Parable and Politics in Early Islamic History – The Rashidun Caliphs

Title: Parable and Politics in Early Islamic History – The Rashidun Caliphs
Author: Tayeb El-Hibri
Publisher: Columbia University Press, 2018 (First)
ISBN: 9780231150835
Pages: 471

When Muhammad died in 632 CE, he didn't leave behind any clear instructions on the successor. Since he died in Medina, the two factions in early Islamic society - the Muhajirun (emigrants) and the Ansar (helpers) - sprang into action to get one among them elected as the caliph (commander of the faithful). Umar cleverly handled the power struggle and ensured the almost unanimous selection of Abu Bakr as the caliph. The supporters of Ali, who was the son-in-law of the Prophet and therefore of the same family, felt that he was unjustly side-lined in the selection process. In fact, Ali would continue to be overlooked twice more as Umar and Uthman would step on to the top post in the coming years. He finally obtained the position as the fourth caliph and the first four are called the Rashidun (rightly guided) caliphs. After Ali's death in 661, the caliphate moved away from the companions of the Prophet and effectually ended up as a kingship. This book covers the period from 632 to 661 CE when the reign of the Rashidun caliphs ended. The divergence in the religious concepts of the institutions of Shias and Sunnis emanate from the initial disagreement over who should have succeeded the Prophet and what really happened on the eve of his death. This study revisits these issues in religious and historical sources and argues for an alternative reading of this history as a largely parabolic cycle of literary narrative. It advises that the study of Islamic chronicles should be as texts of representation than as factual testimonies preserved in time. Tayeb el-Hibri is professor of Near Eastern studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

El-Hibri claims that the texts of early Islamic history were finalized only in the ninth century under the tutelage of the Abbasid dynasty on the caliphate. Naturally, the writers preferred themes and parables better appreciated by their patrons even at the cost of verisimilitude. Furthermore, the Quranic reticence on storytelling did not prevent Jewish and Christian converts after Muhammad's death from developing the tradition of religious storytelling anew. There were two schools of study of the early Islamic caliphate - the credulous and the skeptical. The credulous approach places significant belief in the historicity of Islamic traditions and the skeptical approach ranges from placing some trust in them to complete rejection. The skeptical approach is a new development. Religious scholars in the ninth century were in a dilemma over the mortal fight among the Rashidun caliphs for political power. Three out of the four were brutally assassinated. In light of this, they ignored the turbulent history of Uthman and Ali's reigns, opting to emphasize the flattering portions of the biographies. Conflict was blamed on outside instigators while the companions were portrayed as having acted in good faith. Ninth century writers in the Abbasid period answered contemporary economic questions about taxation by attributing certain principles to the Rashidun caliphs making it a touchstone for imagined, idealized practices. The polemical constructions of Sunni hadiths in the ninth century ran parallel to the standard narrative of the Rashidun caliphate with all its controversies and consistently legitimized what they did. 

The book presents the various scenarios and dramatic developments following the death of each leader. Prophet's succession was a contentious issue and we see that the selection of Abu Bakr was not entirely a foregone conclusion at first and also find the different versions of how he came to lead the prayer while the Prophet was alive, but sick. Abu Bakr played a leading role in healing the rift between the Muhajirun and Ansar factions in Medina and reuniting the community with sober council and kind words. Family renown was an overriding factor in early Arab society. It still is. Abu Bakr tells the Ansar that even though they possess all fine qualities, the Arabs will not recognize their authority except in the clan of the Quraysh, for they represent the best in lineage and standing (p.51). Abu Bakr also had a point of contention with the Prophet's daughter too. Bitterness between Fatima and Abu Bakr over her inheriting the estate of Fadak conquered from the Jews spilled over into day-to-day affairs. She insisted that the estate be handed over to her, but Abu Bakr managed to change the inheritance laws to the extent that a sole, surviving daughter of a deceased man would not be allowed to gain the majority share of inheritance from her father as her kin.

