The Ridda Wars, 632–633
However, soon after the conquest of Mecca, Muhammad came to
realise that bringing Islam to his neighbours was not going to be so bloodless.
Perhaps only a fortnight after capturing Mecca, the Muslim army was on the move
again to face an alliance of the tribes of Hawazin and Thaqif. These Bedouin
were reported to have planned an attack on Medina before Muhammad had moved
against Mecca but when the forces met at the Battle of Hunayn in early
February, despite being ambushed in a valley, the Muslims scored a decisive
victory. A follow-up victory at Autas left the remains of the alliance to
retreat to the city of Ta’if. Despite the failure of the subsequent Muslim
siege, the threat of a second siege led the inhabitants to surrender and accept
Islam. A further expedition north towards Tabouk with a force of perhaps 30,000
men, supposedly in response to rumours of an impending Roman invasion, seems to
have brought many of the restless tribes in the north into line. Indeed, the
increasing military strength of Muhammad and his followers seems to have been
enough to coerce large parts of Arabia to accept the political and military
predominance of Medina.
However, despite this continued success, it was clear that
age was catching up with the Prophet and his next pilgrimage to Mecca in early
632 was to be his last. The address he gave during this visit is perhaps one of
the most poignant as he urged Muslims not tonight amongst themselves or seek
revenge for past arguments. He also professed that he would fight until all men
should confess that `there is no god but God’, which would be incorporated as
one of the two major tents of the Islamic creed – the shahadah. To be
recognised as a Muslim, an individual must accept the unique, indivisible
nature of God and that Muhammad was God’s Prophet through an honest profession
of the shahadah.
There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger
of God.
In the early days of June 632 Muhammad fell ill with a fever
and died in the house of his wife Aisha at Medina on 8 June. As his strength
failed, it is reported that the Prophet wished to dictate a letter, expressing
his wishes for the future of the Muslim community. However, Umar b. al-Khattab
is said to have told Muhammad that his writings in the Qur’an were enough for
Islam. While there is some controversy regarding Umar’s motives for dissuading
Muhammad from dictating what may have essentially been a last will and
testament, there is no less truth in his pronouncement. The Qur’an and the
message it transmits encapsulates the real legacy of Muhammad’s mission. He may
have borrowed doctrines, practices and beliefs from Judaism, Christianity,
Manichaeanism and the indigenous traditions of Arabia but this was and is no
cause for concern amongst Muslims, for Muhammad never claimed to be revealing a
new truth; merely that he was the last in a long line of divinely inspired
prophets that included Adam, Abraham, Noah, Moses, David, Elijah, John the
Baptist and Jesus, who all preached the same monotheistic religion. Part of
Islam’s mass appeal was that it incorporated `words and images already known
and under- stood’; however, such familiarity did not lessen the impact of
Muhammad’s teachings. In the cultural hotpot of seventh-century Arabia, Islam
was some- thing new; something that was able to cut through the many different
and at times conflicting belief systems and establish itself as the predominant
force. This was Muhammad’s greatest achievement.
However, Muhammad’s legacy did not involve the inception of
a new religion alone. In spreading his revelations, he had become an
increasingly powerful temporal leader as well. Therefore, due to his combined
civilian, military and religious authority, the death of the Prophet brought
not only great sadness but also great confusion. Who was to succeed him as
leader of the burgeoning Muslim state? There were three distinct groupings
amongst the followers of Muhammad – those recently converted from amongst the
leading families of Mecca; those of Medina who had embraced Muhammad and his
`Umma; and those who had made the Hijra with him. A conclave of these leading
members of the community chose Abu Bakr, one of Muhammad’s earliest followers,
to be the first caliph. While there was no thought that Muhammad could be
succeeded as the revealer of divine wisdom, the early caliphs maintained an
aura of religious authority as well as a growing political power that saw them
as something of a mixture between Pope and emperor.
However, the choice of Abu Bakr was not universally accepted
as some thought that Muhammad had designated his cousin and son-in-law, Ali b.
