate and erupted after his death, when Umayyad authority was temporarily eclipsed."
Husayn had considerable support in Kufa. The inhabitants of the town had fought the Umayyads and their Syrian allies during the First Fitna. They were dissatisfied with Hasan's abdication and strongly resented Umayyad rule. After the death of Hasan in 669, they had attempted unsuccessfully to interest Husayn in revolting against Mu'awiya. After Hasan died, the pro-Alids of Kufa once again invited Husayn to lead them in revolt against Yazid. To assess the situation, the Mecca-based Husayn sent his cousin Muslim ibn Aqil, who gained widespread support in Kufa and suggested Husayn join his sympathizers there. Yazid removed Nu'man ibn Bashir al-Ansari as governor due to his inaction over Ibn Aqil's activities and replaced him with Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, then governor of Basra. On Yazid's instructions, Ibn Ziyad suppressed the rebellion and executed Ibn Aqil. Encouraged by his cousin's letter, and unaware of his execution, Husayn left for Kufa. To track him down, Ibn Ziyad stationed troops along the routes leading to the city. He was intercepted at Karbala, a desert plain north of Kufa. Some 4,000 troops arrived later to force his submission to Yazid. After a few days of negotiations and his refusal to submit, Husayn was killed along with some 70 of his male companions in the Battle of Karbala on 10 October 680.
Following Husayn's death, Yazid faced increased opposition to his rule from Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, a son of Muhammad's companion Zubayr ibn al-Awwam and a grandson of the first caliph Abu Bakr (r. 632–634). Ibn al-Zubayr secretly began taking allegiance in Mecca, though publicly he only called for a shura to elect a new caliph. At first, Yazid tried placating him by sending gifts and delegations in an attempt to reach a settlement. After Ibn al-Zubayr's refusal to recognize him, Yazid sent a force led by Ibn al-Zubayr's estranged brother Amr to arrest him. The force was defeated and Amr was executed. In addition to the growing influence of Ibn al-Zubayr in Medina, the city's inhabitants were disillusioned with Umayyad rule and Mu'awiya's agricultural projects, which included confiscation of their lands to increase government revenue. Yazid invited the notables of Medina to Damascus and tried to win them over with gifts. They were unpersuaded, however, and on their return to Medina narrated tales of Yazid's lavish lifestyle and practices considered by many to be impious, including drinking wine, hunting with hounds and his love for music. The Medinese, under the leadership of Abd Allah ibn Hanzala, renounced their allegiance to Yazid and expelled the governor, Yazid's cousin Uthman ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Sufyan, and the Umayyads residing in the city. Yazid dispatched a 12,000-strong army under the command of Muslim ibn Uqba to reconquer the Hejaz (western Arabia). After failed negotiations, the Medinese were defeated in the Battle of al-Harra, and the city was plundered for three days. Having forced the rebels to renew their allegiance, Yazid's army headed for Mecca to subdue Ibn al-Zubayr.
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Second Fitna
The Second Fitna was the second civil war in the Islamic community during the early Umayyad Caliphate. It followed the death of the first Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I in 680, and lasted for about twelve years. The war involved the defeat of three main challenges to the authority of the Umayyad dynasty, the first by Husayn ibn Ali, as well as his supporters including Sulayman ibn Surad and Mukhtar al-Thaqafi who rallied to avenge his death in Iraq, the second by Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr who proclaimed himself caliph in Mecca and Medina and would be nominally recognized throughout most of the Caliphate, and the Kharijites who took over central Arabia and southern Iraq and Persia.
