According to Muslim tradition, the Umayyad family is part of that subdivision of the Arab people which is descended ultimately from the biblical Ishmael (Isma‘il in Arabic) the son of Abraham (Ibrahim). The Muslim genealogical tradition divides the Arab people into two main groups which for convenience we may call ‘northerners’ and ‘southerners’, referring to the areas of Arabia which are regarded as their homelands. The ‘southerners’ are held to be descended from the biblical Joktan (Qahtan), a descendant of Noah, while Ishmael is the father of the ‘northerners’. Among the many tribal groups of whom Ishmael is seen as the ancestor was that of Quraysh, and the Umayyad family was a sub-group of Quraysh.1
In the pre-Islamic period Quraysh had settled in Mecca and taken control of the town together with its ancient sanctuary, the Ka‘ba, which, tradition tells us, Abraham had built at God’s command. In the course of time the Arabs had corrupted Abraham’s sanctuary and adopted polytheistic beliefs and practices, although they still regarded the Ka‘ba as the most important sanctuary of Arabia and pilgrims came to it from nearly all the Arab tribes. It was one of the main tasks of the Prophet Muhammad at the beginning of the seventh century to purify the Ka‘ba and restore its cult to the worship of the one true God. Muhammad himself was, like the Umayyads, a member of the tribe of Quraysh, and so too were the ‘Abbasids, the family which eventually displaced the Umayyads as caliphs. Indeed it seems to have become accepted quite early by most Muslims that only members of Quraysh could aspire to the office of caliph or imam.2
The specific descent of the Umayyads within the wider grouping of Quraysh begins with a certain ‘Abd Shams, son of ‘Abd Manaf of the tribe of Quraysh. The Umayyad family is sometimes designated by the slightly more general expression Banu (that is, descendants of) ‘Abd Shams. From ‘Abd Manaf to the Prophet Muhammad Muslim tradition counts five generations. If the names refer to real historical persons, therefore, ‘Abd Manaf must have lived about the second half of the fifth century. Among other offspring, ‘Abd Manaf is said to be the father of twin sons, one of whom was ‘Abd Shams and the other Hashim. In tradition these are the most important of ‘Abd Manaf’s descendants for, while ‘Abd Shams was the ancestor of the Umayyads, Hashim begat a line which included the Prophet Muhammad, his son-in-law and cousin ‘Ali, whom most Shi‘ite Muslims regard as the only rightful leader (imam) of the community after the death of the Prophet, and the ‘Abbasids.3
It should not be surprising, then, that the traditions about the relations between ‘Abd Shams and Hashim and between their descendants often seem to prefigure the hostility which existed in Islamic times between the Umayyads and the descendants of Hashim. Since Muslim tradition generally supports the Banu Hashim against the Umayyads, the stories about their pre-Islamic history usually glorify the former at the expense of the latter. So we are told that ‘Abd Shams and Hashim were Siamese twins who had to be separated by cutting. The blood that thus flowed between them at their birth was a symbol of future events. Just as, in the book of Genesis, Esau lost his birthright to his younger twin Jacob, so ‘Abd Shams, who emerged from his mother before Hashim, failed to obtain the wealth, prestige and influence which accrued to Hashim. The son of ‘Abd Shams, Umayya, eponym of the Umayyad family, was notably unable to match the generosity of his uncle Hashim, and as a result Hashim obtained the prestigious offices of supplying food and drink to the pilgrims who came to Mecca. These offices were two of a number associated with the Ka‘ba which had been handed down in the family to which ‘Abd Manaf belonged. In the Islamic period the right of providing drink for the pilgrims was still associated with the Banu Hashim.4
In spite of this, by the time of Muhammad it was the descendants of ‘Abd Shams who were in positions of wealth and power while the Banu Hashim was less to the fore. The Umayyads in fact appear as one of the leading families of Mecca at this period and by 624 they had become the leading Meccan family and, as such, leader of the Meccan opposition to Muhammad. 624 was the date of the first great victory of Muhammad and the Muslims over the still pagan Meccans at the battle of Badr. The leader of the Umayyad family at the time, Abu Sufyan, is said to have opposed the decision taken by other leading Meccans to engage the Muslims in battle and consequently after the defeat he alone was able to preserve some prestige. Abu Sufyan, the head of the Umayyads, henceforth appears as the director of pagan Meccan opposition to Muhammad and Islam, an image which would naturally appeal to later Muslim opponents of the Umayyad caliphs.
