List of Caliphs :
This article is a list of people who have held or claimed the title of Caliph,the supreme religious and political leader of an Islamic state known as the caliphate .Caliphs led the Muslim Ummah as political successors to the Prophet Muhammad and widely recognised caliphates have existed in various forms for most of Islamic history.
The first caliphate, the Rashidun Caliphate, was ruled by the four Rashidun caliphs Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali, who are considered by Sunni Muslims to have been the most virtuous and pure caliphs. They were chosen by popular acclamation or by a small committee, in contrast with the following caliphates, which were mostly hereditary.On the other hand, Shiites only recognise Ali and consider the first three caliphs to be usurpers.The Rashidun caliphate ended with the First Fitna, which transferred authority to the Umayyad dynasty that presided over the Umayyad Caliphate, the largest caliphate and the last one to actively rule the entire Muslim world.
The Abbasid Revolution overthrew the Ummayads and instituted the Abbasid dynasty which ruled over the Abbasid Caliphate.The Abbassid Caliphate was initially strong and united, but gradually fractured into several states whose rulers only paid lip service to the caliph in Baghdad. There were also rivals to the Abbasids who claimed the caliphates for themselves, such as the Isma'ili Shia Fatimids, the Sunni Ummayyads in Córdoba and the Almohads, who followed their own doctrine. When Baghdad fell to the Mongols, the Abbassid family relocated to Cairo, where they continued to claim caliphal authority but had no political power, and actual authority was in the hands of the Mamluk Sultanate.
After the Ottoman conquest of Egypt, the Abbasid caliph Al-Mutawakkil III was taken to Constantinople, where he surrendered the caliphate to the Ottoman Sultan Selim I. The caliphate then remained in the House of Osman until after the First world war. The Ottoman Sultanate was abolished in 1922 by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The head of the House of Osman, Abdulmejid II, retained the title of caliph for two more years, after which the caliphate was abolished in 1924.
Rashidun Caliphate (632–661)
After Muhammad's death in 632 CE, his Medinan companions debated which of them should succeed him in running the affairs of the Muslims while Muhammad's household was busy with his burial. Umar and Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah pledged their loyalty to Abu Bakr, with the Ansar and the Quraysh soon following suit. Abu Bakr adopted the title of Khalīfaṫ Rasūl Allāh or simply caliph.Abu Bakr embarked on campaigns to propagate Islam. First he would have to subdue the Arabian tribes, which had claimed that although they pledged allegiance to Muhammad and accepted Islam, they owed nothing to Abu Bakr. As a caliph, Abu Bakr was not a monarch and never claimed such a title; nor did any of his three successors. Rather, their election and leadership were based upon merit.
Notably, according to Sunnis, all four Rashidun Caliphs were connected to Muhammad through marriage, were early converts to Islam,were among ten who were explicitly promised paradise, were his closest companions by association and support and were often highly praised by Muhammad and delegated roles of leadership within the nascent Muslim community. These caliphs are collectively known in Sunni Islam as the Rashidun, or "Rightly Guided" caliphs . According to Sunni Muslims, the term Rashidun Caliphate is derived from a famous hadith of Muhammad, where he foretold that the caliphate after him would last for 30 years[13] (the length of the Rashidun Caliphate) and would then be followed by kingship (the Umayyad Caliphate was a hereditary monarchy).Furthermore, according to other hadiths in Sunan Abu Dawood and Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal, towards the end times, the Rightly Guided Caliphate will be restored once again by God.However, this term is not used in Shia Islam, as most Shia Muslims do not consider the rule of the first three caliphs legitimate.On the other hand, the Zaydi Shia Muslims believe the first three caliphs to be legitimate leaders.
- Abu Bakr R-(632–634)
- Umar R-(634–644)
- Uthman R-(644–656)
- Ali R-(656–661)
The reign of these caliphs, called the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), is considered in Sunni Islam to have been 'rightly guided' (Arabic: rāshid), meaning that it constitutes a model (sunna) to be followed and emulated from a religious point of view
Abu Bakr Abdullah ibn Uthman Abi Quhafa
Abu Bakr Abdullah ibn Uthman Abi Quhafa was the senior companion and was, through his daughter Aisha, a father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, as well as the first Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate. He is known with the honorific title "al-Siddiq" by Sunni Muslims. He ruled over the Rashidun Caliphate from 632 to 634 CE when he became the first Muslim Caliph following Muhammad's death.As caliph, Abu Bakr continued the political and administrative functions previously exercised by Muhammad. Abu Bakr was called As-Siddiq and was known by that title among later generations of Sunni Muslims. He prevented the recently converted Muslims from dispersing, kept the community united, and consolidated Islamic grip on the region by containing the Ridda, while extending the Dar Al Islam all the way to the Red Sea.
Umar ibn al-Khattab
Umar ibn al-Khattab was a leading companion and adviser to Muhammad. His daughter Hafsa bint Umar was married to Muhammad; thus he became Muhammad's father-in-law. He became the second Muslim caliph after Muhammad's death and ruled for 10 years.He succeeded Abu Bakr on 23 August 634 as the second caliph, and played a significant role in Islam. Under Umar the Islamic empire expanded at an unprecedented rate, ruling the whole Sassanid Persian Empire and more than two thirds of the Eastern Roman Empire.His legislative abilities, firm political and administrative control over a rapidly expanding empire, and brilliantly coordinated multi-prong attacks against the Sassanid Persian Empire resulted in the conquest of the Persian empire in less than two years. This marked his reputation as a great political and military leader. Among his conquests are Jerusalem, Damascus, and Egypt.He was killed in 644 by a Persian captive named Abu Lu'lu'a Firuz.
Uthman-Uthman ibn Affan
Uthman ibn Affan was one of the early companions and son in law of Muhammad.Two of Muhammad and Khadija daughters Ruqayyah and Umm Kulthum were married to him one after another. Uthman was born into the Umayyad clan of Mecca, a powerful family of the Quraysh tribe. He became caliph at the age of 70. Under his leadership, the empire expanded into Fars (present-day Iran) in 650 and some areas of Khorasan (present-day Afghanistan) in 651, and the conquest of Armenia was begun in the 640s.His rule ended when he was assassinated.
Uthman is perhaps best known for forming the committee which was tasked with producing copies of the Quran based on text that had been gathered separately on parchment, bones and rocks during the lifetime of Muhammad and also on a copy of the Quran that had been collated by Abu Bakr and left with Muhammad's widow after Abu Bakr's death. The committee members were also reciters of the Quran and had memorised the entire text during the lifetime of Muhammad. This work was undertaken due to the vast expansion of Islam under Uthman's rule, which encountered many different dialects and languages. This had led to variant readings of the Quran for those converts who were not familiar with the language. After clarifying any possible errors in pronunciation or dialects, Uthman sent copies of the sacred text to each of the Muslim cities and garrison towns, and destroyed variant texts.
ALI ibn AbU ṬALib
Ali ibn Abi Talib was Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law. In Mecca, a young Ali was the first male to embrace Islam and the person who offered his support when Muhammad first presented Islam to his relatives.Later, he facilitated Muhammad's safe escape to Medina by risking his life as the decoy.In Medina, Ali swore a pact of brotherhood with Muhammad and later took the hand of Muhammad's daughter, Fatimah, in marriage.Ali commonly acted as Muhammad's secretary in Medina, and served as his deputy during the expedition of Tabuk.Ali is often considered the most able warrior in Muhammad's army and the two were the only Muslim men who represented Islam against a Christian delegation from Najran.Ali's role in the collection of the Quran, the central text of Islam, is deemed as one of his key contributions. In Shia Islam, Ali is considered the rightful successor of Muhammad whose appointment was announced at the event of Ghadir Khumm and earlier in his prophetic mission.
Shortly after Uthman's assassination in Medina, the crowds turned to Ali for leadership and were turned down initially.The explanation of Will Durant for Ali's initial reluctance is that, "Genial and charitable, meditative and reserved; he [Ali] shrank from drama in which religion had been displaced by politics, and devotion by intrigue.In the absence of any serious opposition and urged particularly by the Ansar and the Iraqi delegations, Ali eventually took up the mantle on 25th of Dhu al-Hijjah, 656 CE, and Muslims filled the Prophet's Mosque and its courtyard to pledge their allegiance to him.
It has been suggested that Ali inherited the grave internal problems of Uthman's reign.After his appointment as the caliph, Ali transferred his capital from Medina to Kufa, the Muslim garrison city in the present-day Iraq. Ali also dismissed most of Uthman's governors whom he considered corrupt, including Muawiya, Uthman's cousin.Under a lenient Uthman, Muawiya had built a parallel power structure in Damascus that, according to Madelung, mirrored the despotism of the Roman Byzantine empire. Muawiya defied Ali's orders and, once the negotiations failed, the two sides engaged in a bloody and lengthy civil war, which is known as the First Fitnah.
After Ali's assassination in 661 CE at the mosque of Kufa, his son, Hasan, was elected caliph and adopted a similar approach towards Muawiya.However, as Muawiya began to buy the loyalties of military commanders and tribal chiefs, Hasan's military campaign suffered defections in large numbers.After a failed assassination attempt on his life, a wounded Hasan ceded the caliphate to Muawiya.
