Changing Political Power in the Arab Empire

On 8 June 632 AD there was a meeting in Arabia. What was the subject of the meeting? As the Prophet's health was deteriorating due to the consumption of poisoned mutton offered by the Jewish priestesses, the question of the Caliphate was discussed. The Prophet himself had had three sons, all of whom had died young. The most trusted person around him at that time was Ali. Ali was the most trusted person around at the time, both in terms of blood relationship and the time he had spent with the Prophet, and he was also known as the Lion of Allah for his great military achievements. So from every point of view, the Prophet would have chosen him.

It is also true that on the way back from the last Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, the Prophet made a clear statement at the Pond of Adil, when he declared to the tens of thousands of believers from all the confederated tribes, in two words, "I leave you two treasures, one is the Qur'an, and the other is my family, and of which I am the master, Ali is the master". And according to tradition, he himself raised Ali's right hand and gave him a green cloak and the "Zulfikar Sword". Everything seemed perfect, but the final step of the procedure was not taken and the heads of the various ministries were not allowed to come up and shake hands with Ali and swear allegiance to him, leaving a flaw in the system.

When they returned to the capital, Medina, the Prophet fell ill and returned to the fold on 8 June. While Ali and Fatima were busy with the funeral, changes were taking place outside. First, the Medina faction put forward their own candidate, Sa'ad, but Sa'ad voluntarily withdrew from the election for fear of provoking infighting, and then the two bigwigs of the Meccan faction, Berkel and Omar, joined forces to dominate the process (together they were the most powerful at the time). In the end, the genealogist Berkel won the handshake loyalty of most of the sheikhs and was elected.

They then tried to force the Ali's to take the oath of allegiance and if they didn't, they would set fire to the house. Ali had just drawn his sword and gone out to fight a duel, but he did not want to see dozens of people on the other side, and Ali was tied up on the spot. Fatima put her body against the door of the house and Omar kicked it open, causing the pregnant Fatima to miscarry on the spot and break a rib. Fatima was so distraught that she said on the spot that she would show her hair. And why? To remove the veil.

The rule in Arabia at that time was that if a woman was seen to be unmarried, she could either get married or fight a duel with a brother of the woman's family. If she was married and seen, she had to cut herself, and the woman's family would take blood revenge on her family. Berkel saw that something big was about to happen and, for the sake of unity, he stopped pointing out that I had been elected by a majority anyway, so a fait accompli would suffice. Then came the era of the first caliph, Bakr. During his two-year reign, he was the chief fire-fighter, settled the tribal disputes within the peninsula, but most importantly, he suppressed the Ali family and confiscated all the Prophet's inheritance.

Why did he do this? Without the gold coins of the dinar to back it up, the Ali family was politically weakened. The Ali's continued to complain after that, but it wasn't until Fatima died of depression that Ali barely managed to get back a much diminished inheritance (better than nothing) with a declaration of no objection to the curve. But Burkle is no longer well either, and on his deathbed he suddenly wants to go to heaven, but the heavenly visa officer is Ali's father-in-law, who has bullied the Ali's so much over the past two years, and what about the visa refusal there?

So he hurriedly invited Ali to resolve the conflict and promised Ali his concubine so that his son would accept Ali as his godfather. He wanted to push Ali as a candidate, but there are two factors constraints, the first is the ally Omar, strong, said the wheel of fortune, it is difficult to break, and the second is the daughter of the Prophet's widow, Aisha, who had a conflict with Ali.

Berkel arranged for the other side of the Omar to get the majority of the nobles handshake gift support to take over the elected. Although Omar was hot-tempered and his character was not good, he was a merchant by birth and was skilled in financial management and administration. He laid the foundations for the later glory of the Arab Empire. For example, the four classes of people: A, tribesmen (ethnic Arabs), B, commoners (foreigners), C, serfs (tax-paying infidels), D, untouchables (slaves of all kinds) and C. The four classes of people are the same as the four classes of people. D, untouchables (slaves of all kinds).

