Testimony #8: An Account of the Conflict between Umayyads and Hashimites

From Umayyads and Abbasids, being Part IV of Jurji Zaydan’s History of Islamic Civilization, trans. D. S. Margoliouth, E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series Vol. IV, Leyden, London, 1907.

Pp. 57-66.

Please note: this work bases itself on standard Islamic authorities and their legendary views of early Islamic history. It provides valuable information, however, about the Muslims’ own traditions concerning conflict in the tribe to which Muhammad belonged, between the Umayyads and Hashimites, and is useful as evidence of the Othmanic animus against Muhammad’s clan.

“CHAPTER II.

Mode of Government during the Umayyad Period

(41-132 A.H.).

Ҥ I. It has been seen that the fundamental principle of government during the period of the Pious Caliphs was the union of the Arabian race, whereas its mainstays were justice, mercy, and chivalry. Within a few years they founded the Islamic empire, subduing the greater part of the civilized world, their purpose being religious, their weapons piety, justice, and scrupulous observation of the Quran and the Tradition; their aim being the propagation of their religion, and their ultimate object the reward of the next world. Their appointment was by election and committees, whereas the methods of the Umayyads were the reverse of these in every respect.

§ 2. Transference Of The Caliphate To The Umayyads.

“When the Umayyads first began to aspire to the Caliphate, the throne had come to Ali son of Abu Talib, the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law; the Moslems regarded him as the person with the greatest claim to the Caliphate on the ground of his near relation to the Prophet, his piety, courage, learning, the early date of his conversion, and his services in propagating it. A rival arose in the person of Muawiyah son of Abu Sufyan, whose father and brethren had been the fiercest opponents of Islam at its rise, and who had only adopted it after the taking of Meccah in the year 8 A.H. They adopted it only because they were compelled, finding Islam already so firmly established in the Arabian Peninsula that there was no chance of resisting it.

“Abu Sufyan, Muawiyah’s father, had led the people of Meccah, had fought a number of pitched battles against the Prophet, had made no concealment of his animosity, and had assailed him in every way possible. When the Moslems had got sufficiently powerful to think of taking Meccah, and were started on their way, Abu Sufyan, with some of the magnates of the city, went out to spy the enemy’s movements. They were met by Abbas, the Prophet’s uncle, to whom Abu Sufyan, now repenting, made the observation that his nephew had grown very great; the uncle then advised him to capitulate, and this he felt compelled to do. Presently Meccah was taken; Abu Sufyan and his family, including his son Muawiyah, became Moslems, and received gifts from the Prophet to confirm them in their faith.

§ 3. Rivalry Between Umayyah And Hashim.

“The reason that led Muawiyah to seek the Caliphate goes back to pagan days. The Bani Abd Manaf were the most aristocratic clan in Kuraish, the most numerous, and the most powerful. They were divided into two branches, the Umayyads and Hashimites, the former being the more numerous. Before Islam they were of recognized nobility, the last eminent man of the line being Harb Ibn Umayyah, leader of the Meccans in the Fijar wars. He was a man of power and influence in both clans. When Islam appeared, the fact that the Prophet was a Hashimite was ungrateful to the Umayyads, and they, in consequence, headed the resistance to him, but without success. Still, they compelled the Prophet to migrate from Meccah to Medinah, where the Helpers—Kahtanites by race— aided him until his scheme was realized. Before his flight his uncle Abu Talib was dead, and his sons joined the Prophet’s migration. Presently Mohammed was joined by his uncle Hamzah, then by his uncle Abbas and others of the sons of Abd al-Muttalib, and the field was left free for the Umayyads in Meccah; their leadership over the tribe Kuraish was confirmed, and became additionally strong after the battle of Badr, since in that battle the leading men of the other Kurashite clans perished. Abu Sufyan became the leader of the Kuraish, and acted as general in the battle of Uhud, and again in the battle of the Ditch, and afterwards; and when the Moslems became strong and took Meccah, and Abu Sufyan capitulated, the Prophet regarded it as sound policy to deal generously with the Meccans after he had taken their city by force; so he gave them all their liberty, saying, “Go free, ye are the released.” Among these persons was Muawiyah, who, like the rest, became a Moslem.

