WI: Abu Bakr Loses the Ridda War

The Sunni-Shia split doesn't make much sense if the Abbasids invented Islam. Conventional history says that the Abbasids work with the Shia, emphasizing that they were descendants of Muhammad, then turned against the Shia and began persecuting them. If there were no Shia how could the Abbasids be appealing to them? More importantly, why invent two branches of Islam in the first place? Why would the Abbasids invent divisions in their new religion, which would give their enemies justification to overthrow them? It also doesn't explain the Ibadis, who first came into being during the Umayyad period.
 
I enjoyed In the Shadow of the Sword, but in the end the actual location of *Mecca doesn't really matter. He makes the point that a lot was fudged about the life of the Prophet but that's true of any religious figure. What happened after his death is much more in the realm of history.
Wouldn't it cast doubt on the reliability of the rest of that history though? I mean given Mecca's importance as the spiritual center of Islam and supposedly the destination of the Hajj since the very beginning... if Mecca could be relocated/invented without any alarm bells being raised in that time period(or without record of said bells being preserved, at any rate) wouldn't that be evidence of greater opacity in general?
 
Wouldn't it cast doubt on the reliability of the rest of that history though? I mean given Mecca's importance as the spiritual center of Islam and supposedly the destination of the Hajj since the very beginning... if Mecca could be relocated/invented without any alarm bells being raised in that time period(or without record of said bells being preserved, at any rate) wouldn't that be evidence of greater opacity in general?

Not knowing exactly where something happened over a thousand years ago doesn't invalidate the fact of it happening. In Britain, it's an established fact that there was a Battle of Brunanburh in AD937, but historians don't know where that battle was - the options range all the way from Devon (SW England), through Lincolnshire (E England), the Wirral (NW England) to Galloway (SW Scotland). But we know the battle happened.
I suspect that that's what happened with Mecca. The location of the original Mecca may or may not have been where the modern Mecca is. What matters is the importance of Mecca to Islam. Even if archaeology were to prove that modern Mecca only dated back to AD1000 (for example), it's still an important site and doesn't invalidate the (hi)stories of the rise of Islam.
 

fi11222

Banned
The Sunni-Shia split doesn't make much sense if the Abbasids invented Islam. Conventional history says that the Abbasids work with the Shia, emphasizing that they were descendants of Muhammad, then turned against the Shia and began persecuting them. If there were no Shia how could the Abbasids be appealing to them? More importantly, why invent two branches of Islam in the first place? Why would the Abbasids invent divisions in their new religion, which would give their enemies justification to overthrow them? It also doesn't explain the Ibadis, who first came into being during the Umayyad period.
The split between Shia and Sunni happened AFTER the Abbasid revolution, not before. But it was thereafter backdated, along with the whole history of the movement.

The Muhammad story was probably invented by preacher "Abu Muslim" in Khurasan, a place very far away from the centre of the Arab hegemony and therefore conducive to the invention of an alternative myth about its origin.

Seeing that the Abu Muslim movement was sucessful in Iran and that its army was nearing the Tigris river from the East some powerful disgruntled Mesopotamian Arab clans then decided to throw in their lot with the rebels and try their luck at an anti-Umayyad revolt (it was certainly not the first time such an attempt was made) The Alids and the Abbassids would have been 2 of those clans, and among the most prominent of them. Since the rallying myth of the Abu Muslim movement was the story of the Arab prophet Muhammad from Mecca, either the Alids or the Abbasids, or probably both, then negociated with Abu Muslim that, as a price for their support, a fictitious family relationship would be fabricated between them and the "prophet's family" in order to justify their prominence as allies. This is standard tribal politics and the same kind of thing was still happening on a regular basis in Africa or New Guinea in the XIXth century: when two tribes wanted to forge an alliance they "discovered" themselves a common ancestor et voilà, they became "brothers".

