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During the ten years between Muhammad’s Hijrah from Mecca to Medina and his death, he gradually rose to be the undisputed leader of much of Arabia. This was an extraordinary feat of political skill. First he had to make himself the leader of the whole oasis, then overcome the opposition of the Quraysh tribe which ruled Mecca, and finally spread his message far and wide across a desert subcontinent.

  The first major military encounter between the Muslims and the Quraysh was at the wells of Badr, when a smaller force of Muslims defeated a Meccan army sent to escort a trading caravan returning from Syria. Muhammad received a revelation that divine help, in the form of legions of angels, had aided the Muslims. The victory simultaneously boosted Muslim morale, lifted their prestige among the non-Muslim inhabitants of Medina, and turned the struggle with Mecca into open warfare. For the sake of the tribe’s own standing, the Quraysh needed to take revenge.

  This is what they sought a year later. A large Meccan force approached Medina. Muhammad met them at Uhud, a mountain outside the oasis. Initially, it looked as though the Muslims were gaining the upper hand. Excited rumours spread through the Muslim ranks that the Meccan camp was about to fall, and soldiers rushed forward in the hope of booty. The result was that archers guarding a flank abandoned their posts, and the Meccan cavalry were able to wheel round and attack the Muslims from the rear. Most of the Muslims were able to escape to high ground and lava-flows where they were safe from the enemy cavalry, but the Meccans were left in possession of the main battlefield. Muslim casualties were heavy. The Prophet himself was wounded. One of the men closest to him, his uncle Hamza, was killed. Hamza’s body was mutilated and Hind, the wife of the Meccan leader Abu Sufyan, ritually chewed part of his liver in revenge for the death of her father, son, brother and uncle who had all been killed at Badr.

  The defeat also demonstrated that Muhammad’s leadership was still fragile. A large party of Munafiqun under Abdullah bin Ubayy, a tribal leader in Medina who aspired to rule the oasis and resented the prominent position Muhammad had acquired, deserted him before the battle. At the same time, the Jewish tribes and some others had remained neutral. Muhammad had clearly not consolidated his control of Medina at this point, yet he was able to ensure that Uhud was no more than a setback. The defeat made it necessary for him to redouble his efforts to extend his authority.

  The Jewish tribes in the oasis presented him with a problem. They rejected his status as a messenger of God and argued that the truth lay in their own scriptures, not the Qur’an. On the ideological level, this made them his most dangerous opponents. One of the Jewish tribes, the silversmiths of Banu Qaynuqa‘, had already been exiled after the Battle of Badr. Now, Muhammad moved against the wealthiest Jewish tribe in the oasis, the Banu Nadir. Following allegations of their treachery, he laid siege to their village. It was eventually agreed that they would surrender their arms and leave the oasis with their moveable property. The siege of the Banu Nadir had demonstrated the weakness of Abdullah bin Ubayy’s position, since he was bound to extend his protection to them. However, it had now been shown that he was not strong enough to challenge Muhammad. The departure of the Jewish tribe was therefore a humiliation for him and another major step towards Muhammad consolidating his authority in Medina.

  The Quraysh now sought to destroy Muhammad once and for all. A much larger army than the force that had fought at Uhud was assembled and joined by major confederations of tribes. This time, rather than march out of the oasis to meet them and risk defeat by superior numbers, the Medinans fortified their oasis and surrounded it with a trench wherever there were no walls or lava-flows impenetrable to cavalry. The siege that resulted was known as the Battle of the Trench. The Meccans soon began to run out of supplies. Their Bedouin confederates drifted away, and they had no alternative but to return to Mecca.

  Muhammad now took the final steps to assert his authority in Medina. The Banu Qurayza, the third of the Jewish tribes in the oasis, had plotted with the Meccans to rise up during the siege and attack the Muslims from the rear. Muhammad delegated the decision as to what should happen to them to Sa‘d bin Mu‘adh, a leader of the Ansar who had been mortally wounded in the Battle of the Trench. Sa‘d decreed that the adult males of the tribe should be executed and the women and children enslaved. Medina, now indisputably under Muhammad’s leadership, had become at least as powerful as Mecca. The Quraysh’s commercial route to Syria was at his mercy, and Medina rivalled Mecca in the trade with Syria. Muhammad’s envoys made agreements with tribes in the area between Medina and Greater Syria, as well as seeking alliances with tribes in the area between Medina and Mecca.

