The Four Rightly Guided Caliphs
The Umayyad Caliphs of Cordoba (929-1031)----------------------------------------------------
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Abu Bakr (632-634) father-in-law (Arabic, khalifah, [successor]), khalifat Rasul Allah, [successor to the Messenger of God]),
Umar I (634-644) amir-al-mum-inin (Arabic, [commander of the believers],
Uthman ibn Affan (644-656) Muhammad's son-in-law,
Ali Ben Abu Talib (656-661) a cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad,
In 630 ce, two years before Mohammed’s death, the Moslems took control of Mecca and cleansed the Kaba, reestablishing it as the center for worship of Allah. Although Mohammed was seen as the leader of all Moslems, he stayed in Medina to govern and did not return to live or govern in Mecca.
After Mohammed’s death, the leadership of the umma was taken up by Abu Bakr, who took the title Caliph. This title, which means "successor," indicates that he was the successor to the Prophet of God. This means that he claimed all Mohammed’s political and administrative power, and that he became the religious leader. He was NOT another Prophet, however. Gabriel did not appear to him on behalf of Allah; in fact, this would have been odd since Mohammed was the last and final prophet of Allah. He lead prayers, for example, and was responsible for the well-being of the umma, but he was not a spiritual guide or inspired by Allah.
When Abu Bakr died in 634, Umar became Caliph. Umar lead the Moslem troops to conquer all of Arabia, and then north into Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Iran, as well as westward into Egypt and North Africa.
When Umar was murdered by a slave in 644, Uthman was elected Caliph over the strong contesting by Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law Ali. Although a pious and humble man, he was a weak ruler and too much influenced by his relatives of the Umayyad clan of the Koreish tribe (who had been "late" converts to Islam). Finally, his supporters turned on him and he was killed by a mob in 656.
Ali became the last Rightly Guided Caliph in 656. Unfortunately, he failed to deal firmly with Uthman’s killers—never discovering the murderers or bringing them to justice. This angered Uthman’s relatives who stirred up trouble. Ali fought them in 657, but without any clear outcome. This continued to cause difficulties until he was assassinated in 661.
Of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs, Ali was the only one who was a close blood relative of Mohammed. From Mohammed’s death, his followers thought that the succession should not be decided by election, but by birth. They thought that the ability to communicate with Allah was passed on in this way. These followers were known as the Shia ("party") of Ali, formed the basis of what later became Shiite Islam (see below). When Ali was elected Caliph, they believed that their views would finally dominate, but after Ali’s assassination, the leadership of the umma moved to the Umayyads.
So while Mohammed was alive, his authority was both divine (he was Allah’s Prophet) and political. After his death, the Caliphs claimed to inherit his political authority, but not his role as the God's messenger. While they were religious leaders, this was a power granted by the believers—they were the "most equal" of equals—rather than divinely ordained. They led worship services, but did not receive messages from Allah
During this time, four main schools of legal interpretation arose within Sunni Islam, giving different levels of authority to the Koran, the Hadith, community consensus and reasoning. These four schools were ultimately all considered to provide valid interpretations of the Sharia, with their influence varying from region to region.
After Damascus and the Umayyad dynasty fell in 750, an different line of the Umayyad dynasty continued in Spain until the 1400s.
(Spanish Umayyads) (929-1031)
descendants of Prophet's uncle Abbas
During this period, the Arab hold on Islam was finally broken, and all Moslems came to be seen as equals. In the early decades of the movement, all the initial followers of Mohammed and the Four Caliphs were Arabs. As they conquered more and more territory, the inhabitants converted to Islam. This brought a number of different ethnic groups and nationalities into the umma. The Umayyads had dealt with this by treating the Arab Moslems as superior to the newer converts. But the Abbasids’ chief supporters were actually Persian (Iranian) Moslems, and so they worked to have all members of the umma treated equally, whatever their background.
In the empire’s later centuries, its peace was disturbed by Seljuk Turks who came down out of the north, converted to Islam, and ultimately settled in what is today Turkey.
From the 11th century onwards was the period of the Crusades, when armies of Christian soldiers came to "liberate" the Holy Land from the "infidel" Moslems. These wars caused great destruction and large numbers of indiscriminate killings (mostly but not exclusively by the Christian forces), but ultimately resolved nothing. In 1250, most of Palestine remained in Moslem hands, and that amount dwindled as the decades passed. The Crusades were important in that they gave the Moslems their first experience with the Christian West since their initial expansion. The impression left on the Moslems was that of ruthless barbarism, a view that still influences Moslem understanding of the West today.
The Shah’s son Aurengzeb (1658-1707) reversed the tolerance policy, however, and introduced a tax on non-Moslems. Forced conversions happened and Hindu temples were destroyed. By the end of his reign, instability set in. Matters deteriorated until the British conquered the Indian sub-continent in 1858.
During the Moghul Empire, millions of Indians became Moslems—most of them by choice. But it also created a large amount of hatred and distrust between Moslems and Hindus. In the twentieth century, this required the creation of Pakistan (in 1947) to give Moslems a nation of their own to protect them from mistreatment by the now-dominant Hindus.
The Moghul Empire in India also served as a jumping off point for the movement of Islam into the southern Pacific. Today, the nations of Malaysia and Indonesia are largely Moslem.
After the destruction of Baghdad and the Abbasid Empire by the Moghuls in 1290, the Ottoman Empire came into power. It was dominated by the Turks and centered in what is modern-day Turkey. In 1453, they conquered Constantinople (which had been founded as the capital of all Christendom by Constantine himself), renamed it Istanbul, and made it the capital of their Empire.
The Ottoman Empire expanded into southeastern Europe (the Balkans and Hungary) and then east and south into Iraq, Arabia, and Egypt. After rising to its zenith under Suleiman the Magnificent (died 1566), the Empire gradually began to deteriorate before the increasing technological and industrial might of the European nations. It did not come to a final end until World War 1, however, when the Allies managed to encourage many of the dissident factions within the Empire to bring about such internal strife that it fell as much from internal troubles as from the Allies’ external attacks.
