The Caliphates of Islam

On the 17th night of Ramadan, “Muhammad woke to find himself overpowered by a devastating presence, which squeezed him tightly until he heard the first words of a new Arab’s scripture pouring from his lips.”(Armstrong 4). After that night Muhammad did not speak to anyone about the presence that overcame him for two years. Then, in 612 he preached to his cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib, Abu Bakr and Uthman ibn Affan (Armstrong 4). The Quran came to Muhammad verse by verse over many years. Muhammad and his followers faced many hardships trying to spread the new word, of this new religion. These hardships are detailed below in terms of the caliphs.

There were probably the most uprisings during the first caliph with Abu Bakr. He dealt with these by trying to unite and unify the ummah through a common goal or practice. The harsh conditions of the hot and dry climate of the Arabian Peninsula agriculture was difficult, so Muslims for years had taken part in the raiding of neighboring tribes. However, after its creation Islam forbade this because the tribes within the ummah are not supposed to harm one another. This was the cause of a major problem because raiding was such a part of the daily lives of the people. Bakr decided that instead of conducting such raids on one another, Muslims should instead turn these raids outwards on the neighboring non-Muslim lands of which gained much popularity under the rule of the second caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab (Armstrong 27). It was under these series of ghazu raids that the unity of the ummah was preserved by creating on outside offensive and at the same time bettered the influence of the caliph due the fact that tribesmen would be more likely to follow the caliph during military campaigns (Armstrong 27).

Uthman ibn Affan was elected to become the third caliph of the Islamic empire following the death of Umar. Through the series of ghazu raids in the neighboring lands, the Islamic empire acquired a great deal of wealth and territory, as well as spreading the message and influence of Islam. Uthman refused to allow the rich Meccan families and military commanders to set up households and estates in the newly conquered lands; of who harbored much discontent and hatred for this policy (Armstrong 32). This newly acquired territory led to the creation of garrison cities in the conquered lands: built to separate the conquering Muslim armies from the inhabitants of that country and located in strategic places for further conquest and to quell any future uprisings. This in turn forced the soldiers of the conquering Muslim armies to live far from their homes and families for long periods of time. With each new conquest the distance from home became greater and greater