The Umayyad Rise to the Caliphate
27
result of a weakness in his personality and the ability of his clever
and unscrupulous family to exploit this weakness. However we
interpret it, tradition shows us
the Umayyads to some extent
rebuilding under ‘Uthman the influence and power which they had
had before Islam.
9
‘Uthman’s murder was followed by the choice of ‘Ali, cousin and
son-in-law of the Prophet, as the next caliph. His appointment,
however, was by no means universally welcomed: personal and
political rivalries existed, and his opponents were able to use the
circumstances in which he had come to power—following a killing
which his opponents declared unjustified,
and with the support of
those who had carried out the killing—to impugn his legitimacy,
even though he was not charged with having personally taken part in
the murder of ‘Uthman. ‘Uthman’s Umayyad relations were
prominent in the opposition to ‘Ali, but the first active resistance
came, not from them, but from other Qurashis resentful of ‘Ali’s rise
to power. The leaders of this first opposition to ‘Ali were ‘A’isha,
the widow of Muhammad, and Talha and Al-Zubayr, former
companions of Muhammad and members of the inner circle at the
centre of the state.
At the end of 656
they marched from Mecca, where they had first
proclaimed their hostility to ‘Ali, to Basra in Iraq, where they raised
an army to fight against him. Learning of this, ‘Ali too left the Hijaz
(never again the centre of the caliphate) and came to the other Iraqi
garrison town, Kufa, where he raised an army to fight the dissidents.
The two forces met, in December 656, outside Basra in a battle
known in tradition as the battle of the Camel,
so called because the
fighting wheeled around the camel upon which ‘A’isha sat in her
litter. The result was a complete victory for ‘Ali; Talha and al-
Zubayr were killed, and ‘A’isha taken off back to Medina to be held
in limited confinement there.
10
The chronology and exact course of events are somewhat vague,
but generally tradition puts Mu‘awiya’s decision to come out openly
against ‘Ali only after the battle of the Camel. At first, we are told,
he limited himself to impugning ‘Ali’s legitimacy, demanding that
those who had killed ‘Uthman be handed over for punishment in
accordance with
the law of blood vengeance, and arousing among
his Syrian Arab supporters fury at ‘Uthman’s murder. Although not
the closest relative of the murdered caliph, Mu‘awiya was the
Umayyad with the strongest power base, having governed Syria for
about fifteen years and, furthermore, being free from suspicion of