Umayya Caliphate (661-750)
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, also known as the Umayyads.
During the pre-Islamic period, the Umayyads or 'Banu Umayya' were a leading clan of the Quraysh tribe of Mecca.[14] By the end of the 6th century, the Umayyads dominated the Quraysh's increasingly prosperous trade networks with Syria and developed economic and military alliances with the nomadic Arab tribes that controlled the northern and central Arabian desert expanses, affording the clan a degree of political power in the region.[15] The Umayyads under the leadership of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb were the principal leaders of Meccan opposition to the Islamic prophet Muhammad, but after the latter captured Mecca in 630, Abu Sufyan and the Quraysh embraced Islam.[16][17] To reconcile his influential Qurayshite tribesmen, Muhammad gave his former opponents, including Abu Sufyan, a stake in the new order.[18][19][20] Abu Sufyan and the Umayyads relocated to Medina, Islam's political centre, to maintain their new-found political influence in the nascent Muslim community.
Muhammad's death in 632 left open the succession of leadership of the Muslim community.Leaders of the Ansar, the natives of Medina who had provided Muhammad safe haven after his emigration from Mecca in 622, discussed forwarding their own candidate out of concern that the Muhajirun, Muhammad's early followers and fellow emigrants from Mecca, would ally with their fellow tribesmen from the former Qurayshite elite and take control of the Muslim state.The Muhajirun gave allegiance to one of their own, the early, elderly companion of Muhammad, Abu Bakr (r. 632–634), and put an end to Ansarite deliberations.[24] Abu Bakr was viewed as acceptable by the Ansar and the Qurayshite elite and was acknowledged as caliph (leader of the Muslim community).He showed favor to the Umayyads by awarding them command roles in the Muslim conquest of Syria. One of the appointees was Yazid, the son of Abu Sufyan, who owned property and maintained trade networks in Syri
Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258)
The Abbasid Caliphate was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 CE), from whom the dynasty takes its name.They ruled as caliphs for most of the caliphate from their capital in Baghdad in modern-day Iraq, after having overthrown the Umayyad Caliphate in the Abbasid Revolution of 750 CE (132 AH). The Abbasid Caliphate first centered its government in Kufa, modern-day Iraq, but in 762 the caliph Al-Mansur founded the city of Baghdad, near the ancient Babylonian capital city of Babylon. Baghdad became the center of science, culture and invention in what became known as the Golden Age of Islam. This, in addition to housing several key academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom, as well as a multiethnic and multi-religious environment, garnered it a worldwide reputation as the "Center of Learning".
The Abbasid caliphs were Arabs descended from Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, one of the youngest uncles of Muhammad and of the same Banu Hashim clan. The Abbasids claimed to be the true successors of Muhammad in replacing the Umayyad descendants of Banu Umayya by virtue of their closer bloodline to Muhammad.
Abbasid Revolution (750–751)-
The Abbasids also distinguished themselves from the Umayyads by attacking their moral character and administration in general. According to Ira Lapidus, "The Abbasid revolt was supported largely by Arabs, mainly the aggrieved settlers of Merv with the addition of the Yemeni faction and their Mawali".[13] The Abbasids also appealed to non-Arab Muslims, known as mawali, who remained outside the kinship-based society of the Arabs and were perceived as a lower class within the Umayyad empire. Muhammad ibn 'Ali, a great-grandson of Abbas, began to campaign in Persia for the return of power to the family of Muhammad, the Hashemites, during the reign of Umar II.
During the reign of Marwan II, this opposition culminated in the rebellion of Ibrahim al-Imam [ca], the fourth in descent from Abbas. Supported by the province of Khorasan (Eastern Persia), even though the governor opposed them, and the Shia Arabs,[6][14] he achieved considerable success, but was captured in the year 747 and died, possibly assassinated, in prison.
On 9 June 747 (15 Ramadan AH 129), Abu Muslim, rising from Khorasan, successfully initiated an open revolt against Umayyad rule, which was carried out under the sign of the Black Standard. Close to 10,000 soldiers were under Abu Muslim's command when the hostilities officially began in Merv.[15] General Qahtaba followed the fleeing governor Nasr ibn Sayyar west defeating the Umayyads at the Battle of Gorgan, the Battle of Nahāvand and finally in the Battle of Karbala, all in the year 748.[14]
Ibrahim was captured by Marwan and was killed. The quarrel was taken up by Ibrahim's brother Abdallah, known by the name of Abu al-'Abbas as-Saffah, who defeated the Umayyads in 750 in the battle near the Great Zab and was subsequently proclaimed caliph.[16] After this loss, Marwan fled to Egypt, where he was subsequently killed. The remainder of his family, barring one male, were also eliminated.[14]
Power (752–775)-
Immediately after their victory, as-Saffah sent his forces to Central Asia, where his forces fought against Tang expansion during the Battle of Talas. The noble Iranian family Barmakids, who were instrumental in building Baghdad, introduced the world's first recorded paper mill in the city, thus beginning a new era of intellectual rebirth in the Abbasid domain. As-Saffah focused on putting down numerous rebellions in Syria and Mesopotamia. The Byzantines conducted raids during these early distractions.
The first change made by the Abbasids under al-Mansur was to move the empire's capital from Damascus to a newly founded city. Established on the Tigris River in 762, Baghdad was closer to the Persian mawali support base of the Abbasids, and this move addressed their demand for less Arab dominance in the empire. A new position, that of the wazir, was also established to delegate central authority, and even greater authority was delegated to local emirs.Al-Mansur centralised the judicial administration, and later, Harun al-Rashid established the institution of Chief Qadi to oversee it.
This resulted in a more ceremonial role for many Abbasid caliphs relative to their time under the Umayyads; the viziers began to exert greater influence, and the role of the old Arab aristocracy was slowly replaced by a Persian bureaucracy.During Al-Mansur's time, control of Al-Andalus was lost, and the Shia revolted and were defeated a year later at the Battle of Bakhamra.
The Abbasids had depended heavily on the support of Persians in their overthrow of the Umayyads. Abu al-'Abbas' successor Al-Mansur welcomed non-Arab Muslims to his court. While this helped integrate Arab and Persian cultures, it alienated many of their Arab supporters, particularly the Khorasanian Arabs who had supported them in their battles against the Umayyads. This fissure in support led to immediate problems. The Umayyads, while out of power, were not destroyed; the only surviving member of the Umayyad royal family ultimately made his way to Spain where he established himself as an independent Emir (Abd al-Rahman I, 756). In 929, Abd al-Rahman III assumed the title of Caliph, establishing Al-Andalus from Córdoba as a rival to Baghdad as the legitimate capital of the Islamic Empire.
The Umayyad empire was mostly Arab; however, the Abbasids progressively became made up of more and more converted Muslims in which the Arabs were only one of many ethnicities.
In 756, Al-Mansur sent over 4,000 Arab mercenaries to assist the Chinese Tang dynasty in the An Lushan Rebellion against An Lushan. The Abbasids, or "Black Flags" as they were commonly called, were known in Tang dynasty chronicles as the hēiyī Dàshí, "The Black-robed Tazi" Al-Rashid sent embassies to the Chinese Tang dynasty and established good relations with them.After the war, these embassies remained in China with Caliph Harun al-Rashid establishing an alliance with China.Several embassies from the Abbasid Caliphs to the Chinese court have been recorded in the T'ang Annals, the most important of these being those of Abul Abbas al-Saffah, the first Abbasid caliph; his successor Abu Jafar; and Harun al-Rashid.
Abbasid Golden Age (775–861)-
The Abbasid leadership had to work hard in the last half of the 8th century (750–800) under several competent caliphs and their viziers to usher in the administrative changes needed to keep order of the political challenges created by the far-flung nature of the empire, and the limited communication across it.It was also during this early period of the dynasty, in particular during the governance of Al-Mansur, Harun al-Rashid, and al-Ma'mun, that its reputation and power were created.
Al-Mahdi restarted the fighting with the Byzantines, and his sons continued the conflict until Empress Irene pushed for peace.[14] After several years of peace, Nikephoros I broke the treaty, then fended off multiple incursions during the first decade of the 9th century. These attacks pushed into the Taurus Mountains, culminating with a victory at the Battle of Krasos and the massive invasion of 806, led by Rashid himself.
Rashid's navy also proved successful, taking Cyprus. Rashid decided to focus on the rebellion of Rafi ibn al-Layth in Khorasan and died while there.Military operations by the caliphate were minimal while the Byzantine Empire was fighting Abbasid rule in Syria and Anatolia, with focus shifting primarily to internal matters; Abbasid governors exerted greater autonomy and, using this increasing power, began to make their positions hereditary.
At the same time, the Abbasids faced challenges closer to home. Harun al-Rashid turned on and killed most of the Barmakids, a Persian family that had grown significantly in administrative power. During the same period, several factions began either to leave the empire for other lands or to take control of distant parts of the empire. Still, the reigns of al-Rashid and his sons were considered to be the apex of the Abbasids.
