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| 644–56 |
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| UTHMAN IBN AFFAN, THE THIRD CALIPH. Umar died of wounds inflicted by a Persian slave, an assassination not motivated by political intent. Before his death, he appointed a committee to determine his successor. The choice, Uthman ibn Affan, attempted to centralize the administration of the newly conquered territories. He demanded that provincial governors (emirs) send tax and conquest revenue back to Medina for distribution, a policy that met with much resistance. He continued the conquest of the Iranian plateau and ordered the creation of a definitive written version of the Qur'an. | 1 |
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| 651 |
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| Death of the last Sassanian shah, Yazdgird III, and final demise of the Zoroastrian Empire. | 2 |
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| 651–54 |
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| The eastern Iranian province of Khurasan subdued by Muslim forces, following the conquest of the capital, Nishapur, in 651. | 3 |
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| 655 |
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| Battle of the Masts. The Muslim navy defeated the Byzantines off the Lycian coast. | 4 |
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| 656 |
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| The third caliph, Uthman, was murdered in his home in Medina by rebellious Muslim forces from Egypt, whose grievances as early converts concerned the erosion of their pay and prestige. Uthman's appointment of members of his own clan of Umayya to top administrative positions had weakened his support among them as well as among troops in Iraq and the Quraysh in Medina. | 5 |
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| 656–61 |
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| ALI IBN ABI TALIB, THE FOURTH CALIPH. As the first cousin of the Prophet Muhammad, Ali was also his closest male relative. His marriage to the Prophet's daughter Fatima further enhanced his prestige in the Islamic community, as he was the father of the Prophet's grandsons Hasan and Husayn. He attempted to stress the equality of all Muslims and the role of the caliph as a spiritual leader (imam). | 6 |
| Ali's was a tumultuous reign, throughout which raged the FIRST CIVIL WAR (fitna). The political strife begun with the murder of Uthman developed into a full-fledged, bloody struggle over succession and Muslim self-definition that ended Ali's rule and gave birth to the new Arab-Islamic dynasty of the Umayyads and to two major religio-political factions, the Shi’ites and the Kharijis. | 7 |
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| 656, Dec |
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| Battle of the Camel. The first military confrontation in the civil war took place outside the town of Basra in Iraq. There Ali's forces defeated a triad of leaders—the Prophet's widow A'isha and two of his male companions, al-Zubayr and Talha—who challenged Ali on the grounds that he had failed to punish those who had killed Uthman. The triad also represented the interests of the Quraysh, who were threatened by Ali's identification with the Medinan converts (ansar). Al-Zubayr and Talha were killed in the confrontation, and A'isha retired from politics after her defeat. | 8 |
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| 657 |
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| The battle and arbitration of Siffin. In the second phase of the civil war, Ali was challenged by Mu’awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, the governor of Syria, who sought to avenge the murder of his relative, the third caliph Uthman (both were of the Umayya clan). When a battle began at Siffin on the upper Euphrates, the Syrian troops of Mu’awiya demanded arbitration of the dispute, brandishing pages of the Qur'an. Ali agreed to negotiate, but the dispute over Uthman's murder soon evolved into a tacit struggle for the leadership of the Islamic community. The negotiators agreed that a new caliph should be selected by committee, and by 659, at the arbitration of Adhruh, Mu’awiya had openly asserted his claim to the caliphate. | 9 |
| The immediate result of the arbitration was that a small number of Ali's supporters deserted him. Those who had walked out, known as the Kharijis, believed that only Allah could arbitrate the dispute and that Ali and his followers had ceased to be true Muslims. The Kharijis advocated an egalitarian form of Islam in which leaders would be chosen without regard to descent or any other form of inherited social priority. They established their own enclaves along the Persian Gulf, raided settled communities, and found new adherents in Oman and North Africa. The defection of the Kharijis signaled the start of a decline in Ali's support. | 10 |
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| 658 |
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| Ali defeated a force of the Kharijis at the battle of Nahrawan. | 11 |
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| 661 |
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| THE MURDER OF ALI by a member of the Kharijis, marking the end of the first civil war and of the reign of the Rashidun caliphs. Ali's son, Hasan, renounced his claim to the caliphate. Mu’awiya asserted his right to rule the Islamic community, a contention based largely on the might vested in his crack military forces. He moved rapidly to consolidate his rule and founded the Umayyad dynasty. | 12 |
| The supporters of Ali did not abandon his political cause even after his death. They formed a party (shi'a) from which evolved the sect of Muslims known as the Shi'a or shi’ites. They maintained that only Ali's male descendants had the right to head the Islamic community as both religious and political leaders. The evolution of these Shi’ite religio-political doctrines eventually defined the first three Rashidun caliphs as usurpers. The notion that true Islamic political authority could be wielded only by Muhammad's family as embodied by Ali's line led to active Shi’ite opposition to other forms of Islamic leadership throughout the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries. The majority of Muslims who did not accept Shi’ite assumptions came to be known as Sunni Muslims. As the “people of the (Prophet's) example and community” (ahl al-sunna wa al-jama’a), Sunni Muslims retrospectively defined political authority—in light of the first civil war and their later collective experience—as whatever form of authority functioned effectively to protect the faith of Islam and the Muslim community. The division between the Sunni Muslim majority and the Shi’ite Muslim minority persists to the present day. | 13 |
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