The Origins of Shia Sunni Split in Islam

The great great grand­fa­ther of Prophet Moham­mad (PBUH) was Abd Man­af (cir­ca 400 AD) from the Banu Quresh tribe. Banu Quresh was the cus­to­di­an of Kaa­ba. As hun­dreds of idols occu­pied Kaa­ba and as it was also at the inter­sec­tion of trade routes, sev­er­al car­a­vans would make a stop-over, make dona­tions to the idols, buy goods and ser­vices and hold trade fairs adding con­sid­er­ably to the wealth of the mer­chants of Mec­ca.

Abd Man­af had two sons, Hashim and abd-Shams. Leg­end says that they were con­joined twins who were sep­a­rat­ed by their father with a sword. After the death of Abd Man­af his son Hashim assumed the pres­ti­gious posi­tion of his father-cus­tody of Kaa­ba and look­ing after and pro­vid­ing water to the pil­grims of Mec­ca. Hashim also ban­ished Abd-Shams from Mec­ca which gave birth to enmi­ty between the two fam­i­lies.

When Abd Shams died, his son Ummaya laid the foun­da­tions of Banu Ummaya clan. The rival­ry between the two clans was already set in motion pri­mar­i­ly due to supe­ri­or­i­ty com­plex, old grudges, desire for vengeance of the mur­der of kins­men, polit­i­cal views, per­son­al sen­ti­ments, and dif­fer­ences in lifestyle and think­ing. Both Banu Umayya and Banu Hashim were the chiefs of Mec­ca and held high offices.The chief­tain­ship of Banu Hashim was spir­i­tu­al, where­as that enjoyed by Banu Umayya was polit­i­cal and they were also trades­men and pos­sessed enor­mous wealth.

Banu Hashim were the first ones to embrace Islam yet major­i­ty of Banu Ummaya remained pagans until the inva­sion of Mec­ca by Prophet Moham­mad (PBUH) in 630 AD. It was then that Abu Sufyan, the patri­arch of Banu Umayya along­with oth­er mem­bers of the clan embraced Islam.

Prophet Moham­mad (PBUH) had two of his sons from Khadi­ja (R.A) who both died in infan­cy while one son named Ibrahim from Maria Copt also expired when he was 17 months old. He had no off­spring from the rest of his 9 wives. Had Prophet Moham­mad (PBUH) had a son, there would have been no issue with suc­ces­sion but this was not to be.
Though Shias claim that Prophet Moham­mad (PBUH) gave indi­ca­tions about Ali (R.A) as his suc­ces­sor yet he was nev­er explic­it about it. How­ev­er, we find that though Abu Bakr (R.A) and Umer (R.A) pro­posed Fati­ma (R.A), the prophet (PBUH) bestowed the hon­or upon Ali as his son-in-law. Hence, when Prophet Moham­mad (PBUH) died in 632 AD, there was no suc­ces­sor.

Soon after the prophet’s death, fis­sures and divi­sions among var­i­ous pow­er bro­kers emerged with full might. Yeme­nese tribes ver­sus Hejazi tribes, Mec­can tribes ver­sus Medi­nese tribes, Ansars ver­sus Mah­ja­roons, the elite and the com­mon­ers of Quresh, the two groups of the wives of the prophet, Musle­meen ver­sus Munafiqeen, Ayesha (R.A) ver­sus Ali (r.A), and Banu Hashim ver­sus Banu Ummaya.

Umer (R.A) nom­i­nat­ed Abu Bakr (R.A) while sev­er­al oth­ers opposed it. But his nom­i­na­tion was nev­er unchal­lenged as oth­ers were inde­pen­dent­ly fol­low­ing Ali (R.A) as spir­i­tu­al chief yet opposed Abu Bakr’s polit­i­cal lead­er­ship. The Shia-Sun­ni divide was already in place. Abu Bakr (R.A) died after two years and on his deathbed he nom­i­nat­ed Umer (R.A) as the next caliph. Umer (R.A) ruled from 634 AD to 644 AD until he was stabbed to death by a Per­sian slave named Abu Lulu. Omer (R.A) was suc­ceed­ed by an Ummayad named Usman (R.A). It is said that the 12 year rule of Usman (R.A) was marked by nepo­tism, intrigue and rebel­lion. And it was Abu Zar Ghaf­fari (R.A) who laid the foun­da­tion of Islam’s first polit­i­cal par­ty known as Shiyan-e-Ali (Ali’s friends).Abu Zar (R.A) was thus exiled by Usman (R.A).

While resent­ment was grow­ing against Usman (R.A), Muawiyah (R.A),Usman’s gov­er­nor at Dam­as­cus was build­ing a par­al­lel state in Dam­as­cus out of the wealth loot­ed from the Byzan­tine Empire. Usman (R.A) was mur­dered in 656 AD. Ali (R.A) then suc­ceed­ed as the fourth Caliph on sup­port from some Medinites. The tran­si­tion, how­ev­er, was not smooth. While the rebels from Kufa and Bas­ra stood behind Ali (R.A) along with the peo­ple of Med­i­na, Egypt­ian rebels backed Tal­ha (R.A) as the next caliph where­as Mec­can Quresh dom­i­nat­ed by Ummayads expressed strong reser­va­tions about Ali (R.A). Although Tal­ha (R.A) and Zubair (R.A), Ali’s asso­ciates sup­port­ed him, they lat­er stat­ed that they were under duress.