The opposition to Muhammad was, as we know, doomed to failure. By 629 he was able with his followers to occupy Mecca almost without fighting and receive the submission of most of these Meccans who still maintained their hostility to him and his religion. Already before this event, we are told, Abu Sufyan and other prominent Meccans, among them his son Mu‘awiya, had begun, seeing which way the wind was blowing, to go over to Muhammad, sometimes secretly. Naturally, these ‘conversions’ are the subject of many, frequently variant, accounts, differing parties wanting to make them earlier or later, providing attendant circumstances which confirm or call into question their sincerity, and so forth. It is generally accepted, however, that the fall of Mecca ended Meccan opposition to Islam and that Abu Sufyan and his family, notably his sons Yazid and Mu‘awiya, accepted Islam by this date at the latest.
A derogatory expression which is sometimes used in Muslim tradition to refer to the Umayyads is al-tulaqa’, ‘the freedmen’. This is explained by the fact that the conquest of Mecca had made them slaves of Muhammad but he had chosen to set them free. However, tradition also reports that the Prophet was eager to secure and reinforce the allegiance of his former enemies like Abu Sufyan and, to this end, he made them special gifts after his conquest of Mecca, a tactic known as the ‘winning of the hearts’ (ta’lif al-qulub).5
One might have expected that the triumph of Islam in Mecca would lead to the disappearance of the former pagan leaders from positions of power and influence, but, while positions of central power certainly passed to figures known for their early and genuine acceptance of Islam, it seems that the former Meccan pagan nobility had qualities which were useful to the new order. We are told that Abu Sufyan himself was given positions of authority in the Yemen and in Ta’if even while the Prophet was still alive, and his sons Yazid and Mu‘awiya were put in command of some of the raiding forces sent to Syria after the Prophet’s death. When Syria eventually fell to the Arabs following the battle of Yarmuk in 636 and its Byzantine rulers were driven out, Yazid, the son of Abu Sufyan, became its second governor and, when he died soon afterwards, he was succeeded by his brother Mu‘awiya in 639. It was from this position as governor of Syria that Mu‘awiya, some fifteen years later, was to launch the campaign which brought him to the caliphate.
This summary of the fortunes of the Umayyads in the pre-Islamic period and through into the early years of the Islamic era raises questions about authenticity which are probably insoluble. The image of the Umayyads as leading opponents of the Prophet and Islam, their late and opportunisitic acceptance of the new religion, and the antiquity of the rivalry between them and the Banu Hashim, all seem possible creations, or at least elaborations, of political and religious feelings against the Umayyads which developed during the course of their caliphate. Equally, the items of tradition which are more favourable towards the Umayyads, such as the story that Abu Sufyan lost an eye in the service of Islam and the Prophet promised him an eye in Paradise in compensation, or that it was Abu Sufyan’s battle cry which aroused the spirit of the Muslims at a crucial time in the conquest of Syria, could be remnants of pro-Umayyad propaganda during their caliphate or later. It seems best, therefore, to accept the above as a summary of what Muslim tradition tells us and to leave open the question of its basis in fact.6
Mu‘awiya became caliph and founder of the Umayyad dynasty as a result of the events of a period of about five years, between 656 and 661, during which the Arabs were divided into several camps each hostile to the others. These internal hostilities led on a number of occasions to the outbreak of fighting among the recent conquerors of the heartlands of the Middle East. Muslim tradition knows this period as the Fitna (‘time of trial’), or Great Fitna to distinguish it from other, later periods of internecine conflict between Muslims. Modern writers usually refer to it as the first civil war of Islam. The Fitna came to be seen as a period of crucial importance and as the end of something like a Golden Age in the history of Islam: not only did it give rise to the Umayyad caliphate, it is traditionally regarded as the time when the three major Muslim sects—Sunnis, Shi‘ites and Kharijites—emerged from what had previously been a united community.7
In Muslim historical tradition the disputes of the Fitna appear largely as rivalries between different personalities, centring on the question of who was the legitimate caliph and what were to be his powers. Modern scholars have sought to get behind this surface explanation and to uncover the social, political and religious tensions which came to breaking point at this time. In a general way, it seems clear that the Fitna was the result of tensions which developed among the Arabs as they were faced with the tremendous changes to their way of life associated with their rapid conquest of large areas of the Middle East, but individual scholars have emphasised different tensions. Some, like Wellhausen, stressed the rivalries which developed among the leading circle of Muslims in Medina, between the Meccans and Medinese among the Muslim elite, and between the more pious early Muslims and the later, opportunist converts like most of the Umayyads.
