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Authors: Michael Axworthy
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material from the peoples of the conquered lands had survived, the picture of tolerance might be more shaded. There were massacres at Ray and Istakhr, both Mazdaean religious centres that resisted more stubbornly than elsewhere. 9
Umayyads and Abbasids
Within twenty years of Mohammad’s death, his Arab successors had conquered most of the territory we now call the Middle East. After 100 years, they controlled an area that extended from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. From this point onwards, Iran zamin was ruled for the most part byforeign rulers for nearly a millennium. But conquest and the problems of wealth and power it brought also created new tensions among the victorious Arabs.
The fourth caliph, Ali, was Mohammad’s cousin, and had married his daughter Fatima. But despite these close ties to the Prophet and his own pious reputation, Ali’s caliphate was marred by civil war with the followers of the previous caliph, Uthman. When Ali was assassinated in 661 a close relative of Uthman, Mu’awiya, declared himself caliph. This date marks the beginning of the Umayyad dynasty, named after the family from which the dynasty were descended—one of the leading families of Mecca that Mohammad had fought before Mecca’s submission to Islam. Soon the new empire adopted forms of government resembling those of its predecessors, the Romans and the Sassanid Persians. The capital moved to Damascus (at that time, of course, a city formed by centuries of Christian, Roman and Byzantine rule) and henceforth the caliphate passed mainly from father to son. The Umayyads discriminated strongly in favour of Arabs in the running of the empire, but were criticised among the Arabs for becoming too worldly and making too many compromises. They distanced themselves from their origins, became lax personally in their religious observances, and depended on paid soldiers rather than kinsmen and clan followers. As the empire and their responsibilities expanded, these changes were probably inevitable, as was the response: part of the eternal tension in Islam between piety and political authority.
Throughout this period there was dissent over the right of the Umayyads to rule. One group, the Kharijites, said that the caliph should be chosen by popular assent from among righteous Muslims, and deposed if he acted wrongly. Another group was to prove more important in the long run, and their dissent from orthodox Sunni Islam eventually created a permanent schism. These Muslims identified with Ali and the family of the Prophet descended through him. They believed that Ali should have been the first caliph, and that the Caliphate should have descended in his line, which (through Ali’s wife Fatima) was also the line of the Prophet himself. Ali’s second son Hossein attempted a revolt in 680, but was overwhelmed at Karbala by Umayyad troops and killed. This was a crucial event, thefull significance of which will be explored in a later chapter. Eventually the attachment to the family of the Prophet, to Ali and his descendants, evolved a theology of its own and a firm belief that the descendants of Ali were the only legitimate authority in Islam—becoming what we now call Shi‘ism.
Tension and dissent reached a crescendo in the middle years of the eighth century. In the 740s there was a revolt against the Umayyads in Kufa, and they suffered external defeats by the Turks in Transoxiana and by the Byzantines in Anatolia. Then in the late 740s a Persian convert, Abu Muslim, began a revolt against Umayyad rule in Khorasan, where the creative dynamic between survivors of the old Persian landowning gentry (the dehqans ) and the new Arab settlers had been particularly powerful, and where much intermarrying and conversion had occurred (there appears to have been a fusion of cultures, with Arab settlers adopting the Persian language, Persian dress and even some pre-Islamic Persian festivals).
Abu Muslim led his revolt in the name of the Prophet’s family,
Umayyads and Abbasids
Within twenty years of Mohammad’s death, his Arab successors had conquered most of the territory we now call the Middle East. After 100 years, they controlled an area that extended from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. From this point onwards, Iran zamin was ruled for the most part byforeign rulers for nearly a millennium. But conquest and the problems of wealth and power it brought also created new tensions among the victorious Arabs.
The fourth caliph, Ali, was Mohammad’s cousin, and had married his daughter Fatima. But despite these close ties to the Prophet and his own pious reputation, Ali’s caliphate was marred by civil war with the followers of the previous caliph, Uthman. When Ali was assassinated in 661 a close relative of Uthman, Mu’awiya, declared himself caliph. This date marks the beginning of the Umayyad dynasty, named after the family from which the dynasty were descended—one of the leading families of Mecca that Mohammad had fought before Mecca’s submission to Islam. Soon the new empire adopted forms of government resembling those of its predecessors, the Romans and the Sassanid Persians. The capital moved to Damascus (at that time, of course, a city formed by centuries of Christian, Roman and Byzantine rule) and henceforth the caliphate passed mainly from father to son. The Umayyads discriminated strongly in favour of Arabs in the running of the empire, but were criticised among the Arabs for becoming too worldly and making too many compromises. They distanced themselves from their origins, became lax personally in their religious observances, and depended on paid soldiers rather than kinsmen and clan followers. As the empire and their responsibilities expanded, these changes were probably inevitable, as was the response: part of the eternal tension in Islam between piety and political authority.
Throughout this period there was dissent over the right of the Umayyads to rule. One group, the Kharijites, said that the caliph should be chosen by popular assent from among righteous Muslims, and deposed if he acted wrongly. Another group was to prove more important in the long run, and their dissent from orthodox Sunni Islam eventually created a permanent schism. These Muslims identified with Ali and the family of the Prophet descended through him. They believed that Ali should have been the first caliph, and that the Caliphate should have descended in his line, which (through Ali’s wife Fatima) was also the line of the Prophet himself. Ali’s second son Hossein attempted a revolt in 680, but was overwhelmed at Karbala by Umayyad troops and killed. This was a crucial event, thefull significance of which will be explored in a later chapter. Eventually the attachment to the family of the Prophet, to Ali and his descendants, evolved a theology of its own and a firm belief that the descendants of Ali were the only legitimate authority in Islam—becoming what we now call Shi‘ism.
Tension and dissent reached a crescendo in the middle years of the eighth century. In the 740s there was a revolt against the Umayyads in Kufa, and they suffered external defeats by the Turks in Transoxiana and by the Byzantines in Anatolia. Then in the late 740s a Persian convert, Abu Muslim, began a revolt against Umayyad rule in Khorasan, where the creative dynamic between survivors of the old Persian landowning gentry (the dehqans ) and the new Arab settlers had been particularly powerful, and where much intermarrying and conversion had occurred (there appears to have been a fusion of cultures, with Arab settlers adopting the Persian language, Persian dress and even some pre-Islamic Persian festivals).
Abu Muslim led his revolt in the name of the Prophet’s family,
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