All was well untill a dispute occured between the Alids and the Abbassids, probably just after their common victory over the Umayyads. Given that the Alids had been granted a more senior family tie to the prophet's family (through his only daughter), compared to the Abbasids, it is likely that the Alids were originally the dominant partner in the alliance with the Abu Muslim movement. However, for some reason, the Abbasids managed to upset this position and become ascendant in their own right. They eventually cut the Alids from power completely, confined them in their traditional fiefdom of lower Mesopotamia and eventually drove their supporters underground.

This story of alliance and betrayal occurred in the 750s AD but when the official histories were written, at the end of the VIIIth century, it was backdated to the 650s to make it coherent with the whole "prophet Muhammad" narrative. There was also another reason. One of the chief motive of the official story was to undercut the legitimacy of the Umayyads by painting them as usurpers. To that end, the 4 Rashidun Caliphs' period was invented, probably by reusing some real material about a number of Arab chiefs which had held local sway in various areas before the Umayyad consolidation in the 660s.

Making an ancestor of the Alids one of the 4 Rashidun Caliphs had 2 advantages: First, it lent greater antiquity to the movement that had just gained power in the 750s by positing that some of its leaders' ancestors had held power over all Arabs more than a century ago. And second, it made the Umayyads, instead of the Abbasids, the chief betrayers of the Alids and made them responsible for their marginalization. At first, few people would have been fooled of course but the courtly omerta would have made it impossible for anyone to say anything but "of course, O Commander of the Faithful, you are most right, it is really such a shame that those dreadful Umayyads took away the Caliphate a century ago from the righteous hands of Ali" Dignitaries would have been all the more willing to say such things that they were benefitting form the new order of things. After one or two generations of colluding silence and relentless dissemination of the official story, most people would have been too young to know that this version was not the truth.

Even the Alids had an interest in colluding in the fabrication. After all, it granted them the most senior relationship to the "prophet's family". For a long time, there must have been great hopes that a rebellion against the Abbassids colud be mounted under such a banner.

Regarding the Ibadis, they are probably the descendants of a coalition of dissident movements dating from various periods. Some of them might have been supporters of the Umayyads and of their efforts at building a "neutral monotheism" around the Quran in the late VIIth century. However, after a while, they too had to fit into a narrative that everyone eventually took at face value. They therefore painted themselves as the "most faithful followers of the prophet" by rewriting their own history as one of dissidence starting even before the end of the Rashidun Caliphate. It was as close as they could get to the truth given the climate of the times. After all it is not much worse than "Nos ancêtres les Gaulois" ("Our ancesters were Gauls", in French) which was purportedly printed in all history books distributed by the French colonial authorities in African schools in the first half of the XXth century.
 
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The split between Shia and Sunni happened AFTER the Abbasid revolution, not before. But it was thereafter backdated, along with the whole history of the movement.

The Muhammad story was probably invented by preacher "Abu Muslim" in Khurasan, a place very far away from the centre of the Arab hegemony and therefore conducive to the invention of an alternative myth about its origin.

Seeing that the Abu Muslim movement was sucessful in Iran and that its army was nearing the Tigris river from the East some powerful disgruntled Mesopotamian Arab clans then decided to throw in their lot with the rebels and try their luck at an anti-Umayyad revolt (it was certainly not the first time such an attempt was made) The Alids and the Abbassids would have been 2 of those clans, and among the most prominent of them. Since the rallying myth of the Abu Muslim movement was the story of the Arab prophet Muhammad from Mecca, either the Alids or the Abbasids, or probably both, then negociated with Abu Muslim that, as a price for their support, a fictitious family relationship would be fabricated between them and the "prophet's family" in order to justify their prominence as allies. This is standard tribal politics and the same kind of thing was still happening on a regular basis in Africa or New Guinea in the XIXth century: when two tribes wanted to forge an alliance they "discovered" themselves a common ancestor et voilà, they became "brothers".

All was well untill a dispute occured between the Alids and the Abbassids, probably just after their common victory over the Umayyads. Given that the Alids had been granted a more senior family tie to the prophet's family (through his only daughter), compared to the Abbasids, it is likely that the Alids were originally the dominant partner in the alliance with the Abu Muslim movement. However, for some reason, the Abbasids managed to upset this position and become ascendant in their own right. They eventually cut the Alids from power completely, confined them in their traditional fiefdom of lower Mesopotamia and eventually drove their supporters underground.