  In achieving the final submission of Mecca, Muhammad practised magnanimity and subtle diplomatic skill. He announced that he wanted to lead his followers to perform a pilgrimage to the sanctuary at Mecca. This dismayed the Quraysh, because it would have involved, for all practical purposes, allowing him to lead a Muslim army into the city. A compromise was reached at Hudaybiyya, a place about nine miles from Mecca where Muhammad and his followers halted. A truce was agreed for the next ten years. The Muslims would turn back from making a pilgrimage that year but they would be permitted to perform it the following year. While the Muslims made their pilgrimage, the Meccans would evacuate the city for three days so as to make sure there was no disorder. When the pilgrimage took place, it happened without incident. The Muslims then returned to Medina and the Meccans re-entered their city.

  In January 630, very probably after secret negotiations, Muhammad led a large army to Mecca, which arrived unexpectedly. There was almost no resistance to his arrival. He guaranteed the lives of the Meccans and the safety of their property, although a few men who had abandoned Islam and poets who had satirised the Prophet were executed. Once assured that he would not seek revenge for their earlier opposition to him, the merchants of the Quraysh flocked to accept Islam. As the idols were taken from the Ka‘ba and their shrines in neighbouring towns pulled down, Arabian polytheism lost its force and its appeal. The advantages of the new order were plain to see. Only three weeks after the submission of Mecca, the tribe of Thaqif from nearby Ta’if were defeated after marching on the city. The Thaqif had been a long-standing rival to the Quraysh, but had been too powerful for the Quraysh to defeat on their own. Now, however, as a result of the union with Medina, they were able to do so. A new, successful, political order had been born. Muhammad’s emissaries travelled across Arabia in all directions spreading his message and receiving the allegiance of the tribes, something that usually entailed acceptance of the new religion. Muhammad’s community of Muslims had evolved into a state, and were now beginning to acquire what can only be called an empire.

  Alongside the categories of Muhajirun and Ansar, a third category of Muslim now appeared. These were the Tulaqa’ (singular, Taliq), those Meccans who accepted Islam only after the fall of Mecca. They included the leadership of the Quraysh, who had opposed Muhammad so stubbornly, and are best exemplified by the Meccan leader Abu Sufyan and his wife Hind. Muhammad forgave them for their opposition. He even pardoned Hind for mutilating the body of his uncle Hamza. Abu Sufyan was given a position that reflected his status and became Muhammad’s governor of Yemen, which at that time was probably the richest province of the nascent Muslim empire. Hind travelled with the Muslim armies on some of their conquests (it was a tradition for women to accompany their men-folk to war so as to encourage them to fight bravely), and cheered them on as she had once cheered the Quraysh as they fought against the Muslims at Uhud.

  III

  Muhammad died in 632 ad, only two years after the submission of Mecca. His death was peaceful, and happened only a few days after he had first been taken ill. Before his final few hours, he may not have realised that the illness was likely to be fatal.

  Losing him was deeply shocking for the Muslim community, and left it facing an unprecedented crisis. At the time of his death, an observer might easily have concluded that the odds were stacked against the survival of Muhammad’s new religion an
d the polity that he had established. Although he had been acknowledged as the Prophet of God over most of Arabia, many of the tribes – especially those in the regions some distance from Medina and Mecca – had seen their relationship with him as entirely personal. Some had agreed to send payments of alms known as sadaqa to the Prophet. This money was used to help finance the Muslim state, to help the poor and to be used for other purposes that we would now call charitable. Yet the reality was that paying it would often have appeared more like sending tribute to a suzerain than performing a religious duty. One faction of a tribe might have agreed to make the payment so as to acquire a powerful ally in a struggle for supremacy with a rival faction. There were also tribes that had agreed to pay tribute but had not acknowledged Muhammad as a prophet, and Christian tribes that had retained their own faith but made individual arrangements with him. Now, many of these groups would not feel bound to enter into similar relations with whoever took the Prophet’s place – assuming anyone succeeded in stepping into it. The new leader of the Muslim community, whoever he might be, was likely to face considerable resistance collecting taxes and tribute. Rebellions and attempts at secession were to be expected, and they began as soon as the news of the Prophet’s death spread.