The roots of the civil war go back to the First Fitna. After the assassination of the third Rashidun caliph Uthman, the Islamic community experienced its first civil war over the immediate question of retribution for his murder. Following the assassination of the fourth Rashidun caliph Ali in 661 and the abdication of his successor Hasan the same year, Mu'awiya became the sole ruler of the caliphate. Mu'awiya's unprecedented decision to nominate his son Yazid as his heir sparked opposition, and tensions soared after Mu'awiya's death. Husayn ibn Ali was invited by the pro-Alids of Kufa to overthrow the Umayyads but was killed with his small company en route to Kufa at the Battle of Karbala in October 680. Yazid's army suppressed anti-government rebels in Medina in August 683 and subsequently besieged Mecca, where Ibn al-Zubayr had established himself in opposition to Yazid. After Yazid died in November the siege was abandoned, and Umayyad authority would soon collapse throughout the caliphate following the death of his son except in parts of Syria where Marwan I was proclaimed caliph; most provinces recognized Ibn al-Zubayr as caliph. A series of pro-Alid movements demanding to avenge Husayn's death emerged in Kufa, beginning with Ibn Surad's Penitents movement, which was crushed by the Umayyads at the Battle of Ayn al-Warda in January 685. Kufa was then taken over by Mukhtar, who rallied Husayn's supporters and the disenfranchised mawali to his cause. Though his forces routed a large Umayyad army at the Battle of Khazir in August 686, Mukhtar and his supporters were slain by the Zubayrids in April 687 following a series of battles. Under the leadership of Marwan, the Umayyads would consolidate their power over Syria and retake Egypt from the Zubayrids, and under his successor Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, the Umayyads would reconquer Iraq after defeating the Zubayrids at the Battle of Maskin in 691 and would reassert their control over the Caliphate after killing Ibn al-Zubayr in the second siege of Mecca in 692, while their general Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf would suppress the Kharijites in the years afterwards.
Abd al-Malik made key reforms in the administrative structure of the caliphate, including the centralization of caliphal power, restructuring the army, and implementing Arabization and Islamization policies on the bureaucracy. The events of the Second Fitna intensified sectarian tendencies in Islam, and various doctrines were developed within what would later become the Sunni and Shi'a denominations of Islam.
After the third Rashidun caliph Uthman ibn Affan's assassination by rebels in 656, the rebels and the townspeople of Medina declared Ali ibn Abi Talib, a cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, the next Rashidun caliph. Most of the Quraysh (the grouping of Meccan clans to which Muhammad and all the early caliphs belonged), led by Muhammad's prominent companions Talha ibn Ubayd Allah and Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, and Muhammad's widow Aisha, refused to recognize Ali. They called for revenge against Uthman's killers and the election of a new caliph through shura (consultation). Ali emerged victorious against these early opponents at the Battle of the Camel near Basra in November 656, thereupon moving his capital to the Iraqi garrison town of Kufa. Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, the long-time governor of Syria, and a member of the Umayyad clan to which Uthman belonged, also denounced Ali's legitimacy as caliph, and the two confronted each other at the Battle of Siffin. The battle ended in a stalemate in July 657 when Ali's forces stopped fighting in response to Mu'awiya's calls for arbitration. Ali reluctantly agreed to talks, but a faction of his forces, later called the Kharijites, broke away in protest, condemning his acceptance of arbitration as blasphemous. Arbitration could not settle the dispute between Mu'awiya and Ali. Ali was assassinated by a Kharijite in January 661, after Ali's forces had killed most of the Kharijites at the Battle of Nahrawan. Ali's eldest son Hasan was proclaimed caliph in Kufa, but Mu'awiya challenged his authority and invaded Iraq. In August, Hasan abdicated the caliphate to Mu'awiya in a peace treaty, thus ending the First Fitna
The treaty brought a temporary peace, but no framework of succession was established. As it had in the past, the issue of succession could potentially lead to problems in the future. The orientalist Bernard Lewis writes: "The only precedents available to Mu'āwiya from Islamic history were election and civil war. The former was unworkable; the latter had obvious drawbacks." Mu'awiya wanted to settle the issue in his lifetime by designating his son Yazid as his successor. In 676, he announced his nomination of Yazid. With no precedence in Islamic history, hereditary succession aroused opposition from different quarters and the nomination was considered the corruption of the caliphate into a monarchy. Mu'awiya summoned a shura in Damascus and persuaded representatives from various provinces by diplomacy and bribes. The sons of a few of Muhammad's prominent companions including Husayn ibn Ali, Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, Abd Allah ibn Umar and Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr, all of whom, by virtue of their descent, could also lay claim to the caliphal office, opposed the nomination. Mu'awiya's threats and the general recognition of Yazid throughout the caliphate forced them into silence.