This story of alliance and betrayal occurred in the 750s AD but when the official histories were written, at the end of the VIIIth century, it was backdated to the 650s to make it coherent with the whole "prophet Muhammad" narrative. There was also another reason. One of the chief motive of the official story was to undercut the legitimacy of the Umayyads by painting them as usurpers. To that end, the 4 Rashidun Caliphs' period was invented, probably by reusing some real material about a number of Arab chiefs which had held local sway in various areas before the Umayyad consolidation in the 660s.

Making an ancestor of the Alids one of the 4 Rashidun Caliphs had 2 advantages: First, it lent greater antiquity to the movement that had just gained power in the 750s by positing that some of its leaders' ancestors had held power over all Arabs more than a century ago. And second, it made the Umayyads, instead of the Abbasids, the chief betrayers of the Alids and made them responsible for their marginalization. At first, few people would have been fooled of course but the courtly omerta would have made it impossible for anyone to say anything but "of course, O Commander of the Faithful, you are most right, it is really such a shame that those dreadful Umayyads took away the Caliphate a century ago from the righteous hands of Ali" Dignitaries would have been all the more willing to say such things that they were benefitting form the new order of things. After one or two generations of colluding silence and relentless dissemination of the official story, most people would have been too young to know that this version was not the truth.

Even the Alids had an interest in colluding in the fabrication. After all, it granted them the most senior relationship to the "prophet's family". For a long time, there must have been great hopes that a rebellion against the Abbassids colud be mounted under such a banner.

Regarding the Ibadis, they are probably the descendants of a coalition of dissident movements dating from various periods. Some of them might have been supporters of the Umayyads and of their efforts at building a "neutral monotheism" around the Quran in the late VIIth century. However, after a while, they too had to fit into a narrative that everyone eventually took at face value. They therefore painted themselves as the "most faithful followers of the prophet" by rewriting their own history as one of dissidence starting even before the end of the Rashidun Caliphate. It was as close as they could get to the truth given the climate of the times. After all it is not much worse than "Nos ancêtres les Gaulois" ("Our ancesters were Gauls", in French) which was purportedly printed in all history books distributed by the French colonial authorities in African schools in the first half of the XXth century.



Ok first of all, the Shi'i and Shurha had to of began far before Abu Muslim and the Abbasid state... How do you explain the following revolt lists:

1. The rebellion of Zayd ibn Ali, in 740
2. The rebellion of Harith ibn Surayj, in 736
3. The Berber revolt (led by Kharijites), in 740
4. Abdallah ibn Muawiyya's revolt, in 745

The then massive numbers of revolts following this as reported by numerous scholars of the Abbasid period.

Further, I feel you are not studying in depth, scholars write on these issues only around 100 years following the events, that is not without evidence at all. While you may be correct on the early periods before say Uthman, but on the rest it would seem to be entirely conjecture. As well, I seriously doubt the Ghassanid/Lahkmid view you put forward. It is evident that the tribes migrating where Yemeni or Najdi.

I still do not have time to put forward a detailed response, but just a note, you must explain the reason for the intolerance of the Abbasid state, they wouldn't launch an inquisition to purge Sunni beliefs, as they would've created the ideology. In all honesty your scenario lacks the ability to account for the diversity of early Islam. Also do explain the above rebellions.
 
The Umayyad are described as having been one of the tribes in the Quraysh that opposed Muhammad and if your take on events this would be a move by the Abbasids to rewrite history and add religious and historic validation to their overthrow of the Umayyad Dynasty which I could kind of see. But why would the Umayyad rulers in Spain accept this notion? You say it's because so much of the Arab world accepted it, but Al-Andalusia was so distant from the far Khurasan and the heart of this movement that you describe that there's little reason to see why the Arabs of in Al-Andalusia would accept it.
 