Domestically, Harun pursued policies similar to those of his father Al-Mahdi. He released many of the Umayyads and 'Alids his brother Al-Hadi had imprisoned and declared amnesty for all political groups of the Quraysh.Large scale hostilities broke out with Byzantium, and under his rule, the Abbasid Empire reached its peak.
After Rashid's death, the empire was split by a civil war between the caliph al-Amin and his brother al-Ma'mun, who had the support of Khorasan. This war ended with a two-year siege of Baghdad and the eventual death of Al-Amin in 813.Al-Ma'mun ruled for 20 years of relative calm interspersed with a rebellion in Azerbaijan by the Khurramites, which was supported by the Byzantines. Al-Ma'mun was also responsible for the creation of an autonomous Khorasan, and the continued repulsing of Byzantine forays.
Al-Mu'tasim gained power in 833 and his rule marked the end of the strong caliphs. He strengthened his personal army with Turkish mercenaries and promptly restarted the war with the Byzantines. Though his attempt to seize Constantinople failed when his fleet was destroyed by a storm,his military excursions were generally successful, culminating with a resounding victory in the Sack of Amorium. The Byzantines responded by sacking Damietta in Egypt, and Al-Mutawakkil responded by sending his troops into Anatolia again, sacking and marauding until they were eventually annihilated in 863.
MAMLUK ABBASI DYNASTY
In the 9th century, the Abbasids created an army loyal only to their caliphate, composed of non-Arab origin people, known as Mamluks. Mamluk, also spelled Mameluke, slave soldier, a member of one of the armies of slaves established during the Abbasid era that later won political control of several Muslim states. Under the Ayyubid sultanate, Mamluk generals used their power to establish a dynasty that ruled Egypt and Syria from 1250 to 1517. This force, created in the reign of al-Ma'mun (813–833) and his brother and successor al-Mu'tasim (833–842), prevented the further disintegration of the empire. The Mamluk army, though often viewed negatively, both helped and hurt the caliphate. Early on, it provided the government with a stable force to address domestic and foreign problems. However, creation of this foreign army and al-Mu'tasim's transfer of the capital from Baghdad to Samarra created a division between the caliphate and the peoples they claimed to rule.
THE mamluk was an "owned slave", distinguished from the ghulam, or household slave. After thorough training in various fields such as martial arts, court etiquette and Islamic sciences, these slaves were freed. However, they were still expected to remain loyal to their master and serve his household.Mamluks had formed a part of the state or military apparatus in Syria and Egypt since at least the 9th century, rising to become governing dynasties of Egypt and the Levant during the Tulunid and Ikhshidid periods.Mamluk regiments constituted the backbone of Egypt's military under Ayyubid rule in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, beginning with Sultan Saladin (r. 1174–1193) who replaced the Fatimids' black African infantry with mamluks.Each Ayyubid sultan and high-ranking emir had a private mamluk corps. Most of the mamluks in the Ayyubids' service were ethnic Kipchak Turks from Central Asia, who, upon entering service, were converted to Sunni Islam and taught Arabic.A mamluk was highly committed to his master, to whom he often referred as "father", and was in turn treated more as a kinsman than as a slave. Sultan as-Salih Ayyub (r. 1240–1249), the last of the Ayyubid sultans, had acquired some 1 000 mamluks (some of them free-born) from Syria, Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula by 1229, while serving as na'ib (viceroy) of Egypt during the absence of his father, Sultan al-Kamil (r. 1218–1238). These mamluks were called the "Salihiyyah" (singular "Salihi") after their master.
As-Salih became sultan of Egypt in 1240, and, upon his accession to the Ayyubid throne, he manumitted and promoted large numbers of his original and newly recruited Mamluks on the condition that they remain in his service.To provision his mamluks, as-Salih forcibly seized the iqtaʿat (fiefs; singular iqtaʿ) of his predecessors' emirs.As-Salih sought to create a paramilitary apparatus in Egypt loyal to himself, and his aggressive recruitment and promotion of mamluks led contemporaries to view Egypt as "Salihi-ridden", according to historian Winslow William Clifford.Despite his close relationship with his mamluks, tensions existed between as-Salih and the Salihiyyah, and a number of Salihi mamluks were imprisoned or exiled throughout as-Salih's reign.While historian Stephen Humphreys asserts that the Salihiyyah's increasing dominance of the state did not personally threaten as-Salih due to their fidelity to him, Clifford believes that the Salihiyyah developed an autonomy within the state that fell short of such loyalty.Opposition among the Salihiyyah to as-Salih rose when the latter ordered the assassination of his brother Abu Bakr al-Adil in 1249, a task that affronted many of the Salihiyyah and by whom was rejected; four of the Salihiyyah ultimately agreed to execute the controversial operation.
Rise to power-
Tensions between as-Salih Ayyub and his mamluks came to a head later in 1249 when Louis IX of France's forces captured Damietta in their bid to conquer Egypt during the Seventh Crusade.As-Salih believed Damietta should not have been evacuated and was rumored to have threatened punitive action against the Damietta garrison. The rumor, accentuated by the execution of civilian notables who evacuated Damietta, provoked a mutiny by the garrison of his camp in al-Mansurah, which included numerous Salihi mamluks. The situation was calmed after the intervention of the atabeg al-askar (commander of the military), Fakhr ad-Din ibn Shaykh al-Shuyukh.
As the Crusaders advanced, as-Salih died and was succeeded by his son al-Muazzam Turanshah,who was in al-Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia) at the time. Initially, the Salihiyyah welcomed Turanshah's succession, with many greeting him and requesting confirmation of their administrative posts and iqtaʿ assignments at his arrival to the Egyptian frontier.However, Turanshah sought to challenge the dominance of the Salihiyyah in the paramilitary apparatus by promoting his Kurdish retinue from Upper Mesopotamia ("al-Jazira" in Arabic) and the Levant as a counterweight to the predominantly Turkic Salihiyyah.
Prior to Turanshah's arrival at the front facing the French, the Bahriyyah, a junior regiment of the Salihiyyah commanded by Baibars al-Buduqdari, defeated the Crusaders at the Battle of al-Mansurah on 11 February 1250. On 27 February, Turanshah, as new sultan, arrived in Egypt from Hasankeyf, where he had been Emir of Hisn Kayfa since AH 636 (1238/1239 CE), and went straight to al-Mansurah to lead the Egyptian army. On 5 April 1250, covered by the darkness of night, the Crusaders evacuated their camp opposite al-Mansurah and began to flee northward towards Damietta. The Egyptians followed them into the Battle of Fariskur where the Egyptians utterly destroyed the Crusaders on 6 April. King Louis IX and a few of his surviving nobles surrendered and were taken as prisoners, effectively ending the Seventh Crusade.
Turanshah proceeded to place his own entourage and mamluks, known as the "Mu'azzamiyah", in positions of authority to the detriment of Salihi interests. On 2 May 1250,a group of disgruntled Salihi officers had Turanshah assassinated at his camp in Fariskur.
According to Humphreys, as-Salih's frequent wars against his Ayyubid relatives likely voided the Salihiyyah's loyalty to other members of the Ayyubid dynasty.Nonetheless, the Salihiyyah were careful not to depict the assassination of Turanshah as an assault against Ayyubid legitimacy, but rather an act against a deviant of the Muslim polity. Moreover, an electoral college dominated by the Salihiyyah convened to choose a successor to Turanshah among the Ayyubid emirs, with opinion largely split between an-Nasir Yusuf of Damascus and al-Mughith Umar of al-Karak. Ultimately, however, consensus settled on as-Salih's widow, Shajar ad-Durr.
Shajar ad-Durr ensured the Salihiyyah's dominance of the paramilitary elite, and ushered in a process of establishing patronage and kinship ties with the Salihiyyah. In particular, she cultivated close ties with the Jamdari (pl. Jamdariyyah) and Bahri (pl. "Bahriyyah") elements of the Salihiyyah, by distributing to them iqtaʿ and other benefits.The Bahriyya were named after the Arabic word bahr, meaning "sea" or "large river", because their barracks was located on the Nile River island of Rawda. They were mostly drawn from among the Cumans-Kipchaks who controlled the steppes north of the Black Sea.Shajar al-Durr's efforts and the lingering desire among the military in Egypt to maintain the Ayyubid state was made evident when the Salihi mamluk and atabeg al-askar, Aybak, attempted to claim the sultanate, but was prevented from monopolizing power by the army and the Bahriyyah and Jamdariyyah, which asserted that only an Ayyubid could exercise sultanic authority.The Bahriyyah compelled Aybak to share power with al-Ashraf Musa, a grandson of Sultan al-Kamil.