Another approach, followed notably by H.A.R.Gibb, has been to stress the developing opposition between the tribesmen who made up the conquering armies, with their customary strong independence and primitive democracy, and the demands of the emerging central governmental institution headed by the caliph. The conflict between the two is seen to focus on the problem of what should be done with the land which was conquered. Should it, as the conquering tribesmen wanted, be shared out among those who had conquered it, or should it be treated as communal property for the benefit of all the Muslims, left to be cultivated by those who had done so before its conquest, and taxed by the state which would then share out or keep the proceeds as the caliph and his advisors saw fit? The latter solution, we are told, was adopted by the caliph ‘Umar (634–44). Gibb argued that in ‘Umar’s time the conquests were in full spate and the conquering tribesmen failed to understand the significance of his decision since they were still taking vast amounts of movable booty (slaves, wealth, livestock, and so on) and did not need the land itself. After ‘Umar’s death, however, the pace of conquest began to slow down, the acquisition of movable booty decreased, and the tribesmen began to resent the fact that the land which they had conquered had been taken away from them. Discontent among the tribesmen against the caliph, then, was the most important element in the outbreak of the Fitna, and the tension between the tribesmen and the government was its main theme.
More recently Hinds and Shaban have argued that we should concentrate on divisions among the tribesmen themselves. They have focused on the situation in the garrison towns and have discerned rivalries between those who took part in the original conquests and settlements and the newcomers who migrated from Arabia in the wake of the first conquests. These rivalries were exacerbated as the government tried to increase its control over the tribesmen by supporting the authority of leading tribal notables, who had usually arrived after the first conquests, against the leaders of lesser stature who had established their positions in the garrison towns earlier. Hinds in particular has produced a body of evidence which is impressive for its cohesiveness, but here we can leave aside detailed consideration of these arguments and concentrate on the importance of the Fitna for the Umayyads.8
We have seen that Muslim tradition portrays the Umayyads generally as late and rather reluctant in their acceptance of Islam. This generalisation, though, is subject to at least one notable exception. ‘Uthman b. ‘Affan was both a descendant of Umayya and an early Muslim, and after the death of the Prophet he was one of the inner circle which directed the affairs of the emergent Muslim state. In 644 he was chosen as the third caliph following the death of ‘Umar. Although an Umayyad, ‘Uthman is not counted as one of the Umayyad dynasty since he was chosen by the inner circle of early Muslims, owed his election to his status as an early Muslim, and made no attempt to appoint an Umayyad as his successor.
It was under ‘Uthman that the Golden Age of early Islam began to become tarnished and the crisis which was to issue in civil war and the irrevocable division of the community developed. Opposition to him arose in several quarters, particularly in the garrison towns, and finally in the summer of 656 a band of tribesmen from the Egyptian garrison town of Fustat came to Medina where, after the failure of negotiations, they attacked and killed ‘Uthman in his house.
There are a number of possible explanations for the rise of opposition to ‘Uthman, and Muslim tradition preserves whole lists of accusations made against him by his opponents. Prominent among these accusations is the charge that he practised nepotism by appointing his Umayyad relatives to important offices in the state. Indeed we are told that, in addition to confirming Mu‘awiya as governor of Syria, ‘Uthman appointed Umayyads to governorates in Egypt, Kufa and Basra, and that he gave the important office of keeper of the caliphal seal to another relative, the father of the future Umayyad caliph Marwan. This has been interpreted as being no more than a way in which ‘Uthman sought to increase his personal control in the provinces at a time when important administrative problems were arising, but more traditionally it has been seen as a 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 having benefited from ‘Uthman’s alleged nepotism since he owed his appointment in Syria to ‘Uthman’s predecessor, the venerable ‘Umar. At this time Mu‘awiya was not claiming the caliphate for himself, merely demanding vengeance for ‘Uthman and questioning ‘Ali’s right to rule. In the spring of 657 ‘Ali marched north from Kufa on campaign against Mu‘awiya and the latter, who had been attempting to wrest Egypt from ‘Ali’s governor, headed for Mesopotamia to meet him.
