Umar, the second caliph of Islam, was slain by avenging Persians; Uthman, the third caliph of Islam, was besieged and then slaughtered by Muslim rebels; Muhammad’s cousin Ali, the fourth caliph, was also assassinated by dissidents, but not before he had marched against the army of Aisha, Muhammad’s young bride. That was the first Islamic civil war, often called the First Fitna, and on that day ten thousand Muslims killed one another on the field of battle. With the spilling of their blood were sown the first seeds of Shia and Sunni discord. The sword was ever unsheathed in these earliest years
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