Factional power struggles-Aybak was one of the oldest of the Salihi mamluks and a senior member of as-Salih's inner circle, despite only being an emir awsat (middle-ranked emir). He served as the principal bulwark against the more junior Bahri and Jamdari elements of the Salihiyyah, and his promotion to atabeg al-askar was met by Bahri rioting in Cairo, the first of many examples of intra-Salihi tensions surrounding Aybak's ascendancy.The Bahriyyah and Jamdariyyah were represented by their patron, Faris ad-Din Aktay, a principal organizer of Turanshah's assassination and the recipient of Fakhr ad-Din's large estate by Shajar al-Durr; the latter saw Aktay as a counterweight to Aybak. Aybak moved against the Bahriyyah in 1251 by shutting down their Rawda headquarters in a bid to sap Aktay's power base. Aybak was still unable to promote his own mamluks, known as the "Mu'izziyah", to senior posts until 1252. That year, he managed to dispatch Aktay to Upper Egypt to suppress an Arab uprising. Instead of isolating Aktay as was Aybak's intention, the assignment allowed Aktay to impose extortionate taxes in Upper Egypt and provide him the personal funds to finance his patronage of the Bahriyyah. In 1254, Aybak had his Mu'izzi mamluks assassinate Aktay in the Citadel of Cairo.
Afterward, Aybak proceeded to purge those in his retinue and in the Salihiyyah whom he believed were disloyal to him, causing a temporary exodus of Bahri mamluks, most of whom settled in Gaza, but also in Upper Egypt and Syria.The purge led to a dearth of military support for Aybak, which in turn led to Aybak's recruitment of new supporters from among the army in Egypt and the Turkic Nasiri and Azizi mamluks from Syria, who had defected from their Ayyubid masters, namely an-Nasir Yusuf, and moved to Egypt in 1250.The Syrian mamluks were led by their patron Jamal ad-Din Aydughdi and were assigned most of the iqtaʿ of Aktay and his allies. However, Aydughdi's growing ambitions made Aybak view him as a threat. After Aybak learned that Aydughdi was plotting to topple him and recognize an-Nasir Yusuf as Ayyubid sultan, which would likely leave Aydughdi in virtual control of Egypt, Aybak had Aydughdi imprisoned in Alexandria in 1254 or 1255.
Meanwhile, the Bahriyya faction in Gaza commanded by Baybars sought to enlist their services with an-Nasir Yusuf. In an attempt to dislodge Aybak, the Bahriyyah petitioned an-Nasir Yusuf to claim the Ayyubid throne and invade Egypt, but an-Nasir Yusuf initially refused. However, in 1256, he dispatched a Bahri-led expedition to Egypt, but no battle occurred when Aybak met an-Nasir Yusuf's army. Aybak was assassinated on 10 April 1257,possibly on the orders of Shajar al-Durr,who was assassinated a week later.[35] Their deaths left a relative power vacuum in Egypt, with Aybak's teenage son, al-Mansur Ali, as heir to the sultanate.While al-Mansur Ali was sultan, the strongman in Egypt was Aybak's former close aide, Sayf ad-Din Qutuz, who also had hostile relations with the Salihiyyah, including the Bahri mamluks.
By the time of Aybak's death, the Bahriyyah had entered the service of al-Mughith Umar of al-Karak, who agreed to invade Egypt and claim the Ayyubid sultanate, but al-Mughith's small Bahri-dominated invading force was routed at the frontier with Egypt in November.The Bahriyyah and al-Mughith launched a second expedition in 1258, but were again defeated.The Bahriyyah subsequently raided areas around Syria, threatening an-Nasir Yusuf's power in Damascus. After a first attempt to defeat the Bahriyyah near Gaza failed, an-Nasir Yusuf launched a second expedition against them with al-Mansur Muhammad II of Hama, resulting in a Bahriyyah defeat at Jericho.An-Nasir Yusuf proceeded to besiege al-Mughith and the Bahriyyah at al-Karak, but the growing threat of a Mongol invasion of Syria ultimately led to a reconciliation between an-Nasir Yusuf and al-Mughith, and Baybars's defection to the former. Qutuz deposed al-Mansur Ali in 1259. Afterward, he purged and/or arrested the Mu'izziyah and any Bahri mamluks he could locate in Egypt in a bid to eliminate dissent towards his rule.The surviving Mu'izzi and Bahri mamluks made their way to Gaza, where Baybars had created a virtual shadow state in opposition to Qutuz.
While various mamluk factions competed for control of Egypt and Syria, the Mongols under the command of Hulagu Khan had sacked Baghdad, the intellectual and spiritual center of the Islamic world, in 1258, and proceeded westward, capturing Aleppo and Damascus.Qutuz sent military reinforcements to his erstwhile enemy an-Nasir Yusuf in Syria, and reconciled with the Bahriyyah, including Baybars, who was allowed to return to Egypt, to face the common Mongol threat.Hulagu sent emissaries to Qutuz in Cairo, demanding submission to Mongol rule. Qutuz had the emissaries killed, an act which historian Joseph Cummins called the "worst possible insult to the Mongol throne" Qutuz then prepared Cairo's defenses to ward off the Mongols' threatened invasion of Egypt, but after hearing news that Hulagu withdrew from Syria to claim the Mongol throne, Qutuz began preparations for the conquest of Syria. He mobilized a force of some 120,000 soldiers and gained the support of his main Mamluk rival, Baybars.
The Mamluks entered Palestine to confront the Mongol army that Hulagu left behind under the command of Kitbuqa.In September 1260, the two sides met in the plains south of Nazareth in a major confrontation known as the Battle of Ain Jalut.Qutuz had some of his cavalry units hide in the hills around Ain Jalut (Goliath's Spring), while directing Baybars's forces to advance past Ain Jalut against Kitbuqa's Mongols. In the ensuing half-hour clash, Baybars's men feigned a retreat and were pursued by Kitbuqa. The latter's forces fell into a Mamluk trap once they reached the springs of Ain Jalut, with Baybars's men turning around to confront the Mongols and Qutuz's units ambushing the Mongols from the hills.The battle ended in a Mongol rout and Kitbuqa's capture and execution. Afterward, the Mamluks proceeded to recapture Damascus and the other Syrian cities taken by the Mongols.Upon Qutuz's triumphant return to Cairo, he was assassinated in a Bahri plot. Baybars subsequently assumed power in Egypt in late 1260,and established the Bahri Mamluk sultanate.
OTTOMAN CALIPHATE (1517-1924)
In 1517, the Ottoman Sultan Selim I defeated the Mamluk Sultanate in Cairo in the Ottoman–Mamluk War. The last caliph of Cairo, Al-Mutawakkil III, was brought back to Constantinople as prisoner. There, it is said, al-Mutawakkil formally surrendered the title of caliph as well as its outward emblems—the sword and mantle of Muhammad—to Selim, establishing the Ottoman sultans as the new caliphal line. And they gradually came to be viewed as the de facto leaders and representative of the Islamic world. From Constantinople, the Ottoman sultans ruled over an empire that, at its peak, covered Anatolia, most of the Middle East, North Africa, the Caucasus, and extended deep into Eastern Europe.
Strengthened by the Peace of Westphalia and the Industrial Revolution, European powers regrouped and challenged Ottoman dominance. Owing largely to poor leadership, archaic political norms, and an inability to keep pace with technological progress in Europe, the Ottoman Empire could not respond effectively to Europe's resurgence and gradually lost its position as a pre-eminent great power.
The first political (rather than religious) usage of the title caliph, however, would not occur until 1774, when the Ottomans needed to counter the Russians, who announced that they needed to protect Orthodox Christians under the Ottoman Empire, by making a similar claim about the Muslims living in Russia.The British would tactfully affirm the Ottoman claim to the caliphate and proceed to have the Ottoman caliph issue orders to the Muslims living in British India to comply with the British government.
In the nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire initiated a period of modernization known as the Tanzimat, which transformed the nature of the Ottoman state, greatly increasing its power despite the empire's territorial losses.Despite the success of its self-strengthening reforms, the empire was largely unable to match the military strength of its main rival, the Russian Empire, and suffered several defeats in the Russo-Turkish Wars. The Ottoman state defaulted on its loans in 1875–76, part of a wider financial crisis affecting much of the globe.
The British government supported the view that the Ottomans were Caliphs of Islam among Muslims in British India and the Ottoman Sultans in return helped the British by issuing pronouncements to the Muslims of India, which extolled them to support British rule; these came from Sultan Selim III and Sultan Abdulmejid I.
Sultan Abdul Hamid II, 1876–1909-
See also: Decline and modernization of the Ottoman Empire § İstibdat 1878–1908
Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who ruled 1876–1909, felt that the Empire's desperate situation could only be remedied through strong and determined leadership. He distrusted his ministers and other officials that had served his predecessors and gradually reduced their role in his regime, concentrating absolute power over the Empire's governance in his own hands. Taking a hard-line against Western involvement in Ottoman affairs, he emphasized the Empire's "Islamic" character, reasserted his status as the Caliph, and called for Muslim unity behind the Caliphate. Abdul-Hamid strengthened the Empire's position somewhat, and succeeded briefly in reasserting Islamic power, by building numerous schools, reducing the national debt, and embarking on projects aimed at revitalizing the Empire's decaying infrastructure.
In 1899, the Ottomans would grant a request from the United States government and leverage their religious authority as caliphs to order that the Tausug Sultanate (located in what is now southern Philippines and northeastern Malaysia) stop the defence of the sultanate and surrender to American invasion; Sultan Jamalul-Kiram II of the Tausug Sultanate would heed the caliph Sultan Abdul-Hamid II's order, and surrender.
