Third Fitna

3 Key excerpts on "Third Fitna"

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  eBook - ePub

  The First Dynasty of Islam

  The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661-750

  • G. R Hawting(Author)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 7 The Third Civil War and the Caliphate of Marwan II

  The third civil war,1 designated as a Fitna like the first two, may be said to open with the rebellion against Hisham’s successor al-Walid II in 744 and to end with the establishment of control by Marwan II over the central provinces of the empire in 747. Since it was followed almost immediately, however, by the outbreak of the movement in Khurasan which was to lead to the final collapse of Umayyad power a couple of years later, and since Marwan II’s authority never had the same extent as that of earlier Umayyad caliphs, it is not possible to be precise about the chronological limits of this third fitna. The period was one of complex military and political turmoil and a breakdown of order. As in the second civil war, the Arabs of Syria were divided into ‘northern’ and ‘southern’ factions supporting different contenders for the caliphate, again the Umayyad family was split by internal divisions, again Kharijite and Shi‘ite movements were able to take advantage of the situation to establish temporary control over fairly large expanses of territory, and again religious issues were entwined with the struggles between rival contenders for power. In spite of these superficial similarities, however, it is clear that the third civil war was not merely a rerun of the second, and that is why Marwan II, on emerging from it, was unable to establish his rule in the same way as had Mu‘awiya and ‘Abd al-Malik when they reestablished unity in 661 and 692.

  Walid II

  Although the deeper causes of the civil war are undoubtedly to be sought in the political, social and military developments of the Marwanid period as a whole, the immediate cause is portrayed in the sources in personal terms reminiscent of the earlier hostility between Sulayman and al-Hajjaj and its consequences when Sulayman became caliph. It is reported that the caliph Yazid II, when he appointed his brother Hisham as heir apparent, had also specified that his own son al-Walid should be the successor to Hisham. This last, with the support of some members of the Umayyad family and other prominent Arabs, had considered overturning the succession arrangements made by Yazid II, in order to appoint one of his own sons as his successor. The designated heir apparent, al-Walid b. Yazid II, was himself a fluent poet with a reputation for loose living and lack of respect for Islam. After spending a lonely and embittered youth—he seems to have been eleven years old when Yazid II named him second in line for the succession in 720—at Hisham’s court in Rusafa (Rusafat Hisham, possibly to be identified as Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi in the desert north-east of Palmyra and not with the ancient Rusafa/Sergiopolis near the Euphrates), he later withdrew to a palace of his own in the Jordanian desert. Here he passed his time devoid of administrative responsibilities, awaiting the death of his uncle the caliph and his own succession. The plan to depose him was never put into effect but the intrigues involved must have soured al-Walid and marked out those involved as his enemies to be dealt with when power came to him.2

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  Approaches to the Qur'an

  • G. R. Hawting(Author)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  fitna in the quranic text.

  Fitna in the Islamic Perceptual-Symbolic System

  Humphreys and Geertz have suggested that a culture’s conceptual universe may be generated by, and thus appreciated by reference to, a number of symbols and models. The symbols may be represented by singular words or clusters of signifiers interrelated with each other, expressing and building a conceptual universe.3

  As a key term in the perceptual-symbolic system of Islamic culture, fitna (civil strife) maps a conservative religious approach to political or social issues.4 Sunnī Muslim use of the word fitna carries a negative connotation. It evokes a bitter recollection of the great rift in the community shortly after the death of the prophet Muḥammad. This conflict, later dubbed the Great Fitna or the First Fitna, pitted some of the closest companions of the Prophet against each other, resulting in major schisms in the community. The conflict was never fully resolved, but its memory left a deep impression among Sunnīs that the best stance in such a conflict was simply to stand aside. The activist alternative, it was argued, almost always leads to some or other form of civil war, disruption or strife.

  The political reserve that resulted from the fear of fitna has led Muslim political theorists to legally (shar‘an) prohibit all forms of revolutionary reform. In particular, Sunnīs have taken recourse in the ḥadīths of the prophet Muḥammad that declare that governments may not be displaced except on clear evidence of disbelief (kufr bawwāḥ).5 This political reserve was also expressed in theological tracts and creeds, as in Abū ’l-Ḥasan ‘Alī b. Ismā‘īl al-Ash‘arī’s Al-Ibāna ‘an uṣūl al-diyāna (The elucidation of Islam’s foundation).6

  Thus, Enayat argues that the concept of fitna has stood as a stumbling block in contemporary efforts among Muslims to redress political and social inequities. Sunnīs in particular have resisted efforts to reform Muslim societies that would involve conflict, a dilemma Sivan has called the ‘trauma’ of Sunnī political theory. Echoing the same sentiment, Keddie has called fitna a ‘catch-all phrase’ for conservatism, inaction, and conflict.7

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  Islam and the Infidels

  The Politics of Jihad, Da'wah, and Hijrah

  • David Bukay(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  He who wishes to comprehend the Arab spirit of violence, that the sword has never stopped being employed in Arab politics, will find the fact that three out of the four Khulafā’al-Rashidûn were murdered; that between 632, after Muhammad’s death and 690 there were three large civil wars, as national domestic revolts; and two political schism: one huge schism: the division of the Shi’ite from the Sunnah, and the second, the first in time and less important, the Khawārij revolt. In his most influential study of Islamic contemporary thought, Sayyid Qutb has elaborated these stages: the struggle is not a temporary phase but an eternal state of affairs, until the religion is purified for Allah alone all over the world. 303 Blankinship puts it very clear: in view of its ideology and the actual course of its history, it makes sense to designate that the Islamic state through Umayyad and Abbasid times is Jihad state par excellence. From 623 to 740, with three interruptions, the Muslim state was engaged in hostilities against all those who were defined as infidels, and who did not have a specific treaty with it. 304 Arab historians have dealt with the conquests (Futû h) very extensively, as historiographical theme, since it provided the religious justification and the legitimization of Arab rule against non-Arabs and Muslim rule against non-Muslims

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