The two met at Siffin, a site which has not been securely identified but which seems to have been in the vicinity of Raqqa but on the right bank of the Euphrates. It was late spring or early summer, and we are told that the armies faced each other for some time before fighting commenced. Then, according to the Muslim reports (contradicted by the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes), ‘Ali’s men were on the point of victory when there occurred an episode which has become famous. What happened is to some extent obscure but it is generally accepted that Mu‘awiya’s men raised copies or parts of the Koran on the ends of their spears and ‘Ali’s men, or the more pious among them, seeing this, forced ‘Ali to stop fighting and enter into negotiation with Mu‘awiya.
Whether the raising of the Korans was intended as a general reminder that both parties were Muslims and should not be fighting one another, or whether it was intended as a more specific signal that the dispute should be resolved by reference to the Word of God, is not clear, but there is a tendency to see it as no more than a ruse by the Syrians to get out of a difficult situation. The idea of it is credited, not to Mu‘awiya himself, but to his right-hand man, ‘Amr b. al-‘As. ‘Amr, who had previously led the Arab conquest of Egypt and had served as governor there before being removed by ‘Uthman, was not himself an Umayyad but another of those Meccans whose acceptance of Islam was regarded as opportunistic. During the Fitna he appears rather as Mu‘awiya’s evil genius, though this is perhaps a device to save the reputation of Mu‘awiya to some extent, and the implication is that he supported Mu‘awiya in order to win back the governorship of Egypt. The essence of the trick of the raising of the Korans is that ‘Amr is supposed to have realised that ‘Ali’s army included a large number of religious enthusiasts (the so called qurra’) and that sight of the Scripture would cause them to waver in their determination to fight.
Whatever the truth of the matter, the episode is said to have led to the breaking off of the fighting. Discussions were held and the two sides agreed to put their dispute to arbitration. Each side was to name a representative and, at an agreed time and place, the two representatives were to meet and arbitrate the dispute. Like the raising of the Korans, the arbitration too has become famous. Mu‘awiya appointed ‘Amr b. al-‘As as his representative while ‘Ali chose a former governor of Kufa and early Muslim with a reputation for piety, Abu Musa al-Ash‘ari.
Why ‘Ali chose Abu Musa is something of a problem. He had been governor of Kufa when ‘Ali arrived there in pursuit of ‘A’isha, Talha and al-Zubayr before the battle of the Camel, and he had made it clear that he did not want to become involved in the Fitna, advising the Kufans to remain aloof. After ‘Ali gained possession of Kufa, Abu Musa was forced to leave the town. Now, however, we find him chosen as ‘Ali’s representative in the vital arbitration process. The only explanation which appears to make sense is that he was forced upon ‘Ali by those pious followers who had been instrumental in getting him to accept the arbitration principle in the first place.
The traditions about the meeting of the arbitrators are confused and often contradictory. For one thing, it is not at all clear what they were to discuss. Was it merely the question of the legitimacy of ‘Uthman’s murder, or the choice of a caliph? For another, how was the arbitration to proceed? We are told that the Book of God and the Sunna were to be examined, but this raises questions about the significance of these terms at such an early date and how they were to provide answers for the problems facing the Muslims. Different dates and places for the meeting of the arbitrators are given, and this has led some to suggest that they met more than once and in different places. There is general agreement that the arbitration was inconclusive and that it broke up in disarray, but the reports about it do not really make sense. Abu Musa is said to have been tricked by ‘Amr b. al-‘As into publicly abandoning his support for ‘Ali on the understanding that ‘Amr would abandon his support for Mu‘awiya, but, after Abu Musa had fulfilled his side of the bargain, ‘Amr refused to honour his side. It has been pointed out that if such a blatant piece of trickery did occur, it would have been easy for ‘Ali and his supporters to refuse to accept any outcome of the arbitration.
In any case, the arbitration does not appear to have had much importance for the further development of the Fitna, except insofar as ‘Ali had diminished his status as caliph by agreeing to take part in it. More important was the major split which occurred in the support for ‘Ali after the battle of Siffin. On the way back to Kufa, we are told, a large part of his army withdrew their allegiance to him and left his camp because they now repented of their appeal to him to stop the fighting and enter into discussions. They demanded that ‘Ali too should repent and withdraw from the arbitration. As a slogan signifying their opposition to the arbitration they adopted the formula, ‘arbitration (or judgement) belongs to God alone’ (la hukma illa li’llah), which is traditionally interpreted as a protest against the decision to appoint men (the two arbitrators) to decide what was fundamentally a religious matter and should therefore be left to God. These dissidents among the supporters of ‘Ali came to be known as ‘Kharijites’ (‘those who went out’ or ‘rebels’) and the slogan remained a badge of the movement long after the Fitna was over.