“After the Prophet’s death, when Abu Bakr was Caliph, the Kurashites, and especially the Umayyads, came and complained to him of their being regarded as inferior to the Helpers and Refugees, but were reminded by him that they had entered the fold late and that only by zeal in the Sacred War could they overtake their brethren. Hence they displayed great zeal in the war with the Renegade Arabs. When Omar I became Caliph he perceived the feeling that lay hid in their bosoms, and was anxious that they should not remain in Medinah, so he sent them against the Byzantines, and held out to them the prospects of settlements in Syria. Abu Sufyan’s son Yazid was made by him governor of Syria, and with him the bulk of the Kuraish wandered thither, where the fruitfulness of the land pleased them; there, then, they remained till the death of Yazid, when Omar appointed his brother Muawiyah in his place. When Uthman became Caliph in the year 23 he confirmed Muawiyah in his appointment, whence the leadership of the Umayyads continued in Syria as it had been in pagan times in Meccah over the Kuraish, the Hashimites being occupied with Prophecy and having cast aside this present world.

§ 4. MUAWIYAH AND ALI.

“The Umayyads then kept their eyes fixed on the sovereignty and honour which the Hashimites had gained by the prophetic office, and were biding their opportunity to seize on the reins of monarchy. And when Omar was killed and a commission appointed to choose another Caliph, the Companions of the Prophet chose Uthman son of Affan, who was himself an Umayyad, and doubtless his choice was due to some Umayyad plotting. He was a weak man who favored his relatives in his administration, and the Umayyads taking advantage of his weakness possessed themselves of the governorships, and also obtained great wealth, to the vexation of the other Companions of the Prophet, who out of resentment killed the Caliph.

“This murder was seized by the Umayyads as a means of obtaining the Caliphate, the chief of the Umayyads being Muawiyah, who, as we have seen, held the governorship of Syria for the last two Caliphs. The people of Medinah had already chosen as Caliph Ali son of Abu Talib, they being mostly Helpers. Thus the Moslems found themselves divided into two parties, recognizing each a different head—the Helpers, who claimed the right to appoint to the sovereignty a member of the Prophet’s house, in virtue of their having aided him when he fled to them from Meccah, and the Kuraish in Syria, who claimed the right to bestow it on the head of the family which had been supreme in pagan days. The majority of the Companions of the Prophet acknowledged the claims of Ali, and Muawiyah saw no way of gaining his end save by cunning and underhand dealing, and in these qualities he was the first man of his age. He proceeded therefore to compass the sovereignty, like the ambitious of every age, without any thought of religion. And his efforts were aided by the fact that his rival Ali thought of the Caliphate as a religious office, and was of an ascetic turn of mind, with no ambitions save for his reward in heaven. And a further aid was the circumstance that Muawiyah’s supporters had outgrown their awe of religion and the prophetic office, and had tasted the pleasure of wealth, had grown accustomed to the first place, and the sphere of their ambitions had been enlarged. Muawiyah’s efforts to gain adherents were rendered fruitful by his employment of a principle which he is supposed to have stated in a conversation with Amr Ibn al-As: “Were there but a hair between me and my followers,” said Muawiyah, “it would not snap.” When asked to explain, he went on to say that if they drew it tighter he would let it loose, whereas if they loosened he would tighten.

“His first step was to press into his service three eminent members of the Companions, who were famed for their diplomatic ability—Amr Ibn al-As, Ziyad “his father’s son,” and Al-Mughirah Ibn Shubah. Without their aid he could scarcely have succeeded. At the battle of Siffin, when things were going against Muawiyah, Amr saved the day by suggesting that copies of the Quran should be lifted up with a view to stopping the war; he then advised arbitration, and as arbiter deceived Ali’s representative, Abu Musa al-Ashari, and declared Ali’s election void and Muawiyah’s valid—a service in return for which he obtained the governorship of Egypt for life. Ziyad “his father’s son” was a man of unknown parentage: when Muawiyah was satisfied as to his talents, he made an adherent of him by declaring him to be his brother, and giving him a place in the pedigree of his own family as Ziyad son of Abu Sufyan (his own father); the narrative of this is lengthy, and a summary of it has been given above. This adoption of Ziyad was the first occasion on which an Islamic law was publicly abrogated. Ziyad was of great help to Muawiyah in governing Irak and Fars. Al-Mughirah Ibn Shubah has the distinction of being the first Moslem forger of false coin, and the first who gave a bribe. It was he who encouraged Muawiyah to proclaim as his heir his son Yazid, making the Caliphate a hereditary office.