Soon after Ali’s ascen­dan­cy as Caliph, the Mus­lims were split into three groups. One of those joined Muawiya (R.A) in Dam­as­cus. Zubair (R.A), Tal­ha (R.A) and many oth­ers went to Mec­ca and formed an alliance with Aisha (R.A), the prophet’s wid­ow, to revive the gov­ern­ing style of Abu Bakr (R.A) and Umer (R.A) while the rest at Med­i­na were stand­ing behind Ali (R.A). Pure pow­er pol­i­tics and con­trary to the abstract con­cept of “Islam­ic broth­er­hood” Islam’s first civ­il war was on the hori­zon. This war known as bat­tle of camel 656 AD)was fought between Ayesha (R.A) and Ali (R.A) result­ing in the death of 3000 Mus­lims. The war was won by Ali (R.A) but the caliphate as an insti­tu­tion sym­bol­iz­ing Mus­lim uni­ty was blown apart for­ev­er. Ali (R.A) faced anoth­er big chal­lenge from the gov­er­nor of Dam­as­cus; Amir Muawiya (R.A). When Ali (R.A) sought his alle­giance, he mocked and told that Ali (R.A) was respon­si­ble for the death of Usman (R.A). Muawiyah (R.A) was an extreme­ly sharp and sea­soned politi­cian and a mas­ter of horse-trad­ing. And while Muawiyah (R.A) was buy­ing loy­al­ties includ­ing that of Ali’s broth­er Aqil, Ali was fast los­ing allies.

Muawiya (R.A) also pro­posed that there can be two caliphates simul­ta­ne­ous­ly where­in Ali (R.A) could retain pow­er over Iraq, Per­sia, Mec­ca and Med­i­na while he could retain con­trol over Egypt and Syr­ia. The pro­gres­sive Byzan­tine city civ­i­liza­tion cul­ture adopt­ed in Syr­ia was chal­leng­ing the regres­sive cul­ture of desert-dwelling Beduins. Ali (R.A) reject­ed the pro­pos­al and Mus­lims were all set for the sec­ond Islam­ic civ­il war.

In April 657 AD, the armies of Ali (R.A) and Muawiyah (R.A) faced each oth­er at Sif­fin (present day Raqqah in Syr­ia). The bat­tle con­tin­ued for four days lead­ing to deaths of thou­sands of Mus­lims at the hands of fel­low Mus­lims. On Jan­u­ary 26,661 AD as Ali entered a mosque in Kufa to say his prayers, Ibn-e-Mal­jam the assas­in struck him with a poi­soned sword. He died two days lat­er.

After Ali was mur­dered in 661 AD,his eldest son, Hasan (R.A), suc­ceed­ed him but he soon signed a peace treaty with Muawiyah (R.A) where­in Hasan (R.A) was to hand over pow­er to Muawiya under some con­di­tions. When Hasan was poi­soned to death in 670 AD, Hus­sain (R.A), his younger broth­er, became the head of Banu Hashim clan. His father’s sup­port­ers in Kufah gave their alle­giance to him. How­ev­er, he told them he was still bound by the peace treaty between Hasan (R.A) and Muawiyah(R.A) as long as Muawiyah (R.A) was alive.

Muawiyah (R.A) appoint­ed his son Yazid as the next caliph who upon suc­ces­sion, asked Gov­er­nors of all provinces to take an oath of alle­giance to him. The nec­es­sary oath was secured from all parts of the coun­try­but Hus­sain (R.A) and Abdul­lah ibn Zubayr (R.A) refused to declare alle­giance.

Inter­est­ing­ly, Hus­sain (R.A) had fought under the com­mand of Yazid when his army laid siege to the Byzan­tine city of Con­stan­tino­ple (674–678.) Hus­sain (R.A) would also fre­quent­ly vis­it Muawiya (R.A) and enjoyed cor­dial rela­tions with both Muawiya(R.A) and Yazid before Yazid was nom­i­nat­ed as the next Caliph.

Kufa was a gar­ri­son town in Iraq, which had been Ali’s cap­i­tal, and many of his sup­port­ers lived there. Hus­sein (R.A) received let­ters from peo­ple of Kufa express­ing offer of sup­port if he claimed the caliphate. But this proved untrue. As he pre­pared for the jour­ney to Kufa, Abdul­lah bin Umar, Abdul­lah bin Zubayr and Abdul­lah bin Abbas argued against his plan, and if he was deter­mined to pro­ceed to Kufa, asked him to leave women and chil­dren in Mec­ca. But Hus­sein (R.A) reject­ed their sug­ges­tions.

Ibn-e-Zayad, the gov­er­nor of Bas­ra sent a mes­sage to Hus­sein (R.A), at instruc­tion of Yazid, stat­ing, “You can nei­ther go to Kufa nor return to Mec­ca, but you can go any­where else you want.” Despite the warn­ing, he con­tin­ued towards Kufa and dur­ing the trip, he and many mem­bers of his fam­i­ly were killed or cap­tured dur­ing the Bat­tle of Kar­bala which took place on Octo­ber 10,680 AD. The rival­ry between the Banu Hashim and Banu Ummaya clans of Banu Quresh cul­mi­nat­ed in the bat­tle of Kar­bala.

The bat­tle of Kar­bala also proved deci­sive in frag­ment­ing the sup­port­ers of Ali (R.A) and his prog­e­ny vis-a-vis those who sided with the oth­er three caliphs as Prophet Mohammad’s suc­ces­sors.

The divide between Shias and Sun­nis was also com­plete.

It was to grow and expand fur­ther and was des­tined to engulf the mid­dle east cen­turies lat­er.