Abi Talib, as his successor. This dispute between the supporters of Ali and the
majority who accepted Abu Bakr would bubble under the surface and emerge again
at the deaths of each of the first four successors of Muhammad – Abu Bakr,
Umar, Uthman and Ali himself. This dispute gradually evolved into something
more divisive than who would lead the Muslim community as a dogmatic schism
emerged between those who believed that the caliph should be chosen or elected
by the `Umma and those who believed that the descendants of Ali were the
rightful heirs to the Prophet; a schism that still remains today between Sunni
and Shia Muslims.
However, for the time being, Ali seems to have given tacit
acceptance of Abu Bakr’s election for the good of the Muslim community. It is
possible that such Alid pragmatism was encouraged by the growing unrest across
Arabia. It seems that many Arab tribes felt that the alliances they had struck
with Muhammad ended with his demise. This forced Abu Bakr into immediate
military action. A second expedition to the outer reaches of the Roman Empire
deployed by Muhammad under the command of Usama b. Zayd seems to have forced
several apostate tribes to re-embrace Islam rather than face a Roman force.
However, in the absence of this army, many other apostate tribes took the
opportunity to advance on Medina but Abu Bakr managed to raise a scratch force
that thwarted these rebels long enough for Usama to return.
Abu Bakr and his generals now embarked upon a calculated
series of campaigns to force religious and political unity across Arabia, which
were to become known as the Ridda Wars or the Wars of Apostasy. These campaigns
were to be the first real attempt of the Muslim `Umma to extend its direct influence
beyond the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula and they were to prove
spectacularly successful. Khalid b. al-Walid led the main Muslim army into the
heart of central Arabia, where two self-proclaimed prophets, Musaylima and
Tulayha, were gathering support. By the end of September 632, after two
successive victories at Buzakha and Ghamrah, Tulayha had been subdued and a
further month of campaigning saw the remainder of central Arabia brought under
control. Khalid then marched further east to confront Musaylima, who had
already defeated the two Muslim corps already sent against him. The remains of
these defeated corps, along with further reinforcements from Medina, joined
Khalid in early December, who then moved to Yamamah. The resultant battle was a
bloody exchange but ended in another decisive victory for Khalid and the death
of Musaylima.
Khalid was not the only Muslim general to wage a successful
campaign against the apostate. The Battle of Dibba in late November saw the
rebelling Azd tribe defeated in Oman by Ikrimah. The same forces then
intervened in Mahrah, encouraging one apostate group to re-embrace Islam before
using the added manpower to defeat a larger group. A night attack on the
apostate forces gathered at Hajr and a secondary victory on the coast of the
Persian Gulf brought Bahrain to heel by the end of January 633. Forces loyal to
the caliph in Yemen under Fairoz the Persian, a companion of Muhammad who had
already dealt with one rebellion during the Prophet’s final months, were able
to defeat a second round of apostate rebels late in 632. The last region to
revolt was Hadhramaut, not doing so until January 633, and the military power
of the rebel Kindah tribe was enough to force a stalemate with local Muslim
loyalists. However, the timing of the revolt proved its undoing for the Kindah
were quickly surrounded by the arrival of the corps of Muhair and Ikrimah
operating in the Yemen and Mahrah respectively. Their swift capture of the
rebel strongholds of Zafar and Nujair brought an end to the Ridda Wars barely
six months after they began.
This unification of Arabia under the leadership of the
Caliphate at Medina was a great political and military success for Abu Bakr.
However, perhaps more importantly, it demonstrated to those who still doubted
the power of Islam that the followers of the Prophet were not only extremely
devout but had also stumbled across a series of gifted political and military
leaders. It might be expected that after such a military undertaking Abu Bakr
would have stood down his forces and spent time consolidating Muslim control of
Arabia. However, the thought never seems to have entered his mind for, before
the blood spilt at Yamamah had time to run cold, Khalid and his army had been
earmarked for a much grander expedition. To the north, there were still Arabs
who had yet to submit to the Will of Allah and, beyond them, the princes, kings
and emperors who had so readily dismissed Muhammad’s offer of salvation through
Islam were about to receive an up-close display of the power of that message.
