Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages

by Dan Jones

All of this amounted—superficially at least—to a steady period of growth. Yet one had barely to scratch the surface to see that under Uthman’s rule all was not well. Although the caliph oversaw several important spiritual and domestic reforms, including the compilation of an “authorized” edition of the Qur’an, the caliphate assembled at lightning speed had begun to breed serious tensions and factional rivalries. In the summer of 656 they exploded. Opposition to Uthman’s rule was in equal parts personal and political. As the Islamic state grew, it began to echo with grumblings, heard loudest in Egypt and Iraq, that influence and reward were being concentrated unduly in the hands of the Quraysh. Of course, this was a delicate matter: the Quraysh were both Muhammad’s tribe and the people who had opposed him most bitterly in the beginning. They had provided caliphs and generals of the standard of Khalid ibn al-Walid and Syria’s governor and naval admiral Muawiya. They were, insofar as there was such a thing, Muslim aristocracy. Yet other Arabian tribes who had participated wholeheartedly in the decades of