For the Kharijites the immediate enemy now became ‘Ali, who had to be fought until he repented of his decision to accept the arbitration. This ‘Ali could not do, and from Siffin onwards he had to devote more time to his struggle against the Kharijites and less to that with Mu‘awiya. He achieved a major victory over the Kharijites at the battle of Nahrawan in Iraq (658), but this, by providing the movement with martyrs, merely intensified the hatred against him.
After Siffin, therefore, we see a steady erosion of ‘Ali’s position:
he seemed to have given grounds for the questioning of his legitimacy by agreeing to the arbitration, and the Kharijite secession threatened him on another front. At the same time the stock of Mu‘awiya rose. He had come to be seen as at least an equal of ‘Ali, and was able to rely on the support of his Syrian Arabs. With the collapse of ‘Ali’s position, we hear that the Syrians now gave their allegiance (bay‘a) to Mu‘awiya as caliph. The chronology again is not clear, but it seems to have been in 659 or 660.
After this the Fitna came to a dramatic end. In 661 ‘Ali was murdered in Kufa, reportedly by a Kharijite seeking revenge for the massacre at Nahrawan, and Mu‘awiya took advantage of the situation to march into Kufa where he was able, by a combination of tact, money and the threat of force, to win the acceptance of most of ‘Ali’s remaining supporters. In the eyes of some of ‘Ali’s supporters the successor to ‘Ali should have been his eldest son, Hasan, but Mu‘awiya, it is generally accepted, persuaded Hasan to retract his claim to the imamate and to withdraw into private life in the Hijaz where he died some years later.11
Naturally, acceptance of Mu‘awiya as caliph was not unanimous. He was still opposed by the Kharijites and not all of ‘Ali’s former supporters accepted him, but they were no longer able to carry out a consistent armed struggle against him. The remnants of ‘Ali’s party formed the basis of what was to become known as the Shi‘a (the ‘Party’ of ‘Ali), supporting the claims of ‘Ali and his descendants to the imamate and developing into a number of sub-groups as their religious and political ideas became more elaborate. Eventually they posed a greater threat to Umayyad rule than did the Kharijites and were to play a major role in the movement which finally ended the Umayyad caliphate. This, though, was in the future. For the time being, 661 saw the end of the Fitna, the reunification of the divided Muslim community, and general recognition of Mu‘awiya as caliph. With hindsight it was seen as the beginning of the Umayyad dynasty.
If we accept the data provided by Muslim tradition, then, the Umayyads, leading representatives of those who had opposed the Prophet until the latest possible moment, had within thirty years of his death reestablished their position to the extent that they were now at the head of the community which he had founded. As a result the Fitna has often been interpreted as the climax of a struggle for power within Islam between that class of Meccans typified by the Umayyads, the wealthy and powerful leaders of pre-Islamic Mecca, and those, largely from a lower social stratum, whose acceptance of Islam was more wholehearted. To use expressions frequently applied, it was the result of a struggle between the old and the new aristocracy.