Not knowing exactly where something happened over a thousand years ago doesn't invalidate the fact of it happening. In Britain, it's an established fact that there was a Battle of Brunanburh in AD937, but historians don't know where that battle was - the options range all the way from Devon (SW England), through Lincolnshire (E England), the Wirral (NW England) to Galloway (SW Scotland). But we know the battle happened.
I suspect that that's what happened with Mecca. The location of the original Mecca may or may not have been where the modern Mecca is. What matters is the importance of Mecca to Islam. Even if archaeology were to prove that modern Mecca only dated back to AD1000 (for example), it's still an important site and doesn't invalidate the (hi)stories of the rise of Islam.
The bolded part is true in general. But the significance of the Mecca issue(if these claims are legitimate) wouldn't be the uncertainty over it's location, but rather the fact that there are no records from the time period explicitly addressing the uncertainty. Conventional Islamic history asserts that the Hajj has been one of the five pillars of Islam since the beginning, which would obviously necessitate knowing where you were supposed to go. Therefore if "Mecca's" location was either uncertain or shifted, and yet we see no evidence of this raising alarm amongst the Muslims of the time, this suggests one of two things:

1)That it wasn't seen as notable. Which would suggest that "Mecca" and the Hajj were of far less importance to early Muslims. And for that matter that the later emergence of the "pretender Mecca" as a clear Hajj destination and claimant to being Islam's spiritual center was gradual enough to not raise alarm. Which would in turn favour fi11222's claim that early Islam was highly amorphous.

2)That it was noted by the Muslims of the time, and yet we somehow have no record of this. The only plausible reason for that would be Mecca's new status being part of a new "official narrative" that you wouldn't be wise to question, and soon enough becoming an "old narrative" that it would be blasphemous to question. Which would favour fi11222's claims about Abu Muslim and the Abbasids.

...

Of course possibility 3 is that fi11222 is simply wrong about Mecca, and that the conventional Muslim understanding is right. Occam's razor and all that.
 
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Ok first of all, the Shi'i and Shurha had to of began far before Abu Muslim and the Abbasid state... How do you explain the following revolt lists:

1. The rebellion of Zayd ibn Ali, in 740
2. The rebellion of Harith ibn Surayj, in 736
3. The Berber revolt (led by Kharijites), in 740
4. Abdallah ibn Muawiyya's revolt, in 745

The then massive numbers of revolts following this as reported by numerous scholars of the Abbasid period.

Further, I feel you are not studying in depth, scholars write on these issues only around 100 years following the events, that is not without evidence at all. While you may be correct on the early periods before say Uthman, but on the rest it would seem to be entirely conjecture. As well, I seriously doubt the Ghassanid/Lahkmid view you put forward. It is evident that the tribes migrating where Yemeni or Najdi.

I still do not have time to put forward a detailed response, but just a note, you must explain the reason for the intolerance of the Abbasid state, they wouldn't launch an inquisition to purge Sunni beliefs, as they would've created the ideology. In all honesty your scenario lacks the ability to account for the diversity of early Islam. Also do explain the above rebellions.
Also, where do the Kharijites come from? The Kharajites opposed all of the factions (Umayyad, Abbasid, and Alid), so clearly they were never in on any plans the Abbasids had. And why would the Abbasids allow a group like the Kharajites to have such an elaborate backstory? Giving the Kharajites a history that basically goes back to the start of the faith gives them much more legitimacy than just declaring that they're random rebels/heretics that emerged fairly recently. It's not like what the Kharajites actually said would matter, since if the Abbasids were able to rewrite history so thoroughly they would clearly have been able to make the Kharajites anything they wanted.
The Umayyad are described as having been one of the tribes in the Quraysh that opposed Muhammad and if your take on events this would be a move by the Abbasids to rewrite history and add religious and historic validation to their overthrow of the Umayyad Dynasty which I could kind of see. But why would the Umayyad rulers in Spain accept this notion? You say it's because so much of the Arab world accepted it, but Al-Andalusia was so distant from the far Khurasan and the heart of this movement that you describe that there's little reason to see why the Arabs of in Al-Andalusia would accept it.
The Umayyads and Ibadis are two major problems with this theory. In both cases they were isolated and had very good reasons not to convert to an Abbasid-created religion.
 

