Abu Bakr

Abu Bakr was a Meccan cloth merchant, one of the first converts to Islam, and the Prophet Muhammad's most trusted companion, whose daughter Aisha became Muhammad's wife. On Muhammad's death in 632 he became the first caliph, or successor, at the head of what historians call the Rashidun Caliphate, and in a reign of just over two years he reunited Arabia under Medina's rule and launched the first campaigns into Iraq and Syria. Sunni Muslims revere him as the first of the four "rightly guided" caliphs; Shia Muslims hold that his succession displaced the rightful claim of Ali.

According to the traditional accounts, Abu Bakr was born in Mecca around 573 into a wealthy family of the Taym clan of Quraysh, the tribe that dominated the city. He was literate, knew the genealogies of the Arab tribes well and traded in cloth.

Abu Bakr accepted Muhammad's message very early. Tradition counts him as the first free adult man to convert, and several leading figures of the early community, including Uthman, the future third caliph, are said to have joined through his persuasion. He used his wealth to buy and free enslaved converts who were being persecuted, among them Bilal, later the first caller to prayer.

In 622, when Muhammad left Mecca for Medina, Abu Bakr travelled with him, and the two hid from their pursuers in a cave on Mount Thawr, an episode referred to in the Quran. Muhammad married his daughter Aisha. In Medina Abu Bakr took part in the campaigns against Mecca, from Badr in 624 to the city's surrender in 630, and in 631 he led the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Muhammad's death in June 632 left no agreed procedure for choosing a leader. Leading men of Medina met in the courtyard of the Banu Sa'ida clan, where Abu Bakr and Umar argued that the leader must come from Quraysh; Umar pledged his allegiance to Abu Bakr and others followed. The choice was contested from the start. Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, and some other companions withheld their allegiance, which Ali gave only after about six months. Abu Bakr also refused the claim of Muhammad's daughter Fatima to the estate of Fadak, citing a saying of the Prophet that prophets leave no inheritance, a decision that remains a point of deep disagreement.

Almost at once many Arabian tribes broke away. Some followed rival prophets such as Musaylima of the Banu Hanifa; others simply refused to pay taxes to Medina. Abu Bakr answered with force in the Ridda Wars, sending the general Khalid ibn al-Walid and other commanders across the peninsula. By the end of the fighting the whole of Arabia was under Medina's control.

In 633 small Muslim forces moved into Iraq, then ruled by the Sasanian Empire, and into Byzantine Palestine and Syria. The two great empires were exhausted by decades of war with each other. Abu Bakr did not live to see the results, but these campaigns opened the early Muslim conquests carried on by his successors.

According to Sunni tradition, after many men who knew the Quran by heart were killed at the battle of Yamama, Umar urged Abu Bakr to have it collected in writing. Zayd ibn Thabit, one of Muhammad's scribes, gathered the scattered passages into a single codex, which later passed to Umar's daughter Hafsa and served as a basis for the standard text produced under Uthman. Twelver Shia scholars dispute the role this account gives to Abu Bakr and Umar.

Abu Bakr fell ill with a fever and died in Medina on 23 August 634, having named Umar as his successor. He is buried beside Muhammad in the Prophet's Mosque. For Sunnis he is the greatest of the companions, given the title al-Siddiq, "the truthful". Most Shia regard him negatively.

Our 600 map shows Arabia and its imperial neighbours just before the rise of Islam, and the 700 map shows how far the conquests he began had spread within two generations of his death.