“The assistance of these and other eminent leaders was gained by Muawiyah by diplomacy and by offering inducements: Egypt was given in fief to Amr, Fars to Mughirah, whereas of Ziyad he made a brother. He was easygoing in the scrutiny of his lieutenants, and winked at malversation, while bestowing on them lavish honours. Had Ali displayed any similar qualities, the Moslems would have been on his side, but Ali was a sharp scrutinizer, obstinate in carrying out his own ideas, and unable to swerve from what his conscience dictated. Similar had been the character of the first two Caliphs, but in their days religious fanaticism and Arab patriotism were still in their bloom: a word from their Caliph was sufficient for them. Ali’s conduct was regarded by his contemporaries as weakness, and his partisans gradually deserted him for Muawiyah. Of these deserters the first was Al-Mughirah Ibn Shubah: he came to Ali the day on which the latter had been proclaimed Caliph, while Muawiyah was watching for an opportunity of dethroning him, and advised Ali to deal gently with Muawiyah and refrain from cashiering him till he (Ali) was quite secure in his throne, when he might cashier Muawiyah if he so pleased; Ali did not assent, so Al-Mughirah came again on the following day and treacherously advised him to cashier Muawiyah, as he wished to do. Al-Mughirah thereupon deserted to Muawiyah, and became one of his most zealous supporters.

“Quite similar was Ali’s treatment of his cousin Abdallah Ibn Abbas, whom, as we have seen, Ali by his conscientious scrutiny vexed and alienated from his cause; when Ali was assassinated, his son Al-Hasan regarded himself as unequal to the task of opposing Muawiyah, and he, therefore, conceded the Caliphate to him, whence Muawiyah’s seat became firm. This happened in the year 41. In the sequel the fortunes of the Alids and Umayyads reproduced those of Ali and Muawiyah: the unscrupulous side was always the winning side, and the Alids passed most of their time in fear and exile, and the majority of them died violent deaths, notwithstanding that they were persons of piety, worth, and probity. Whence we may infer that religion and politics do not go together, save in rare cases, and that their union in the days of the Pious Caliphs was an accident such as is unlikely to recur. Still, the word political is scarcely applicable to the dynasty of the Pious Caliphs, whose sovereignty was religious in type.

§ 5. The Ambition Of The Umayyads.

“The pivot on which the policy of the Umayyads turned, and the object which they regularly held in view, was the recovery of the sovereignty which they had enjoyed in pagan days. They cared little for the difficulties that stood in the way of the realization of that end, and the ghastly character of the means to be employed in its accomplishment. Accomplish it they did; and in their days the Islamic Empire grew strong, stronger than ever it was in Abbasid times. They wished to enjoy the sovereignty exclusively. The most autocratic of all was Abd al-Malik Ibn Marwan, whose motto was “There is not room for two stallions in one thicket.”

“The Umayyad desire for exclusive sovereignty, while others existed who had a better right to it than they, led them to commit many acts which blacken their memories. The two instruments whereby they succeeded in acquiring autocracy in the face of all their rivals were the clan-feeling of the Kurashites, and pressing into their service the other clan-feelings. These lie at the base of all that is known of Umayyad politics.

§ 6. Arab Patriotism In Umayyad Days.