fi11222

Banned
The Umayyad are described as having been one of the tribes in the Quraysh that opposed Muhammad and if your take on events this would be a move by the Abbasids to rewrite history and add religious and historic validation to their overthrow of the Umayyad Dynasty which I could kind of see. But why would the Umayyad rulers in Spain accept this notion? You say it's because so much of the Arab world accepted it, but Al-Andalusia was so distant from the far Khurasan and the heart of this movement that you describe that there's little reason to see why the Arabs of in Al-Andalusia would accept it.
I believe that the Umayyads of Spain did not rally to the official Abbassid story for some time, maybe a century or so. But during that period there was no history writing going on in Spain. All Muslim historians up to the year 1000 were based in Baghdad and most had Iranian backgrounds. In other words, they were firmly on the Abbasid's side. There is absolutely no way to recover the spanish Umayyad's version of events from them, if ever there was one.

After the year 1000 everyone in the Muslim world was taking his cue from the established historians from Baghdad. Most later histories are little more than expansions or compilations of earlier works. By this time, the official version was so firmly established that there was absolutely no way to challenge it.

In many ways, the elevation of Abd-ar-Rahman III to the title of "Caliph" in 929 (while the previous Umayyad rulers of Al-Andalus had only called themselves "Emir") can be seen as the final capitulation of the Umayyads to the official version of Muslim history. The main reason Abd-ar-Rahman III could emancipate himself from his erstwhile overlords in Cairo and Baghdad and claim to be their equal was precisely because the official history also gave his family a tie to the prophet's. If he repudiated that story, he was nothing more than the descendant of a self-made man from Syria in a context where it had become routine for every ruler of a significant portion of the muslim world to claim descent from the "prophet's tribe" (the so-called "Quraish", which is probably nothing more, initially, than an Arabo-Syriac translation of the latin word "foederati").

Claiming Caliphal authority in 929, basically means "I am as legitimate as the Abassids or the Fatimids to be the Commander of the Faithful" and by that time this could no longer be expressed in other terms than "I am a descendant of a close relative of the Prophet". This had long been the only politico-religious idiom in which supreme authority could be claimed in the Muslim world.
 

fi11222

Banned
... But the significance of the Mecca issue(if these claims are legitimate) wouldn't be the uncertainty over it's location, but rather the fact that there are no records from the time period explicitly addressing the uncertainty. Conventional Islamic history asserts that the Hajj has been one of the five pillars of Islam since the beginning, which would obviously necessitate knowing where you were supposed to go.
There are signs in several early texts that at one time the Hajj was to Jerusalem rather than to Mecca, just like the direction of prayer also changed at one point.

One tempting hypothesis was that the initial destination of the Hajj was the Dome of the Rock and not the Kaaba. Supporting this idea are several passages in non muslim texts of the late VIIth century describing Arabs coming in pilgrimage to Jerusalem while there is no mention in those texts of anyone going to Mecca. Also noteworthy is that the Dome of the Rock is a very old building, also dating from the late VIIth century and almost unchanged since then. By comparison there is absolutely nothing of comparable antiquity in Mecca. The mosque surrounding the Kaaba dates from the XIXth century while the Kaaba itself has been rebuilt in its present form only in 1629. Since the Saudis forbid any archeological digging, there is no telling what lies beneath the present very late building.

One of the argument used to support the view that the site of Mecca is a post Abbassid fabrication is that the place is utterly unsuitable for habitation. Contrary to Yathrib or Taif, it is not an Oasis and there is no source of water in the city itself. Furthermore, the site of the Kaaba lies on the path of seasonal flash floods and was apparently under water for a few weeks each year before large scale drainage works were undertaken in the early XXth century. Also, once every 10 or 15 years, exceptionally severe floods often wreaked severe damage on the Kaaba and the surrounding buildings. In 1629, the Kaaba was entirely destroyed by one such flood and this is why it was rebuilt. There is absolutely no example of a desert town being set-up in such an unfavorable site. The story of Mecca as a thriving pre-Islamic market town is therefore almost certainly myth.
 