  But what of the Muslims in the areas where Muhammad had preached – Mecca, Medina and nearby – where the new faith was much more firmly established? Here there was potential for friction between different groups within the community. As we have already seen, the most distinguished Muslims were those who had been early converts in Mecca and had loyally followed Muhammad throughout his mission. They were to be found among the Muhajirun and were predominantly Meccans from one branch or another of the Quraysh, although people who travelled to Medina from other parts of Arabia to join Muhammad up to the time of the submission of Mecca were also listed as Muhajirun. Quraysh, however, was not only the tribe of the Prophet but also that of the Meccan merchant oligarchy who had opposed him so vehemently.

  Now, however, things had changed. Opposition from the Quraysh’s Meccan oligarchy had ended. All of the Quraysh were puffed up with pride at the fact that the Prophet had been one of their number, while at the same time the tribe’s traditional prestige still counted for a great deal, and this was now ready to be deployed in the service of the new faith and Muhammad’s polity. Its leaders and eminent men were rich merchants with more political experience and a greater awareness of the wider world than most other Arabs, a knowledge gained in the hard school of commerce. Many of them had travelled to Greater Syria (where some of them owned property) as well as to other far-flung areas. As the Prophet’s early Companions were from the Quraysh, there would be little difficulty finding Qurayshi candidates for leadership who were devout Muslims and would also satisfy this tribal pride.

  But there was also an important group of Muslims who were not members of the Quraysh. These were the Ansar of Medina who, like the Muhajirun, were distinguished by their devotion to the new religion. Three quarters of the Muslim fighters at Badr had been Ansar, and only one quarter Muhajirun,2 while the Ansar suffered disproportionately at Uhud: seventy of them were killed, while only four of the Muhajirun lost their lives.3 Muhammad tried to bind the Ansar and Muhajirun together, but few of the Ansar seem to have been granted leadership roles by him. Interestingly, too, the Prophet never took a daughter of one of the Ansar as a bride, although scholars have found it easy to discern political motives behind most if not all the marriages he made after the loss of Khadija, his first (and, at that time, only) wife. Khadija had died two or three years before the Hijrah. Indeed, the removal of her moral support and encouragement may have been an important factor behind his decision to leave Mecca. The divide between the Muhajirun and the Ansar was a threat to the harmony and stability of the community. The Qur’an presents the two groups as equal in rank,4 but they seem to have stayed apart and it may be significant that there appears to have been little intermarriage.5

  As soon as they heard of the Prophet’s death, the Ansar met together and debated the choice of a leader from among themselves: someone who would either lead the whole community, or at least head the Ansar and thus rule Medina, where Muhammad had died and which he had retained as his capital after the submission of Mecca. The fact that these alternatives were both possible showed that there was a real risk that the community might split. Yet these deliberations were cut short. Two key figures from the early days of Muhammad’s preaching in Mecca entered the roofed area or hall where they were congregating. These were Abu Bakr and Umar. They were accompanied by Abu Ubaidah bin al-Jarrah, another important early convert, and several others. Abu Bakr and Umar had both been very close indeed to the Prophet. Some historians have noted parallels between them in this closeness, as well as the remarkable fact that it does not seem to have led to jealousy between them.6 Yet they were very different people.

  Abu Bakr had been a friend of Muhammad from the earliest days in Mecca, and became known by the epithet al-Siddiq, ‘the truthful’, or ‘he who affirms the truth’. He is said to have been three years younger than Muhammad and is often listed as the first adult male convert to the Prophet’s message. He had an unshakeable faith in his friend’s mission and was good at dispelling the doubts of others, especially when Muhammad took controversial or unpopular decisions. He was a skilful politician and was good at giving his friend sound and careful advice, which he expressed in a gentle and diplomatic way. At the same time, there was a steely side to his character. He has been described as ‘a stern and ambitious father’,7 and at least two of his children, his daughter Aisha and his son Muhammad, would play important but controversial roles in the years after the Prophet’s death. He was known to be utterly uncompromising in his faith, and would follow the Prophet’s instructions to the letter. He had the honour of being Muhammad’s sole companion on the Hijrah. This was a journey that had involved taking dangerous risks, and the two men had needed to hide in a cave to be safe from the Qurayshis who were searching for them, and would almost certainly have killed them if they had found them.