The coup by the three Pashas in 1909 marked the end of his reign. Western-inclined Turkish military officers opposed to Abdul-Hamid's rule had steadily organized in the form of secret societies within and outside Turkey. By 1906, the movement enjoyed the support of a significant portion of the army, and its leaders formed the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), informally known as the Young Turk Party. The Young Turks sought to remodel administration of the Empire along Western lines. Their ideology was nationalist in character, and was a precursor of the movement that would seize control of Turkey following World War I. CUP leaders presented their ideas to the public as a revival of true Islamic principles. Under the leadership of Enver Pasha, a Turkish military officer, the CUP launched a military coup against the Sultan in 1908, proclaiming a new regime on 6 July. Though they left Abdul-Hamid on his throne, the Young Turks compelled him to restore the parliament and constitution he had suspended thirty years earlier, thereby creating a constitutional monarchy and stripping the Caliphate of its authority.
Counter-coup and 31 March Incident-
1909 Ottoman countercoup and 31 March Incident
A counter-coup launched by soldiers loyal to the Sultan threatened the new government but ultimately failed. After nine months into the new parliamentary term, discontent and reaction found expression in a fundamentalist movement, the counter-revolutionary 31 March Incident, which actually occurred on 13 April 1909. Many aspects of this revolt, which started within certain sections of the mutinying army in Constantinople, are still yet to be analyzed. Its generally admitted perception of a "reactionary" movement has sometimes been challenged, given the results and effects on the young political system.
Abdul-Hamid was deposed on 13 April 1909. He was replaced by his brother Rashid Effendi, who was proclaimed Sultan Mehmed V on 27 April.
Sultan Mehmed V, 1909–18-
In 1911 Italy warred with the Ottomans over Libya, and Turkey's failure to defend these regions demonstrated the weakness of the Ottoman military. In 1912 Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece formed the Balkan League, an anti-Ottoman alliance that subsequently launched a joint attack on the Ottoman Empire. The ensuing Balkan Wars eliminated what little presence the Ottomans had left in Europe, and only infighting between the Balkan League allies prevented them from advancing into Anatolia.
Internally, the Ottomans continued to be troubled by political instability. Nationalist uprisings that had plagued the Empire sporadically for the past fifty years intensified. The masses were growing frustrated with chronic misgovernance and the Ottomans' poor showing in military conflicts. In response, the CUP led a second coup d'état in 1913 and seized absolute control of the government. For the next five years, the Empire was a one-party state ruled by the CUP under the leadership of Enver Pasha (who returned to Constantinople after having served Turkey abroad in various military and diplomatic capacities since the initial coup), Minister of the Interior Talat Pasha, and Minister of the Navy Cemal Pasha. Though the Sultan was retained, he made no effort to exercise power independent of the Young Turks and was effectively their puppet. The Caliphate was thus held nominally by Mehmed V, but the authority attached to the office rested with the Young Turks.
World War I-
Middle Eastern theater of World War I
As World War I broke out in Europe, the Young Turks struck an alliance with Germany, a move that would have disastrous consequences. The Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers in November 1914, and Britain, France, and Russia immediately declared war on Ottoman Empire.[15] During the development of the war, the empire's position continued to deteriorate, and even in the Middle East – the very heartland of the Islamic world – would soon be lost.
Call for Jihad-
Declaration of jihad by the Ottoman Empire
Though the Young Turks had compelled the Sultan in his capacity as the Caliph to declare a jihad urging all Muslims to resist Allied encroachment on their lands, the effort was largely unsuccessful. The Young Turk government resigned en masse and Enver, Talat, and Cemal fled Turkey aboard a German warship. Sultan Mehmed VI, who was proclaimed Sultan after his brother Mehmed V died of a heart attack in July, agreed to an armistice. The Armistice of Mudros formalizing Ottoman surrender was signed aboard HMS Agamemnon on October 30, 1918. Allied troops arrived in Constantinople and occupied the Sultan's palace shortly thereafter.International Law Studies
Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire-
Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, Occupation of Constantinople, Khilafat Movement, and Treaty of Sèvres
By the end of the war, the Ottomans had lost virtually their entire Empire. Hoping to keep his throne and preserve the Ottoman dynasty in some form or another, the Sultan agreed to cooperate with the Allies. He dissolved parliament and allowed an Allied military administration to replace the government vacated by the Young Turks.
Khilafat Movement-
The Khilafat movement (1919–24) was a political campaign launched in British India over British policy against Turkey and planned dismemberment of Turkey after World War I by allied forces.
Leaders participating in the movement included Shaukat Ali, Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar,[19] Hakim Ajmal Khan, and Abul Kalam Azad some of whom were seeking to restore the caliph of the Ottoman Caliphate, while others promoted Muslim interests and to bring the Muslim in national struggle.
Mahatma Gandhi had supported the movement as part of his opposition to British Empire and he also advocated wider non-cooperation movement at the same time. Vallabhbhai Patel, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and other Congress figures also supported the movement.
The movement is generally termed described as protest against the sanctions placed on the Ottoman Empire after the First World War by the Treaty of Sèvres. It ended in 1924 following the abolition of the Caliphate by Turkish nationalists after the overthrow of the Ottoman sultanate.
HASAN IBN ALIS CALIPHATE (661)
Hasan ibn Ali was a prominent early Islamic figure. He was the eldest son of Ali and Fatima and a grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He briefly ruled as caliph from January 661 until August 661. He is considered as the second Imam in Shia Islam, succeeding Ali and preceding his brother Husayn
During the caliphate of Ali (r. 656–661), Hasan accompanied him in the military campaigns of the First Muslim Civil War. After Ali's assassination in 661, Hasan was acknowledged caliph in Kufa. His sovereignty was not recognized by Syria's governor Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680), who led an army into Kufa while pressing Hasan for abdication in letters. In response, Hasan sent a vanguard under Ubayd Allah ibn al-Abbas to block Mu'awiya's advance until he arrived with the main army. Meanwhile, Hasan was severely wounded in an abortive assassination attempt by the Kharijites, a faction opposed to both Ali and Mu'awiya. This attack demoralized Hasan's army and led to widespread desertion. Ubayd Allah and most of his troops also defected after Mu'awiya bribed him. In August 661, Hasan signed a peace treaty with Mu'awiya on the condition that the latter should rule in compliance with the Quran and the sunna, a council should appoint his successor, and Hasan's supporters would receive amnesty. Hasan retired from politics and abdicated in Medina where he died either from illness or poisoning, though the early sources are nearly unanimous that he was poisoned. Mu'awiya is commonly viewed as the instigator in the murder of Hasan, which removed an obstacle to the succession of his son Yazid.
Critics of Hasan call his treaty with Mu'awiya an indication of weakness, saying that he intended to surrender from the beginning. Given Mu'awiya's military superiority, supporters of Hasan maintain that his abdication was inevitable after his soldiers mutinied and that he was motivated by the desire for unity and peace among Muslims, which was reportedly predicted by Muhammad in a Sunni hadith. Another Sunni hadith, also attributed to Muhammad, predicted that the prophetic succession would last for thirty years, which was probably interpreted by some early Sunni scholars as evidence that Hasan's caliphate was rightly-guided (rāshid).[3] In Shia theology, the divine infallibility (isma) of Hasan as the second Shia Imam further justified his course of action. As the rightful successor of Muhammad in Shia Islam, Hasan's all-inclusive temporal and religious authority came from divinely-inspired designation (nass), which was not annulled by abdication to Mu'awiya, who usurped only the temporal authority. The imamate and caliphate are viewed as separate institutions in Shia Islam until such time that God would make the Imam victorious.
ABD ALLAH IBN AL-ZUBYRS CALIPHATE (684-692)
Abd Allah al-Zubayr or Ibn Zubayr or Abdullah ibn az-Zubayr' (624 - 692) was a sahabi (Companion of the Prophet) whose father was Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, and whose mother was Asma bint Abi Bakr, daughter of the first Caliph Abu Bakr. He was the nephew of Aisha, one of the wives of Muhammad. A trusted and prominent soldier under the third caliph, he took part with Aaish and his father in the revolt against the fourth caliph, Ali in 656. Although he recognized and fought for Muawiyah, the first Umayyad caliph he refused to give his successor, Yazid I the oath of allegiance. After Yazid's death (683), he declared himself caliph and resisted the Umayyads for the next ten years from his capital in Mecca. Finally defeated in 692, he was beheaded and crucified. Regarded as responsible for the second civil war in Islam and a participant in the first, al-Zubayr's legacy has its detractors and supporters.
Umayyad writers depict him as a heretic who defiled the Sacred Sanctuary and divided the Ummah. He is often referred to as an anti-caliph. Supporters see him as someone who challenged the legitimacy of Umayyad rule. Following their downfall, too, the Umayyads would be portrayed as bad Muslims who ruled autocratically, although they are generally regarded as legitimate caliphs. Yazid, though, has few admirers. The successful Abbasid coup of 750 would escape the charge of fitna (civil war) because, in contrast to al-Zubayr's revolt, it succeeded. Despite his personal sincerity and piety, in splitting the caliphate, al-Zubayr may have chosen the wrong path. What became most significant for Muslims was the symbolic value of the caliph, which represented the ideal that all Muslims, regardless of race, are equal members of a single, global entity, the ummah.