Wouldn't it cast doubt on the reliability of the rest of that history though? I mean given Mecca's importance as the spiritual center of Islam and supposedly the destination of the Hajj since the very beginning... if Mecca could be relocated/invented without any alarm bells being raised in that time period(or without record of said bells being preserved, at any rate) wouldn't that be evidence of greater opacity in general?

The beginning years of any faith are full of turmoil. From a non religious perspective it doesn't really matter where Muhammad said Mecca should be- just as it doesn't matter whether Jesus was really given a trial by Pontius Pilate (instead of the more likely scenario of his just being summarily condemned like any other rabble rouser).
 
...there are no records from the time period explicitly addressing the uncertainty. Conventional Islamic history asserts that the Hajj has been one of the five pillars of Islam since the beginning, which would obviously necessitate knowing where you were supposed to go.
Maybe it wasn't uncertain at the time. Bearing in mind that most people were illiterate, and that maps were both rudimentary and often topological not geographic*, pilgrims would have relied on word of mouth to find their way on the Hajj. See also my third point below.
*Topological maps just show the relationship between points of interest and can even be a series of instructions instead of diagrams; e.g. travel east for 3 days until you reach the oasis at the foot of the mountains, then travel south for 2 days...'
...Of course possibility 3 is that fi11222 is simply wrong about Mecca, and that the conventional Muslim understanding is right. Occam's razor and all that.
William of Ockham was a smart guy...;)
One tempting hypothesis was that the initial destination of the Hajj was the Dome of the Rock and not the Kaaba.
...the place is utterly unsuitable for habitation. ...There is absolutely no example of a desert town being set-up in such an unfavorable site. The story of Mecca as a thriving pre-Islamic market town is therefore almost certainly myth.
But the town may not have been fixed initially, bearing in mind that the majority of Arab tribes were nomadic, 'Mecca' might initially have been the home of a group of nomadic tribes and only became the pilgrimage site when it became fixed.
I have -zero- evidence for this, as I'm -not- an expert on this time/area - I'm just speculating. :rolleyes:
The beginning years of any faith are full of turmoil. From a non religious perspective it doesn't really matter where Muhammad said Mecca should be.
Agreed. Muslims believe that the Hajj is one of the pillars of Islam. The Hajj now goes to Mecca. Both are facts. The exact details of the history are essentially irrelevant to the faith now.
 

fi11222

Banned
But the town may not have been fixed initially, bearing in mind that the majority of Arab tribes were nomadic,
Not really. Of course there were still nomadic Arabic tribes in the desert in the VIIth centuries but it is not them who conquered the middle east.

Those who did were tribes which had become sedentary several centuries earlier and were living on the desert's fringe in Syria and lower Mesopotamia. They had been deeply involved with the ERE and Sassanid Empire for a long time and played an important role in their respective armies. Later on, some desert tribes, which kept kinship ties with the romanized and persianized tribes might no doubt have joined them but the leadership role in the conquest and the subsequent administration of the territories that had been gained was always in the hands of the sedentary tribes which were the only ones with the necessary leadership and administrative skills.

Those sedentary tribes, which had once been part of the Ghassanid and Lakhmid confederations, were well known by the local population and on good terms with them for religious reasons. In the west, they were close to the Monophysite majority in Syria and in the East they were Nestorians, like the rest of the large Christian population of Mesopotamia.

All these people, whether Arabs or not recognized Jerusalem, and no other city, as the sacred focal point of any form of monotheism, be it Talmudic Jewish, sectarian Jewish, Judeo-Christian, or any other form of weird synchretic cults which lived on the margins of more established faiths (there were many of those). It is from this sectarian milieu that the first form of Islam emerged; the VIIth century Quran-based, Umayyad-backed, Dome of the Rock-building, form of Islam. During this period, Jerusalem was almost certainly the destination of a pilgrimage by the members of this new movement. It is very likely the origin of the Hajj.
 
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