Within this interpretation some have taken a more strongly anti-Umayyad line and argued that the civil war was consciously engineered by the old aristocracy in order to regain the position it had lost with the triumph of Islam. In this view Mu‘awiya plays an active role by delaying answering the appeals of the caliph ‘Uthman for help when he was faced with the rebellious Egyptian soldiers in Medina, arousing the Syrians by holding an exhibition in the mosque of Damascus of the dead ‘Uthman’s bloody shirt or severed finger, and even plotting with his relative, the keeper of ‘Uthman’s seal, to ensure that any possible compromise between ‘Uthman and the Egyptian rebels would break down. The aim of all this was to ensure that ‘Ali, whose succession to ‘Uthman was seen as inevitable in any case, would succeed to the caliphate in circumstances which would cast doubt on his legitimacy and enable the old aristocracy to turn the situation to their own advantage. Others have taken a more moderate line and seen the emergence of the old aristocracy as the new leaders of Islam as an unconscious and almost inevitable process since they were the only ones with the background and skills necessary to govern and hold together the new state made possible by the Arab conquest of the Middle East. In this view Mu‘awiya is the symbol of everything that the supporters of the old aristocracy wanted—a strong central government which would keep in check the unruly bedouin who had been vital for the expansion of Islam but who now threatened its survival as a unity. As the long-serving governor of a province with a tradition of ordered government dating from the Byzantine period, Mu‘awiya, it is argued, was the obvious candidate of those members of the old aristocracy, whose wealth depended on trade and therefore stability, and who feared the anarchistic tendencies of the bedouin. On the other hand, ‘Ali, although himself a Qurashi Meccan, had come to power on the shoulders of the discontented tribesmen and his whole campaign was bedevilled by his inability to impose discipline on his men.12
It may be that such interpretations accept too readily the data of Muslim tradition with its strong anti-Umayyad stance, but it nevertheless seems likely that Mu‘awiya’s success did owe much to the relative stability of his Syrian base and the support of the Syrian Arabs on whom he relied. Equally it appears that discontent among the tribesmen of the garrison towns had much to do with the outbreak of the Fitna and that ‘Ali’s reliance on this element was a major cause of his failure in the struggle with Mu‘awiya. To this extent the interpretation of the Fitna as a conflict between the nomads and the developing state, between the demands of primitive democracy and those of ordered stability, is attractive. In itself, though, Mu‘awiya’s victory did not solve the problems which had led to the Fitna, and he was now faced with ruling an empire which perhaps accepted him for lack of alternatives rather than out of conviction.
1. See genealogical tables 1–3; article “Arab, Djazirat al-’, part vi, in EI2.
2. Articles ‘Ibrahim’, ‘Ka‘ba’ and ‘Kuraysh’ in EI2.
3. See genealogical tables 3–4.
4. Articles ‘Umaiya b. ‘Abd Shams’ in EI1, and ‘Hashim b. ‘Abd Manaf’ in EI2; Ibn Ishaq, Sira, English trans. A.Guillaume, The life of Muhammad, London 1955, 48–68; Maqrizi, Niza‘, English trans. C.E.Bosworth, Al-Maqrizi’s ‘Book of contention and strife’.
5. H.Lammens, Mo‘âwia 1er, Paris, 1908, 50, 171, 222, 237, 272, 394; W.M. Watt, Muhammad at Medina, 73–5.
6. For the attitude of Muslim tradition to the Umayyads, see above, pp. 11–18.
7. See above, pp. 3–4.
8. J.Wellhausen, Arab kingdom, introduction; H.A.R.Gibb, Studies on the civilization of Islam, 6–8, 39–44; Martin Hinds, ‘Kufan political alignments and their background in the mid-seventh century A.D.’, IJMES, 2 (1971); idem, ‘The murder of the caliph ‘Uthman’, IJMES, 3 (1972); M.A.Shaban, New interpretation, 60–78.
9. Article “Othman’ in EI1; for the suggestion that ‘Uthman’s ‘nepotism’ was merely an attempt to ensure that he could maintain control in the provinces see M. A.Shaban, New interpretation, 66.
10. Articles “Ali b. Abi Talib’ and ‘Djamal’ in EI2.
11. Articles “Ali b. Abi Talib’ and ‘Adhruh’ in EI2; J.Wellhausen, Arab kingdom, 75–112; H.Lammens, ‘Conference de Adroh: Abou Mousa al-Aš‘ari et ‘Amrou ibn al-‘Asi’ and ‘Assassinat de ‘Ali. Califat ephemère de Hasan’ in his Mo‘âwia 1er; E.L.Petersen, ‘Ali and Mu‘awiya in early Arabic tradition; Martin Hinds, ‘The Siffin arbitration agreement’, JSS, 17 (1972); M.A.Shaban, New interpretation, 60–78; G.R.Hawting, ‘The significance of the slogan la hukma illa li’llah and the references to the hudud in the traditions about the Fitna and the murder of ‘Uthman’, BSOAS, 41 (1978).
12. H.A.R.Gibb, Studies on the civilisation of Islam, 7; N.A.Faris, ‘Development in Arab historiography as reflected in the struggle between ‘Ali and Mu‘awiya’ in B.Lewis and P.M.Holt (eds.), Historians of the Middle East, 435–41.