Al-Zubayr was born a member of the Banu Asad. His father, al-Zubayr b. al-ʿAwwām, was a close companion of Muhammad. As well as being a nephew of Aisha, al-Zabayr was also distantly related to Muhammad, since his grandmother was Muhammad's paternal aunt.[1] As a young man, Abdullah was an active participant in numerous Muslim campaigns against both the Byzantine and Sassanid empires. In 636 he was with his father at the Battle of Yarmūk. He marched to Sbeitla, Tunisia, the capital of the exarchate of Carthage, King Gregory. Gregory was defeated and killed in the Battle of Sufetula in 647 C.E. Uthman, the third caliph, regarded him as a loyal and capable soldier. After this battle, he allowed al-Zubayr the exceptional honor of reporting on his critical role in the battle "from the pulpit in Medina."[2] He may have served in Uthman's body guard. He was also appointed a member of the committee that established the official recension of the Qur'an. He was among the twelve men who buried Uthman after his assassination in 656.[3] Madelung says that it was probably al-Zubayr who, influence by his aunt, Aisah, who disliked Ali, "tried to incite his father against him."[2]
When his father joined Aisha's rebellion against the Caliph Ali, al-Zubayr accompanied him into battle against[Ali at the Battle of the Camel, commanding the infantry. This is known as the first Fitna (civil war or disturbance).[4] His father was killed; Al-Zubayr was wounded.[5]
Ibn al-Zubayr's revolt
Ibn al-Zubayr took the oath of allegiance to Muawiyah when he claimed the caliphate from Ali and appears to have fought in the Umayyad army. However, when Muawiyah appointed his son, Yazid I as his successor and demanded that leading men recognize this by taking an oath, al-Zubayr refused. Muawiyah, suspecting that he might present a threat to his son's succession, placed him on a list of potential troublemakers. On succeeding, Yazid sent an envoy to Madina to secure al-Zubayr oath. He procrastinated then fled to Mecca without taking the oath.[6] Messnger were "back and forth" regarding the oath, which Yazid announced he would only accept from al-Zubayr if he was brought before him in chains.[7] After the death of Husayn bin Ali(as) at the Battle of Karbela on the 10th of Muharram, 61 AH (October 10, 680). Ibn al-Zubayr appears to have favored Shura (consultation] as the mechanism for choosing the caliph, not dynastic succession. Some suggest that he had planned to claim the caliphate even before Husayn's death but knew that he would not attract enough support as long as the prophet's grandson lived.
Some claim that he encouraged Husayn's own rebellion because he thought it would fail, leaving his way clear to stake his claim. Even those who opposed the claims of the family of the Prophet to lead the community, though, were sickened and outraged by Yazid's heinous act, "This was, after all, the family of the Messenger of God" people said, "how could they have been starved and massacred like animals?"[4] A number of those responsible for killing members of Muhammad's family were slain. Soon, Ibn al-Zubayr established his power in Iraq, southern Arabia and in the greater part of Syria, and parts of Egypt. Ibn Zubayr benefited greatly from widespread dissatisfaction among the populace with Umayyad rule. They were regarded as usurpers because Muawiyah claimed the caliphate and demanded the oath without any process of shura (consultation), then nominated his son as successor.
Given that his father had served on the council of six appointed by Umar, the second caliph, to choose his successor from among themselves gave him a claim on the succession.[8] Yazid sent al-Zubayr's brother—who was his implacable enemy—against him at Mecca. He failed, was captured, whipped and imprisoned, dying from his wounds. Speaking from the pulpit, al-Zubayr praised Husayn and denounced Yazid. Yazid tried to end Ibn Zubayr's rebellion by invading Hejaz in 683, but his sudden death ended the campaign, although some members of al-Zubayr's family were killed. It was during this two month long attack that the Ka'bah was accidentally burnt to the ground; it was rebuilt. Yazid's death threw the Umayyads into disarray with civil war eventually breaking out. Al-Zubayr now attracted considerable support from opponents of the Umayyads, including at least initially from the Kharijites. It was only after Yazid's death that he formally claimed the caliphate, promising to rule according to the Qur'an, the sunnah of the Prophet and the example of the first four caliphs and that his caliphate was contingent on keeping this pledge. Coins were minted in his name and he did gain the oath of allegiance from important cities in Palestine, Syria and Egypt. He even had some support in Damascus. He had enjoyed strong support in the Yemen, appointing "nine successive governors" there during his caliphate.[9] He also appointed two governors to Kufa.
This essentially split the Islamic empire into two spheres with two different caliphs. However, before his final defeat, Ibn al-Zubayr lost Egypt and whatever he had left of Syria to Marwan ibn al-Hakam. This, coupled with the successful Kharijite rebellions in Iraq—who abandoned his cause—dwindled Ibn al-Zubayr's rule down to the Hejaz region. In Madina, the Ansari declared their independence from Damascus, and chose their own leader.[10] Marwān, Yazid's successor, may even have contemplated recognizing al-Zubayr. During his caliphate, al-Zubayr sent one of his brothers to Iraq who succeeded in restoring his rule there.
Abd al-Malik
Ibn Zubayr would finally be defeated by Abd al-Malik, who commissioned Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf to reunite the Islamic empire. Hajjaj defeated and killed Ibn Zubayr on the battlefield in 692, beheading him and crucifying his body, reestablishing Umayyad control over the Islamic Empire. However, it had taken a decade before al-Zubayr was finally defeated. He had enjoyed strong support in the Yemen, appointing "nine successive governors" there during his caliphate.[9] Before he went into what was his final battle, he visited his mother and took off his armor. He went into battle wearing a silk vest, which, says Kennedy, was a sign of preparing for martyrdom, "almost a suicidal gesture."[11] His revolt was considered to the Islam's second Fitna but had it succeeded in ending Umayyad power, the revolt would have earned a more positive description. Umayyad rule continued to be unpopular. The Umayyads would be accused of favoring members of their own family, of paying lip-service to Islam, of ruling the caliphate as if it were their personal possession and of elevating Arabs over non-Arab settlers. The Abbasid coup of 750, led by a descendant of Muhammad's uncle, had widespread support including from some Shi'a. In their inaugural sermon, the Abbasids denounced their predecessors as "autocratic" concerned mainly with "the accumulating of silver and gold, the building of castles and the digging of canals."[12]
Burial
Abd-al-Malik allowed al-Zubayr's body to be buried in the Prophet's mosque at Medina.
While Abd-Allah ibn al-Zubayr controlled Mecca, the Umayyad's supporters were unable to perform the hajj there. This impacted the design and building of the Rock in Jerusalem by Abd-al-Malik, who may have intended the Dome to serve as an alternative pilgrimage venue to Mecca, given its colonnaded structure or even as a substitute. Rippin tends to argue that while it might be expected that a caliph who displaced Mecca as the point of pilgrimage would advertise his illegitimacy, this assumes that the hajj at Mecca "was already a central symbol of nascent Islam." If it was not yet established as a pillar but still developing in significance, the Dome might have been built as a "political symbol" as "two pilgrimages, one in Mecca under ibn al-Zubay and another in Jerusalem under Abd-al-Malik emerged at roughly the same time."[13] Rippin also suggests that the link between the Dome and Muhammad's Night Journey and Ascent developed later, since none of the inscriptions "make any reference to this journey." al-Zubayr rebuilt be Ka'bah in 683, after it caught fire.[14] He is also remembered as the source of legal decisions concerning the performance of the hajj.
Legacy
Regarded as responsible for the second civil war in Islam and a participant in the first, al-Zubayr's legacy has its detractors and supporters. Umayyad writers depict him as a heretic who defiled the Sacred Sanctuary and divided the Ummah. He is said to have lost support because of his own tendency towards miserliness and losing his temper. Following the Umayad's downfall, they would themselves be depicted negatively as bad Muslims who ruled autocratically, although they are generally regarded as legitimate caliphs. No one impugns al-Zubayr's piety. Admirers see him as challenger the legitimacy of the impious Umayyad usurpation of the caliphate.
In contrast, al-Zubayr is often described as an anti-caliph. Muslims would discuss whether rebellion against an unjust caliph is permitted pr prohibited. The kharijites said yes but many replied that protecting the unity and stability of the community was better than fitna. However sincere, in this view, al-Zubayr was mistaken to rebel against the caliph, although since he never did take the oath of allegiance, he did not actually rebel. He may have had as many supporters as Yazid's successor did. Culture War can be identified behind different portrayals of Abd-Allah ibn al-Zubayr's life. Many Muslims hoped that the Abassids, who lead a successful revolt which has never attracted the charge of fitna, would restore an elected or chosen caliph, which al-Zubayr had himself favored although in the end he, like they, did nothing to formalize this as a mechanism.
