After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam by Lesley Hazleton Page A
Authors: Lesley Hazleton
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that same word applied to Abu Bakr’s appointed successor, no matter the history between them. And if anyone doubted his absolute commitment to Islamic unity, he laid such doubts to rest with a remarkable move. As Omar’s rule began, Ali married Abu Bakr’s youngest widow, Asma.
To the modern mind, marrying a former rival’s widow might seem an act of revenge. In seventh-century Arabia, it was quite the opposite: a major gesture of reconciliation. Ali’s marriage to Asma was a way of reaching out, of healing old divisions and transforming them into alliance, and with Ali, the healing impulse went deep: He formally adopted Asma’s three-year-old son by Abu Bakr and, by so doing, extended a hand in another direction—to the boy’s influential half sister Aisha.
Once again, though, Aisha remained unusually silent. If she felt that Ali had stolen part of her family, there is no record of it, though over the years, as her half brother grew to manhood in Ali’s house, her resentment of his loyalty to Ali would become all too clear, and the young man who should have bound the two antagonists together would only split them farther apart. For the meantime, however, that division would merely simmer, upstaged by a second even more remarkable union. In the strongest possible sign of unity, Ali honored the Caliph Omar by giving him the hand of his daughter Umm Kulthum—Muhammad’s eldest granddaughter—in marriage.
The vast vine of marital alliance now reached across generations as well as political differences. Omar was the same generation as Muhammad yet had married his granddaughter. Ali, thirteen years younger than Omar, was now his fatherin-law. And if Fatima turned in her modest grave at the idea of any daughter of hers being married to the man who had burst into her house and slammed her to the floor, that was the price of unity—that, and Omar’s settlement of a large part of Muhammad’s estates on Ali, exactly as Fatima had wanted.
Omar had now doubled his kinship to the Prophet: both fatherin-law and grandson-in-law. His position as Caliph was secure. Ali could still have been a powerful rival, but Omar followed the ancient political dictum of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. As son-in-law and fatherin-law, the two men would work well together, so much so that every time Omar left Medina on one of his many military campaigns, Ali stood in as his deputy. It was a clear sign, understood by all to mean that when the time came, Ali would succeed Omar as Caliph.
The Arab conquest now began in earnest. Omar had taken Abu Bakr’s title of Deputy to Muhammad but added another one: Com mander of the Faithful. And a superb commander he was. He lived rough and ready with his troops on campaign, sleeping wrapped in his cloak onthe desert floor and leading his men into battle instead of ordering them from the rear, thus earning their absolute loyalty and respect. If he had a reputation for strictness and discipline, it was balanced by his insistence on justice. As part of his commitment to Islam, he would tolerate no favoritism, least of all for his own family. When one of his own sons appeared drunk in public, Omar ordered that the young man be given eighty lashes of the whip, and refused to mourn when he died as a result of the punishment.
In the ten years of Omar’s rule, the Muslims took control of the whole of Syria and Iraq, an expansion so rapid that it is still often explained by “a tribal imperative to conquest.” The phrase is unknown to anthropologists, but it calls up an image of bloodthirsty peoples impelled by primitive urges, threatening the sane rationalism of the more civilized—the image incessantly echoed in current coverage of conflict in the Middle East.
In fact there was less blood involved than money. The Muslim forces did indeed win stunning military victories over the Persians and the Byzantines, despite being vastly outnumbered, but for the most part, the Arab conquest
To the modern mind, marrying a former rival’s widow might seem an act of revenge. In seventh-century Arabia, it was quite the opposite: a major gesture of reconciliation. Ali’s marriage to Asma was a way of reaching out, of healing old divisions and transforming them into alliance, and with Ali, the healing impulse went deep: He formally adopted Asma’s three-year-old son by Abu Bakr and, by so doing, extended a hand in another direction—to the boy’s influential half sister Aisha.
Once again, though, Aisha remained unusually silent. If she felt that Ali had stolen part of her family, there is no record of it, though over the years, as her half brother grew to manhood in Ali’s house, her resentment of his loyalty to Ali would become all too clear, and the young man who should have bound the two antagonists together would only split them farther apart. For the meantime, however, that division would merely simmer, upstaged by a second even more remarkable union. In the strongest possible sign of unity, Ali honored the Caliph Omar by giving him the hand of his daughter Umm Kulthum—Muhammad’s eldest granddaughter—in marriage.
The vast vine of marital alliance now reached across generations as well as political differences. Omar was the same generation as Muhammad yet had married his granddaughter. Ali, thirteen years younger than Omar, was now his fatherin-law. And if Fatima turned in her modest grave at the idea of any daughter of hers being married to the man who had burst into her house and slammed her to the floor, that was the price of unity—that, and Omar’s settlement of a large part of Muhammad’s estates on Ali, exactly as Fatima had wanted.
Omar had now doubled his kinship to the Prophet: both fatherin-law and grandson-in-law. His position as Caliph was secure. Ali could still have been a powerful rival, but Omar followed the ancient political dictum of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. As son-in-law and fatherin-law, the two men would work well together, so much so that every time Omar left Medina on one of his many military campaigns, Ali stood in as his deputy. It was a clear sign, understood by all to mean that when the time came, Ali would succeed Omar as Caliph.
The Arab conquest now began in earnest. Omar had taken Abu Bakr’s title of Deputy to Muhammad but added another one: Com mander of the Faithful. And a superb commander he was. He lived rough and ready with his troops on campaign, sleeping wrapped in his cloak onthe desert floor and leading his men into battle instead of ordering them from the rear, thus earning their absolute loyalty and respect. If he had a reputation for strictness and discipline, it was balanced by his insistence on justice. As part of his commitment to Islam, he would tolerate no favoritism, least of all for his own family. When one of his own sons appeared drunk in public, Omar ordered that the young man be given eighty lashes of the whip, and refused to mourn when he died as a result of the punishment.
In the ten years of Omar’s rule, the Muslims took control of the whole of Syria and Iraq, an expansion so rapid that it is still often explained by “a tribal imperative to conquest.” The phrase is unknown to anthropologists, but it calls up an image of bloodthirsty peoples impelled by primitive urges, threatening the sane rationalism of the more civilized—the image incessantly echoed in current coverage of conflict in the Middle East.
In fact there was less blood involved than money. The Muslim forces did indeed win stunning military victories over the Persians and the Byzantines, despite being vastly outnumbered, but for the most part, the Arab conquest
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