Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

by Peter Watson

To begin with, the institution was not hereditary (strangely, the Qur’an gave no guidance on the succession). The first four caliphs, not related, are labelled by modern Muslims as the Rashidun, ‘the rightly guided ones’, and, despite the fact that all but the first were assassinated, their period in office is usually regarded as a golden age. However, the fourth caliph, Ali, was Muhammad’s son-in-law and cousin and, in offering himself for election as caliph, he was reverting to a pre-Islamic tradition. Given the history of assassinations, many of the faithful believed that a relative of the Prophet might offer leadership closer to the original. Ali’s followers became a party known as Ali, shi’atu, Ali, which in time was collapsed into Shi’a.25 Later, the Shi’a would become extremely influential–but not just yet, for Ali too was assassinated. In the Islamic civil war that ensued, the victor was Mu’awiya, the governor of a province in Syria and a member of the Meccan clan of Umayya. This brought about the next phase in Islamic development, because for nearly a century the succession of the caliphate was in the hands of the Umayyad dynasty. In subsequent orthodox history this period is relegated in importance. Before the Umayyads came the ‘rightly guided ones’ and after them, as we shall see, Islamic leadership was in the hands of the ‘divinely approved’ caliphs.26 This reflects a major division that had opened up in Islam. The Shi’a took the view that the caliphate belonge...

Shia vs Sunni Muslims origin