  For Abu Bakr to leave Mecca at that point had meant jeopardising his considerable commercial interests, since he had been a successful, although not particularly wealthy, merchant there. Apart from one son who had not yet converted to Islam, his family joined him soon after he reached Medina, where he betrothed his nine-year-old daughter Aisha – Muhammad’s only virgin bride – to the Prophet, for the marriage to be consummated soon after she reached puberty (as was normal practice at the time). Abu Bakr was the nearest Muhammad had to a constant companion. In his final illness, when the Prophet was too sick to lead the prayers, he asked Abu Bakr to take his place. According to many sources, Muhammad died in the arms of Aisha, who was always his favourite and most influential wife. His relationship with Aisha added additional cement to his bond with Abu Bakr.

  Umar could not have been more different in temperament from Abu Bakr. He began by being fiercely opposed to Islam, but is said to have been swayed by the beauty of some Qur’anic verses he heard chanted in the house of his sister who, together with her husband, had already converted. This happened in Mecca about four years before the Hijrah. Yet, once he became a Muslim, he took up the cause with a pugnacious zeal that had characterised his earlier opposition. He was a natural leader in a way that Abu Bakr may not have been. He was tall, and was said to tower over other people as though he were on a horse. He was also noted for obstinacy, impulsiveness and a certain roughness (the latter not least by his wives), and had an overbearing temperament that could inspire fear. He was instrumental in helping Muhammad organise the polity in Medina, often acting as his right hand. Like Abu Bakr, he gave a daughter in marriage to the Prophet: Hafsa, whose husband had been killed at the Battle of Badr.

  When they strode into the hall, Abu Bakr and Umar presented the assembled Ansar with a fait accompli. Abu Bakr stated that, as a purely practical matter, the leader of the community after the Prophet’s death had to come from the Quraysh, or
he would not be accepted by the Arabs across the length and breadth of Arabia. He then said that he was prepared to swear allegiance to either of the other two distinguished Companions of the Prophet who had accompanied him to the meeting, Umar or Ubaidah bin al-Jarrah, and commended the Ansar to do the same. At this point Umar intervened, and stated that for him it was inconceivable that he should swear loyalty to anyone other than Abu Bakr (Abu Bakr was roughly twenty years older than Umar). Abu Bakr accepted Umar’s allegiance. With the two men united in their view as to the succession, it would now be very difficult for anyone to oppose their decision.

  Yet when the two men and their followers had arrived at the hall, they had found Sa‘d bin Ubadah, himself a distinguished Companion of the Prophet, lying on the ground wrapped in a cloak, and clearly ill. He was one of the most eminent among the Ansar and the paramount chief of the important Medinan tribe of Khazraj. He was a man whose views would certainly have held great weight with those present, and the Ansar were probably preparing to acknowledge him as the leader to represent their community. There seems to have been an element of intimidation in the meeting. Umar and some others are reported to have assaulted Sa‘d for daring to challenge the right of the Quraysh to rule.8 Sa‘d never swore allegiance to either Abu Bakr or to Umar, who would himself take over leadership of the community after Abu Bakr’s death two years later. Some other Ansar present at the meeting probably also never gave their allegiance to either of them, and maintained a sullen silence. Yet they would have felt that, if it had to be one out of Abu Bakr or Umar, they definitely preferred Abu Bakr.

  A consideration in the backs of the minds of all present would have been the position of the Tulaqa’, those converts from the Quraysh who had joined Islam only late in the day, for reasons that smacked of expediency. The group included powerful people such as Abu Sufyan, the aristocratic leader of the leading Umayya branch of the Quraysh, who had led the Meccan opposition to Islam almost to the bitter end. Men such as he would inevitably tend to see Islam through the lens of their tribal allegiance. If they remained within the fold of Islam, they could help the religion and its polity expand yet further. The Tulaqa’ knew they were taking part in a hugely successful political project, and wanted to join the side that had won. There would be opportunities for glory and prestige, for booty and amassing wealth, as well as for spreading the message of the new religion. The Muslim community needed them. It was even an open question whether the Muslims could remain united as a community if they lost the support and skills of the Tulaqa’. It would have been crucial for the Tulaqa’ that the leader should come from the Quraysh. If he did not, here was a strong risk that the Tulaqa’ would revert to the ways that had served them so well until the days of Muhammad. For this reason, Abu Bakr was a ruler whom they, too, were able to accept.