First Fitna

Between 656 and 661 the young Muslim community fought its first civil war, known in Arabic as the "great fitna" or strife. It set the caliph Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, against rivals who demanded justice for his murdered predecessor, above all Mu'awiya, the governor of Syria. The war ended the Rashidun Caliphate, brought the Umayyad dynasty to power, and left memories that Sunni and Shia Muslims still read in different ways.

The third caliph, Uthman, had relied heavily on his Umayyad kinsmen, giving them most of the major governorships. As the great conquests slowed and the flow of spoils shrank, discontent grew, particularly among the settler armies of Iraq and Egypt. In June 656 rebels from those provinces marched on Medina and killed the caliph. Ali was then recognised as caliph, but the question of how to deal with Uthman's killers overshadowed his rule from the start.

The first challenge came from Aisha, a widow of the Prophet, and two senior companions, Talha and Zubayr. Gathering in Mecca, they called for vengeance and a fresh council to choose a caliph, and seized Basra. Ali raised forces in Kufa and met them outside Basra on 8 December 656. Zubayr withdrew and was killed soon afterwards; Talha also died. The fighting raged around Aisha's camel, which gave the battle its name, until the animal was brought down. Ali won, sent Aisha back to Medina under escort and pardoned the prisoners.

Mu'awiya, Uthman's cousin, refused to give up Syria and demanded the right to avenge him. After weeks of fruitless talks, the armies fought at Siffin, west of the Euphrates, from 26 July 657 for three or four days. As the tide turned towards Ali, Syrian soldiers raised copies of the Quran on their lances and called for God's book to decide. Under pressure from his own men, Ali agreed to arbitration, settled on 2 August 657. The arbiters, Abu Musa al-Ash'ari for Ali and Amr ibn al-As for Mu'awiya, met at Dumat al-Jandal and Udhruh, perhaps until April 658. Their proceedings favoured Mu'awiya, and by 659 the Syrians had pledged allegiance to him as caliph.

Some of Ali's followers rejected the arbitration outright, insisting that judgement belonged to God alone. These Kharijites, or "those who went out", declared both leaders unbelievers and killed civilians who disagreed with them. Ali crushed them at Nahrawan, by the Tigris; roughly 2,800 of them are said to have fought. Meanwhile, in mid-658, Amr ibn al-As led about 6,000 Syrian troops into Egypt, defeated Ali's governor and took the province for Mu'awiya. In 660 a Syrian raid under Busr ibn Abi Artat swept through Medina, Mecca and Yemen before withdrawing.

Late in 660 the two sides agreed by letter to halt their campaigns. In January 661 a Kharijite, Ibn Muljam, struck Ali down in the Great Mosque of Kufa. His eldest son Hasan was proclaimed in Kufa, but his army melted away as commanders defected to Mu'awiya. Hasan ceded the caliphate under a treaty promising an amnesty, and Mu'awiya was recognised as caliph, founding the Umayyad Caliphate.

Sunni Muslims count Ali as the fourth and last of the rightly guided caliphs. They honour Mu'awiya as a companion of the Prophet and a scribe of revelation, though they do not place him among the rightly guided, and many criticise him for turning the caliphate into a hereditary kingship. Shia Muslims regard Ali as the first Imam and the rightful successor of Muhammad from the beginning, and view Mu'awiya's war against him with deep hostility. Divisions sharpened further with the killing of Ali's younger son Husayn at the Battle of Karbala in 680.

No map year falls within the war itself. Our 700 map shows the Umayyad state that emerged from it, which held both Syria and Iraq, the two rival heartlands of the conflict.