Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

134 t CHAPTER SIX
A Disputed Succession
Not all Muslims assented to the choice of Abu Bakr or even agreed
that the succession to the leadership of the umma could or should
have occurred in that fashion. The Shiites remember it somewhat
differently. By all accounts Ali, who was then thirty-one, was not
present at the meeting of the Migrants and Helpers after Muhammad’s
death. All further agree that once the choice of Abu Bakr
was made, Umar and others went to Ali’s house to ask—apparently
to demand—that he too take the oath of allegiance. Ali may
have resisted, though on what precise grounds we do not know.
What the Shiites do recall, however, is that there were some who
urged him to assume the leadership himself, and he declined. These
included his uncle Abbas, the eponym of the later Sunni dynasty of
caliphs, the Abbasids, and even Abu Sufyan, the head of the house
of Umayya, another Sunni dynasty that some twenty-odd years
later attempted to exterminate the house of Ali.
Where Sunni and Shiite historians totally disagree is on what
followed between Abu Bakr’s accession to the caliphate in 632 and
Ali’s own in 656. The Sunnis maintain that Ali accepted the legitimacy
of his three predecessors, Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman;
the Shiites vociferously deny it. Ali certainly had his enemies—
Muhammad’s favorite wife, and Abu Bakr’s daughter, Aisha,
prominent among them—but they seem not to have included the
first three caliphs. When Abu Bakr died in 634 he secured the succession
for Umar ibn al-Khattab. The latter attempted to regularize
the succession process by appointing a council of six men, including
Ali, to settle the caliphate at his death. When Umar was
assassinated in 644, the choice once again passed over Ali for another
early and devoted follower of the Prophet, Uthman, of the
rich and influential house of Umayya. Uthman’s caliphate (r. 644–
656) is best remembered for his promoting the first standard edition
of the Quran as well as his appointment of his relatives
to important posts in the rapidly expanding Muslim empire. His
reign was in any event a troubled one, and he was murdered in 656
by a conspiracy of pretenders to his office. Ali was not himself
directly involved in Uthman’s death, and in its wake he was named