Later, the tradition became more concerned with delineating the duties of the caliph than with how he was to be chosen. What became most significant was the symbolic value of the caliph, which represented the ideal that all Muslims, regardless of race, are equal members of a single, global entity, the ummah. It also stood for the integration of the spiritual with the political, ensuring at least in theory harmony between the law of the state and divine law. In splitting the caliphate, al-Zubayr may have chosen the wrong path, even though Yazid is remembered as a villain. Vilified by Shi'a his reputation among Sunni is equally negative.
TALIB AL-HAQQ (747-748)
Abdallah ibn Yahya, better known by his laqab of Talib al-Haqq was the leader of an Ibadi revolt against the Umayyad Caliphate in southern Arabia during the Third Fitna.
He was of Kindaite origin, and had originally been appointed by the Umayyad governor of Yemen as a judge in the eastern Hadramawt region.In 745, as Umayyad authority was shaken by the outbreak of the Third Fitna, he proclaimed himself caliph. He secured the support from the Ibadi Kharijites of neighbouring Oman, and captured the Yemeni capital, Sana'a. His army, under his follower Abu Hamza, reached as far as Mecca and Medina, and even Basra for a while swore allegiance to him.His followers are said to have numbered 30,000, although that figure may be just a conventional number indicating a large multitude rather than an accurate count.
The uprising was suppressed in 747 by the Umayyad general Abd al-Malik ibn Atiyya, sent by Caliph Marwan II.
FATIMID CALIPHATE (909-1171)
The Fatimid Caliphate was an Ismaili Shi'a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa, it ranged from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. The Fatimids, a dynasty of Arab origin, trace their ancestry to Muhammad's daughter Fatima and her husband ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, the first Shi‘a imam. The Fatimids were acknowledged as the rightful imams by different Isma‘ili communities, but also in many other Muslim lands, including Persia and the adjacent regions.Originating during the Abbasid Caliphate, the Fatimids conquered Tunisia and established the city of "al-Mahdiyya" (Arabic: المهدية). The Ismaili dynasty ruled territories across the Mediterranean coast of Africa and ultimately made Egypt the center of the caliphate. At its height, the caliphate included – in addition to Egypt – varying areas of the Maghreb, Sudan, Sicily, the Levant, and the Hijaz.
Between 902 to 909 the foundation of the Fatimid state was realized by the Kutama Berbers, under the leadership of the da'i (missionary) Abu Abdallah, whose conquest of Ifriqiya paved the way for the establishment of the Caliphate.[8][9][10] After this conquest, Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah was retrieved from Sijilmasa and then accepted as the Imam of the movement, becoming the first Caliph and founder of the ruling dynasty in 909.In 921, the city of al-Mahdiyya was established as the capital. In 948, they shifted their capital to al-Mansuriyya, near Kairouan. In 969, during the reign of al-Mu'izz, they conquered Egypt, and in 973 the caliphate was moved to the new capital of Cairo. Egypt became the political, cultural, and religious centre of their empire, which developed a new and "indigenous Arabic" culture. After its initial conquests, the caliphate often allowed a degree of religious tolerance towards non-Shia sects of Islam, as well as to Jews and Christians. However, its leaders made little headway in persuading the Egyptian population to adopt its religious beliefs.
After the reigns of al-'Aziz and al-Hakim, the long reign of al-Mustansir entrenched a regime in which the caliph remained aloof from state affairs and viziers took on greater importance. Political and ethnic factionalism within the army led to a civil war in the 1060s which threatened the empire's survival.After a period of revival during the tenure of the vizier Badr al-Jamali (d. 1094), the Fatimid caliphate declined rapidly during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries.In addition to internal difficulties, the caliphate was weakened by the encroachment of the Seljuk Turks into Syria in the 1070s and the arrival of the Crusaders in the Levant after 1098. In 1171, Saladin abolished the dynasty's rule and founded the Ayyubid dynasty, which incorporated Egypt into the nominal sphere of authority of the Abbasid Caliphate.
The Fatimid dynasty claimed descent from Fatimah, the daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The dynasty legitimized its claim through descent from Muhammad by way of his daughter and her husband Ali, the first Shī'a Imām, hence the dynasty's name fāṭimiyy (Arabic: فاطمي), the Arabic relative adjective for "Fāṭima".[21][9][10]
Emphasizing its Alid descent, the dynasty named itself simply as the 'Alid dynasty' (al-dawla al-alawiyya), but many hostile Sunni sources only refer to them as the 'Ubaydids' (Banu Ubayd), after the diminutive form Ubayd Allah for the name of the first Fatimid caliph.
Origins : The Fatimid dynasty came to power as the leaders of Isma'ilism, a revolutionary Shi'a movement "which was at the same time political and religious, philosophical and social", and which originally proclaimed nothing less than the arrival of an Islamic messiah.The origins of that movement, and of the dynasty itself, are obscure prior to the late ninth century.
The Fatimids rulers were Arab in origin, starting with its founder the Isma'ili Shia Caliph Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah.The caliphate's establishment was accomplished with Kutama Berbers from Little Kabylia, who converted to the Fatimid cause early and made up its original military forces.
Early Shi'ism and the roots of Isma'ilism
The Shi'a opposed the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, whom they considered usurpers. Instead, they believed in the exclusive right of the descendants of Ali through Muhammad's daughter, Fatima, to lead the Muslim community. This manifested itself in a line of imams, descendants of Ali via al-Husayn, whom their followers considered as the true representatives of God on earth.At the same time, there was a widespread messianic tradition in Islam concerning the appearance of a mahdī ("the Rightly Guided One") or qāʾīm ("He Who Arises"), who would restore true Islamic government and justice and usher in the end times. This figure was widely expected – not just among the Shi'a – to be a descendant of Ali.Among Shi'a, however, this belief became a core tenet of their faith, and was applied to several Shi'a leaders who were killed or died; their followers believed that they had gone into "occultation" (ghayba) and would return (or be resurrected) at the appointed time.
These traditions manifested themselves in the succession of the sixth imam, Ja'far al-Sadiq. Al-Sadiq had appointed his son Isma'il ibn Ja'far as his successor, but Isma'il died before his father, and when al-Sadiq himself died in 765, the succession was left open. Most of his followers followed al-Sadiq's son Musa al-Kazim down to a twelfth and final imam who supposedly went into occultation in 874 and would one day return as the mahdī. This branch is hence known as the "Twelvers". Others followed other sons, or even refused to believe that al-Sadiq had died, and expected his return as the mahdī.Another branch believed that Ja'far was followed by a seventh imam, who had gone into occultation and would one day return; hence this party is known as the "Seveners". The exact identity of that seventh imam was disputed, but by the late ninth century had commonly been identified with Muhammad, son of Isma'il and grandson of al-Sadiq. From Muhammad's father, Isma'il, the sect, which gave rise to the Fatimids, receives its name of "Isma'ili". Due to the harsh Abbasid persecution of the Alids, the Ismaili Imams went into hiding and neither Isma'il's nor Muhammad's lives are well known, and after Muhammad's death during the reign of Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809), the history of the early Isma'ili movement becomes obscure
CALIPHATE OF CORDOBA (929-1031)
Caliphate of Córdoba, Muslim state that existed in Spain from January 16, 929, when ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III assumed the supreme title of caliph, to 1031, when the puppet ruler Hishām III was deposed by his viziers and the caliphate disintegrated into the so-called kingdoms of the taifa. During this century there were 12 caliphs, all except the first two of whom were puppets and most of whom died by violence.
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III was followed by the studious al-Ḥakam II (961–976), who gathered a library of 400,000 catalogued volumes, founded 27 free schools in Córdoba, and attracted scholars from the east to teach in the university. His reign was succeeded by the dictatorship of Abū ʿĀmir al-Manṣūr (Almanzor), a courtier who achieved power through the favour of the Basque-born sultana Subh during the minority of her son Hishām II.
Al-Manṣūr’s rule (978–1002) marked a period of brilliant military successes abroad and increasing unrest at home. With his mercenary army he won a series of spectacular victories against the Christians, capturing Zamora (981), Barcelona (985), and Coimbra (987). In 997 he razed Santiago de Compostela and returned with the bells of the city’s cathedral to serve as braziers in the mosque of Córdoba. Popular opposition to al-Manṣūr’s successors degenerated into partisan warfare between the Cordobans, the Berbers, and the slave officials of the royal household, sometimes with Castilian intervention. All sides used the caliphs as pawns in the competition for control of the state. The last caliph was imprisoned with his family in a vault attached to the great mosque and reportedly reacted to the news of his deposition by begging for a crust of bread.The collapse of the caliphate shortly after attaining its military zenith was partly due to the weakening of Umayyad authority by al-Manṣūr’s dictatorship but mostly due to continuous hostilities between Arabs, Berbers, slave officials, Jews, native Spanish converts to Islam, and Arabized Christians (Mozarabs). Under the caliphate, Muslim Spain was the most populous and prosperous country in Europe. Increased irrigation produced an agricultural surplus which, with manufactured luxury goods (such as Cordoban leather, Valencian pottery, and Damascus steel arms and woven silk from Toledo), was exported mainly eastward.