Historian Fred Donner writes that contentions over the leadership of the Muslim community had not been settled in the First Fitna and resurfaced with the death of Mu'awiya in April 680. Before his death, Mu'awiya cautioned Yazid that Husayn and Ibn al-Zubayr might challenge his rule and instructed him to defeat them if they did. Ibn al-Zubayr, in particular, was considered dangerous and was to be treated harshly, unless he came to terms. Upon his succession, Yazid charged the governor of Medina, his cousin Walid ibn Utba ibn Abi Sufyan, to secure allegiance from Husayn, Ibn al-Zubayr and Ibn Umar, with force if necessary. Walid sought the advice of his kinsman Marwan ibn al-Hakam. He counseled that Ibn al-Zubayr and Husayn should be forced to give allegiance as they were dangerous, while Ibn Umar should be left alone since he posed no threat. Walid summoned the two, but Ibn al-Zubayr escaped to Mecca. Husayn answered the summons but declined to give allegiance in the secretive environment of the meeting, suggesting it should be done in public. Marwan threatened to imprison him, but due to Husayn's kinship with Muhammad, Walid was unwilling to take any action against him. A few days later, Husayn left for Mecca without giving allegiance. In the view of the Islamicist G. R. Hawting, "tensions and pressures which had been suppressed by Mu'awiya came to the surface during Yazid's caliphate and erupted after his death, when Umayyad authority was temporarily eclipsed."
Husayn had considerable support in Kufa. The inhabitants of the town had fought the Umayyads and their Syrian allies during the First Fitna. They were dissatisfied with Hasan's abdication and strongly resented Umayyad rule. After the death of Hasan in 669, they had attempted unsuccessfully to interest Husayn in revolting against Mu'awiya. After Hasan died, the pro-Alids of Kufa once again invited Husayn to lead them in revolt against Yazid. To assess the situation, the Mecca-based Husayn sent his cousin Muslim ibn Aqil, who gained widespread support in Kufa and suggested Husayn join his sympathizers there. Yazid removed Nu'man ibn Bashir al-Ansari as governor due to his inaction over Ibn Aqil's activities and replaced him with Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, then governor of Basra. On Yazid's instructions, Ibn Ziyad suppressed the rebellion and executed Ibn Aqil. Encouraged by his cousin's letter, and unaware of his execution, Husayn left for Kufa. To track him down, Ibn Ziyad stationed troops along the routes leading to the city. He was intercepted at Karbala, a desert plain north of Kufa. Some 4,000 troops arrived later to force his submission to Yazid. After a few days of negotiations and his refusal to submit, Husayn was killed along with some 70 of his male companions in the Battle of Karbala on 10 October 680.
Following Husayn's death, Yazid faced increased opposition to his rule from Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, a son of Muhammad's companion Zubayr ibn al-Awwam and a grandson of the first caliph Abu Bakr (r. 632–634). Ibn al-Zubayr secretly began taking allegiance in Mecca, though publicly he only called for a shura to elect a new caliph. At first, Yazid tried placating him by sending gifts and delegations in an attempt to reach a settlement. After Ibn al-Zubayr's refusal to recognize him, Yazid sent a force led by Ibn al-Zubayr's estranged brother Amr to arrest him. The force was defeated and Amr was executed. In addition to the growing influence of Ibn al-Zubayr in Medina, the city's inhabitants were disillusioned with Umayyad rule and Mu'awiya's agricultural projects, which included confiscation of their lands to increase government revenue. Yazid invited the notables of Medina to Damascus and tried to win them over with gifts. They were unpersuaded, however, and on their return to Medina narrated tales of Yazid's lavish lifestyle and practices considered by many to be impious, including drinking wine, hunting with hounds and his love for music. The Medinese, under the leadership of Abd Allah ibn Hanzala, renounced their allegiance to Yazid and expelled the governor, Yazid's cousin Uthman ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Sufyan, and the Umayyads residing in the city. Yazid dispatched a 12,000-strong army under the command of Muslim ibn Uqba to reconquer the Hejaz (western Arabia). After failed negotiations, the Medinese were defeated in the Battle of al-Harra, and the city was plundered for three days. Having forced the rebels to renew their allegiance, Yazid's army headed for Mecca to subdue Ibn al-Zubayr.
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