The reigns of the next two caliphs were marked by sectarian discord and allegations of nepotism especially in the allocation of war booty. They were also temperamentally much different from the first. Whereas Abu Bakr represented the experience of belief as a leap of faith and trust in the revealed word, Umar represented the experience of belief as an observation of the law and organizing norms. Umar's injunctions prohibited the drinking of wine, instituted the veiling of women and the clear demarcation between believers and non-believers. He is represented as an authoritarian and somewhat angry character. Umar made allies of religiously dubious but politically crafty figures like Muawiya and al-Mughira who knew what to say to Umar and when to say it. Umar was able to bring many new regions like Persia and Khurasan under the Arab sway but Umar and Ali appeared as patrons of the Arab and Persian camps respectively. Persia in general and Khurasan in particular would rise later as the chief patron of the Hashimite cause of Ali. Uthman is presented as a weak character. Scholars claim that Uthman came from a wealthy family, but there are no stories about his being a daring defender of Islam in its uncertain days. Hence, the later eulogy of him as a true companion of the Prophet may be a back-projection of Sunni praise on account of his becoming the third caliph. The slow progress towards the overthrow of Uthman is portrayed in an extensive set of narratives by Tabari about the companions abandoning Uthman to certain death. Muawiya requested Uthman to shift to Damascus from Medina but the latter didn't want to. Uthman was killed by opponents from Kufa, Basra and Egypt. The remaining companions failed to come to his aid. If some of them had intervened, the rebels would have departed in shame.

Ali at last became caliph when Uthman was killed by rebels who were alleged to have his tacit support. Ali's ascendancy set in a fissiparous trend that would rent the community asunder as Shias and Sunnis. The tragic wipe off of his family in the civil war is still mourned by the Shias. At the outset, Ali refused to countenance the contentious officials appointed by his predecessor even if that meant the disintegration of his rule in the provinces. To Ali, political war was a crusade of virtue and he stigmatized any attempt at compromise as something bordering on hypocrisy (p.96). Thus, Ali would be haunted by political setbacks throughout his career. He would often go by ideals rather than sound strategy and conceded his enemies space which a prudent commander would not have. At the Battle of Siffin, he allowed the camp of Muawiya to drink from the wells under Ali's control. In the battle, he fought valiantly alongside his troops, even though he himself had advised Umar against doing this at the Battle of Qadisiyya which Umar led, claiming that it would embolden the enemy to target him. The later narrators also focussed on Ali with a negative perspective. In spite of the wrongs done to Ali, they still conceived a contradictory perspective whereby even though Ali was pitied for his loss of the caliphate, his political distancing was still considered a necessity in order to give legitimacy to the Abbasid line, away from the Prophet's own Hashimite family. With the assassination of Ali, Muawiya transformed the caliphate into a more traditional kingship. Muawiya's qualities of forbearance, endurance and his discretionary system of pardons to wrongdoers and former foes helped him to gradually reconstitute a base of tribal support focused on his new centre in Damascus. Hampered by strict legal and religious codes that sacrificed all political and social considerations, Ali was unable to compromise for political expediency. The transfer of the leadership to Umayyads projected the province of Syria as the bastion of Sunnism in the caliphate, which was devoid of sectarian pretensions unlike the newly conquered regions of Iran and Iraq.

El-Hibri stresses that the stories preserved in the early Islamic narratives were neither real in its details nor intended to be factual. Rather, it played with classical biblical imagery to communicate a parable. To make every anecdote conform to this hypothesis, the author makes abundant use of symbolism to make them suited to what he proposes. This can be elaborated by an example: Arab conquest of Persia is mentioned in the book which unseated the king Yazdajird who fled. Disguised, he sought asylum at a local peasant's cabin who demanded four dirhams as rent for the stay. El-Hibri takes over at this point and argues that 'four' is the numerical symbol of justice or may have symbolized the cardinal points in the empire. This is a rather forced view and with that kind of license, you can claim anything. This book appears to be a learned attempt to focus on Islam's common legacy which it shares with Christianity rather than harping on its exclusivity. This focus on the biblical roots of early Islamic historiography makes it more appealing and acceptable to a Western audience. It does not lay stress on the intolerant mindset of the caliphs even though many instances can be discerned by the reader in passing through the narrative. This book is not for beginners as it assumes a somewhat deep familiarity with the source material. It mainly concentrates on the works of Tabari and also Ibn Sa'd, Baladhuri and Waqidi. It provides a transcript of the original Arabic verses of important citations. The Roman letters ensures that the reader can at least get to know of how the original sounded.

The book is recommended to serious readers who has a background of early Islamic history.

Rating: 2 Star