ALMOHAD CALIPHATE (1145-1269)
The Almohad movement was founded by Ibn Tumart among the Berber Masmuda tribes, but the Almohad caliphate and its ruling dynasty were founded after his death by Abd al-Mu'min al-Gumi.Around 1120, Ibn Tumart first established a Berber state in Tinmel in the Atlas Mountains.[3] Under Abd al-Mu'min (r. 1130–1163) they succeeded in overthrowing the ruling Almoravid dynasty governing Morocco in 1147, when he conquered Marrakesh and declared himself caliph. They then extended their power over all of the Maghreb by 1159. Al-Andalus soon followed, and all of Muslim Iberia was under Almohad rule by 1172
The turning point of their presence in the Iberian Peninsula came in 1212, when Muhammad III, "al-Nasir" (1199–1214) was defeated at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in the Sierra Morena by an alliance of the Christian forces from Castile, Aragon and Navarre. Much of the remaining territories of al-Andalus were lost in the ensuing decades, with the cities of Córdoba and Seville falling to the Christians in 1236 and 1248 respectively.
The Almohads continued to rule in Africa until the piecemeal loss of territory through the revolt of tribes and districts enabled the rise of their most effective enemies, the Marinids, from northern Morocco in 1215. The last representative of the line, Idris al-Wathiq, was reduced to the possession of Marrakesh, where he was murdered by a slave in 1269; the Marinids seized Marrakesh, ending the Almohad domination of the Western Maghreb.
The Khalīfatul Masīh sometimes simply referred to as Khalifah is the elected spiritual and organizational leader of the worldwide Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and is the successor of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who had taken the titles of Mahdi and Messiah of Islam.
The Caliph is believed to be divinely guided and is also referred to by members of current Khalifatul Masih is Mirza Masroor Ahmad. After the death of Ghulam Ahmad, his successors directed the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community from Qadian in Punjab, British India, which remained the headquarters of the community until 1947 with the independence of Pakistan. From this time on, the headquarters moved to and remained in Rabwah, a town built on land bought in Pakistan by the community in 1948. In 1984, Ordinance XX was promulgated by the government of Pakistan which rendered the Khalifatul Masih unable to perform his duties and put the very institution in jeopardy. Due to these circumstances, Khalifatul Masih IV left Pakistan and migrated to London, England, provisionally moving the headquarters to the Fazl Mosque.
Bornu and Songhai Empires (15th/16th century)
The Bornu Empire at its greatest extent. Songhai Empire at its greatest extent . Several rulers of West Africa adopted the title of Caliph. Mai Ali Ghaji ibn Dunama was the first ruler of Bornu Empire to assume the title. Askia Mohammad I of Songhai Empire also assumed the title around the same time.
Indian caliphates (late medieval/early modern)
Since the 12th century, despite the South Asian domination of numerous Muslim empires, kingdoms and sultanates, Islamic caliphates were not fully attempted to be established across the Indian subcontinent. However, under the sharia based reigns of Sunni emperors such as Alauddin Khalji, Mughal Empire's Aurangzeb, and Mysore's rulers Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan, absolute forms of caliphates were clearly to have appeared. These largely impacted the French-Italian emperor Napoleone Bonaparte and soldiers of the British Empire.
Sokoto Caliphate (1804–1903)
The Sokoto Caliphate (pink) at its greatest extent (Not widely accepted, actual dominions were parts of West Africa) Established by Tariqa Islamic scholar and religious leader Usman dan Fodio through the Fulani War (alternatively known as the Fulani Jihad), which sought to reduce the influence of pre-Islamic religious practices and spread a more vigorous form of Islam through the auspices of a Caliphate.
Ahmadiyya Caliphate (1908–present)
The Ahmadiyya Caliphate is a non-political caliphate established on May 27, 1908 following the death of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, who claimed to be the promised Messiah and Mahdi, the expected redeemer awaited by Muslims.[1] It is believed by Ahmadis to be the re-establishment of the Rashidun Caliphate that commenced following the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Ahmadi Muslims believe the system of caliphate (Arabic: Khilāfah) to be an ancillary to the system of prophethood, continuing to strive for the objectives for which a prophet is sent and to carry to completion the tasks of reformation and moral training that were seeded by the prophet. The caliphs, as successors to the prophets, lead the community of believers after a prophet's death.[4]
Ahmadis maintain that in accordance with Quranic verses (such as [Quran 24:55]) and numerous hadith on the issue, the caliphate can only be established by God Himself and is a divine blessing given to those who believe and work righteousness, upholding the Unity of God. Therefore, any movement to establish the caliphate centered around human endeavours alone is bound to fail, particularly when the condition of the people diverges from the ‘precepts of Prophethood’ (minhājin nabūwwah) and they are as a result disunited. Although the caliph (Arabic: khalifa) in Ahmadiyya is elected, it is believed that God Himself directs the hearts and minds of believers through visions, dreams and spiritual guidance towards a particular individual. No campaigning, speeches or speculation of any kind are permitted. Thus the caliph is designated neither necessarily by right (i.e. the rightful or competent one in the eyes of the people at that time) nor merely by election but primarily by God.
According to Ahmadiyya thought, just as it is not essential for a prophet to be the head of a state, it is not essential for a caliph to be the head of a state, rather the religious and organisational significance of the caliphate is emphasised. It is above all a religious office, with the purpose to uphold, strengthen and spread Islam and maintain the high moral standards within the Muslim community established by Muhammad, who was not merely a political leader but primarily a religious leader. The caliphate is understood as a system dealing with the organisation of believers and relating to the administration (nizām) of the Muslim community whether or not it involves a governmental role. Being based on the 'precept of Prophethood', the institution of caliphate can therefore, like prophethood, exist and flourish without a state.If a caliph does happen to bear governmental authority as a head of state, it is incidental and subsidiary in relation to his overall function as caliph which is applicable to believers transnationally and not limited to one particular state or political entity. The system of caliphate in Islam, thus understood, transcends national sovereignty and ethnic divide, forming a universal supra-national entity and the role of a caliph as the leader of the Muslim community, in such an understanding, surpasses that of a monarch.
Because Muhammad became the head of state at Medina, the Rightly Guided successors after him also happened to be heads of state and – similar to the successors of Moses who led the Israelites after his death and, following the conquest of Canaan, gained control over a territory– functioned as political and military as well as religious leaders. Since Ghulam Ahmad, whom Ahmadis hold to be the promised Mahdi, was, like Jesus, not the head of a state, his successors after him – like the successors of Jesus did – function without attaching themselves to any state, seeking no political role and having no territorial ambition.In terms of the political aspect of the caliphate as envisioned within the Ahmadiyya community, since God's sovereignty is seen as extending over the universe, the ideal polity within Islam is one where the caliph is the spiritual head guiding, in accordance with Islamic principles, a federation or confederation of autonomous states (functioning under any political system or form of government) associated together for the maintenance of peace and cooperating in promoting human welfare throughout the world. Such a framework allows the caliph to relegate, if he sees fit, most or all his secular authority to the elected representatives of the members of such a confederation.
Sharifian Caliphate (1924–1925)
A last attempt at restoring the caliphal office and style with ecumenical recognition was made by Hussein bin Ali, King of Hejaz and Sharif of Mecca, who assumed both on 11 March 1924 and held them until 3 October 1924, when he passed the kingship to his son `Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Hashimi, who did not adopt the caliphal office and style.[30] Like the Fatimid caliphs, he was a descendant of Muhammad through a grandson of Hasan ibn Ali. Hussein's claim for caliphate was not accepted by the Wahhabi and Salafi movements, and in 1925 he was driven from Hejaz by the forces of Ibn Saud as an outcome of the Second Saudi-Hashemite War. He continued to use the title of caliph during his remaining life in exile, until his death in 1931.
Islamic State (2014–present)
On 29 June 2014, the Islamic State proclaimed the return of the Islamic caliphate, with its first "caliph" as Amir al-Mu'minin Abu Bakr Ibrahim bin Awwad Al-Badri Al-Husaini Al-Hashimi Al-Quraishi As-sammera'i al-Baghdadi.The caliphate's claimed territory at its peak controlled 12 million people. At its height, Islamic State ruled territories in various countries including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Nigeria, Libya, the Philippines, Afghanistan, Congo, Yemen, and the Sinai region in Egypt, in addition to running guerrilla cells in many other countries.
In 2014-15, dozens of Salafi Jihadi groups and scholars around the world pledged alligience to ISIL claimed Caliphate.
On 10 April 2018, during a rally of U.S. President Donald Trump in Elkhart, Indiana in support of Mike Braun’s bid for the US Senate, Vice President Mike Pence referred to ISIS as a Caliphate, claiming "ISIS is on the run, their Caliphate has crumbled, and we will soon drive them out of existence once and for all.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the militant jihadist organization prescribed by many states as a terrorist organization, and the founding organization of the Islamic State caliphate. Were severely degraded in operational capability, subscribers and territorial control during the military intervention in Iraq and Syria by the U.S.-led Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh, and in Syria by the military of the Russian Federation.
As of early, 2022 Islamic State occupies some territory in Nigeria and has 3 million people under its rule and also it continues to maintain control over some of rural un-habitant areas in both Iraq and Syria.
Reference : wikipedia and others site...
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