page_title: Rashidun Caliphate
section_title: Crisis and fragmentation
hierarchical_section_title: Rashidun Caliphate / History / Crisis and fragmentation
caption_attribution_description: English: Muhammad's widow, Aisha, battling the fourth caliph Ali in the Battle of the Camel. Miniature from the Siyer-i Nebi, Turkish epic about the life of Muhammad, written by Mustafa, son of Yusuf of Erzurum. . 16th century. Topkapi Sarayi Museum Library, Istanbul, Turkey
context_page_description: The Rashidun Caliphate was the first of the four major caliphates established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was ruled by the first four successive caliphs of Muhammad after his death in 632 CE. These caliphs are collectively known in Sunni Islam as the Rashidun, or "Rightly Guided" caliphs. This term is not widely used in Shia Islam as Shia Muslims do not consider the rule of the first three caliphs as legitimate.
  The Rashidun Caliphate is characterized by a twenty-five year period of rapid military expansion, followed by a five-year period of internal strife.
  The Rashidun Army at its peak numbered more than 100,000 men. By the 650s, the caliphate in addition to the Arabian Peninsula had subjugated the Levant, to the Transcaucasus in the north; North Africa from Egypt to present-day Tunisia in the west; and the Iranian plateau to parts of Central Asia and South Asia in the east.
  The caliphate arose out of the death of Muhammad in 632 CE and the subsequent debate over the succession to his leadership. Abu Bakr, a close companion of Muhammad from the Banu Taym clan, was elected the first Rashidun leader and began the conquest of the Arabian Peninsula.
context_section_description: After the assassination of the third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, the Companions of Muhammad in Medina selected Ali, who had been passed over for the leadership three times since the death of Muhammad, to be the new Caliph. Soon thereafter, Ali dismissed several provincial governors, some of whom were relatives of Uthman, and replaced them with trusted aides, such as Malik al-Ashtar and Salman the Persian. Ali then transferred his capital from Medina to Kufa, a Muslim garrison city in current-day Iraq.
  Demands to take revenge for the assassination of Caliph Uthman rose among parts of the population, and a large army of rebels led by Zubayr, Talha and the widow of Muhammad, Aisha, set out to fight the perpetrators. The army reached Basra and captured it, whereupon 4,000 suspected seditionists were put to death. Subsequently, Ali turned towards Basra and the caliph's army met the rebel army. Though neither Ali nor the leaders of the opposing force, Talha and Zubayr, wanted to fight, a battle broke out at night between the two armies. It is said, according to Sunni Muslim traditions, that those who were involved in the assassination of Uthman initiated combat, as they were afraid that negotiations between Ali and the opposing army would result in their capture and execution. The battle thus fought was the first battle between Muslims and is known as the Battle of the Camel. Ali emerged victorious and the dispute was settled. The eminent companions of Muhammad, Talha and Zubayr, were killed in the battle and Ali sent his son Hasan ibn Ali to escort Aisha back to Medina.
  Thereafter, there rose another cry for revenge for the blood of Uthman, this time by Mu'awiya, kinsman of Uthman and governor of the province of Syria. However, it is regarded more as an attempt by Mu'awiya to assume the caliphate, rather than to take revenge for Uthman's murder. Ali fought Mu'awiya's forces to a stalemate at the Battle of Siffin, and then lost a controversial arbitration that ended with the arbiter, 'Amr ibn al-'As, pronouncing his support for Mu'awiya. After this Ali was forced to fight the Battle of Nahrawan against the rebellious Kharijites, a faction of his former supporters who, as a result of their dissatisfaction with the arbitration, opposed both Ali and Mu'awiya. Weakened by this internal rebellion and a lack of popular support in many provinces, Ali's forces lost control over most of the caliphate's territory to Mu'awiya while large sections of the empire—such as Sicily, North Africa, the coastal areas of Spain and some forts in Anatolia—were also lost to outside empires.
  In 661, Ali was assassinated by Ibn Muljam as part of a Kharijite plot to assassinate all the different Islamic leaders in an attempt to end the civil war, but the Kharijites failed to assassinate Mu'awiya and 'Amr ibn al-'As.
  Ali's son Hasan ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad, briefly assumed the caliphate and came to an agreement with Mu'awiya to fix relations between the two groups of Muslims that were each loyal to one of the two men. The treaty stated that Mu'awiya would not name a successor during his reign, and that he would let the Islamic world choose the next leader (this treaty would later be broken by Mu'awiya as he named his son Yazid I successor). Hasan was assassinated, and Mu'awiya founded the Umayyad Caliphate, supplanting the Rashidun Caliphate.
caption: Muhammad's widow, Aisha, battling the fourth caliph Ali in the Battle of the Camel (16th-century miniature from a copy of the Siyer-i Nebi)
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