“The Arabs and the Kuraish.—In the pagan period Arabic patriotism was confined to the tribes; when Islam arose, that form of patriotism was forgotten, and the Arabs were united under the name Islam, or the Islamic community. And during the period of the Pious Caliphs this name included all the Arabs with their different tribes and clans; and, indeed, when the Umayyads aspired to autocracy, and seized on the Caliphate, they displayed a sort of chauvinism in favour of the Arabs, maintained the obligations of Bedouin life, held firmly to Bedouin customs, and allowed Bedouin asperity to characterize their government and affect their policy, albeit the Bedouin virtues which have been mentioned had disappeared. Of all the principles of pagan days the only one which they maintained was patriotism towards their tribe, Kuraish, and preference for their family over others. This aroused much envy in the breasts of those other tribes that had been of importance in pagan days, and been deprived of it by Islam; especially was this the case with the people of Basrah and Kufah, as well as Syria, most of the Arabs who settled in these places having been ill-disposed towards Islam and having associated but little with the Prophet, and so having scarcely experienced the refining influence of his character, while retaining the old wildness and clan-patriotism of pagan times. When the Umayyads became firmly seated, these tribes found themselves under the thumb of the ‘Refugees’ and ‘Helpers,’ members of the tribes Kuraish, Kinanah, Thakif, Hudhail, the people of Hijaz, and the people of Yathrib: to this condition they strongly objected, remembering the nobility of their ancestry, the numbers of their families, and how they had borne the brunt of the Byzantine and Persian powers. The tribes of which we are speaking included Bakr Ibn Wail, Abd Kais Ibn Rabiah, Kindah, Azd, all Yemenite; with Tamim and Kais of Mudar. They began to detract from the Kuraish, and to display open hostility towards them. Thus clan-patriotism, similar to what had existed in pagan times, was restored.

“This renewed patriotism, then, began with the general aversion of the Arabs to the Kuraish, occasioned by envy of that tribe, as we have mentioned, and by the fact that the Kuraish assumed absolute sovereignty to the exclusion of the rest of the Companions of the Prophet and the succeeding generation, and that they claimed the whole of the booty for themselves and such members of the Yemenite or Adnanite tribes as Muawiyah thought fit to conciliate. The first dispute of this sort that arose in Islam was in the time of Uthman. When Said Ibn al-As had been appointed by this Caliph governor of Kufah, he selected the chief Kufans, and the people who had fought at Kadisiyyah, and the Kufan Quran-readers to keep him company. These persons would sit with him at night, having among them members of all the tribes. The Umayyads and other Companions of the Prophet had by this time commenced owning landed property and building mansions, the Umayyads being able to carry on these operations on a vaster scale than others owing to their relationship with the Caliph. It happened that at one of these entertainments one of those present made mention of the liberality of Talhah son of Ubaidallah, an eminent Companion of the Prophet. Said observed that “a man with an estate like Nishastaj may well be liberal; had I an estate of the sort, God would have bestowed abundance on you all out of it.” The estate to which he referred was a vast one in Kufah, producing a vast revenue, purchased by Talhah of some Kufans who had taken up their residence in the Hijaz with some property of his own at Khaibar. He had then cultivated the estate with care, and increased the revenue.

“When Said said this, a young man who was present rose up and said, “I wish Miltat here were yours!” Miltat was land belonging to the Persian kings in the neighborhood of Kufah on both banks of the Euphrates. Another of those present, not a member of the Kuraish, rose and rebuked the young man, for whom his father made excuse, saying, “He is a lad, don’t be severe with him.” “How dare he,” said they, “want our Sawad?” Safd replied that the Sawad was the Garden of the Kuraish. Al-Ashtar al-Nakhai, a Yemenite, and a vehement partisan of Ali son of Abu Talib, then said angrily to Said, “Do you aver that the Sawad which God has given us by our swords is your and your friends’ garden?” Hereupon Abd al-Rahman al-Asadi, of Said’s bodyguard, said to him, “Do you bandy words with your commander?” and rebuked him coarsely. Thereupon Al-Ashtar made a sign to his friends, who leaped on Abd al-Rahman, and trampled on him so violently that he fainted; they then dragged him by the feet and sprinkled water on him till he recovered, when he said to Said, “Your choice entertainers have killed me.” Said determined to have no more nightly gatherings.

“From that time relations became strained between the Kuraish and the other tribes, especially between the former and the Yemenites, particularly the Yemenite Helpers. The Helpers remained constant in helping the people of the Prophet’s House against the other Kurashites, as they had done at the beginning of Islam when the Prophet came to them as a refugee, flying from his relatives. The battle of Siffin, fought in the year 37 between Ali and Muawiyah, was regarded as a trial of forces between the Helpers and the Kuraish. When that battle was raging furiously a Yemenite Helper of Ali said, “ Ye people, is there any among you that would find his way to God under the spears? By Him in whose hand is my soul, we shall fight you for its [the Quran’s] interpretation, as we have fought you for its revelation.” So he went forward to the fight, reciting:

‘We fought you for its revelation,
Now fight you for its explanation;
Our blows will cause decapitation,
And interrupt all conversation,
Till right return to its location.’”

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