Those who do not understand will only look at the scene, only see the oppression of the clouds; learned people can look at the vein that holds the secret of political economy. At the stage of primitive accumulation, the AB paid zakat (2.5% property tax) to support administrative, military and indigenous welfare expenditure. From then on, the nomadic legions could continue to expand without worry. Initially, the war costs of the nomads are low compared to the sedentary peasants, and with the provident fund, they can continue to attack without interruption, and the overall victory rate is even greater. Distribution of spoils, military service for floating wealth (gold, silver, prisoners). Real estate (occupied land, population) goes to the community, and the C's also get autonomy if they are willing to pay protection money (taxed heathens).

And this tax money as an annuity distributed equally to the A and B classes of believers, in addition to the pariahs, the first three classes in fact, each have their own, the association naturally like a snowball rolling bigger and bigger, the only shortcomings of this model, until the extension of the day of the obstruction of the chain of funds broken.

In short. Omar's ten years, all kinds of out of the limelight, but people this creature always want to go further, so his political point gradually turned to centralisation, want to change the tribal aristocracy co-governance, how to do, from the financial start to begin to gather power, and this caused everyone's anger, which also makes to do it to him.

Who was behind the scenes? Mujirai, the governor of Kufa, who had a Persian warrior under him, Pirouz. Pirouz was a Persian soldier who had been captured and made a slave, but Mujirai freed him, gave him his freedom and recommended him for a position in the capital city of Medina (infidels were not allowed to enter the holy city except for those who had special skills, like Pirouz's ability to make windmills and stone mills). When Pirouz arrived there, he secretly conspired with the Persians to restore their land, and the Mughirah knew about it, but kept it to himself for the final effect. As it turned out, Pirouz had infiltrated the mosque during a prayer service, saw his chance and stabbed Omar on the podium with a hidden dagger. And killing out of the siege, he even stabbed 16 people, killing 6 on the spot, and then fled gracefully, returning to his home in Persia. Too brave, he is the first ancient and modern warrior.

Omar did not return to reality on the spot, seriously injured, but he did not change the king's true colours. He shoved his deputy, Rahman, and said: "Lead the prayer for me and let my son perform the ceremony. What does that mean? It means I will give you my voice and you will take over from generation to generation. At this point there were six candidates, Rahman was not stupid, he knew he was not strong enough, he automatically withdrew in exchange for the right to cast the last crucial vote. of the six, one did not turn up, the moderator, Rahman, asked each of the people present how they intended to vote.

Ali did not say, Osman said he was voting for Ali, Sayid said he was voting for Osman, Zubair said he was voting for Ali or Osman (in fact he wanted to delay until his partner Tyler Yi arrived, the method is Osman or Ali who is leading at the time, he voted for the opposite side to maintain parity). Rahman knew in his heart. It was nothing but Osman and Ali choosing one or the other. Osman was the husband of his wife's sister, but he was still calculating as a politician, and first asked Ali if he would make a pact not to change the internal system of the first two societies, and if he agreed, he would vote for Ali.

It turned out that there was no pact, because those who don't understand don't ask, "Won't you pact first? That you can not engage in politics, politics is operated by technology, but the principle of the bottom line can not be moved, Ali if you agree, the past all the way to support his basic disc how to do. To compromise the great position, or a solid basic disc. A wise politician must have his own judgement. In this case, it was Othman who was chosen.

Othman came from the Umayyad family, which was the richest and most powerful family in Mecca at that time. So he was elected partly because of the gold coins, the dinars, which provided good connections, and partly because of the complicated relationship between the factions at that time. His reign lasted 12 years and was marked by nepotism and wealth.

His final period became more intense and he even tried to centralise power, this time from a theoretical point of view, trying to use the opportunity of the compilation of the scriptures to add his personal meaning, how can this be? Pious people from all over flocked to Medina and demonstrated every day. Some people don't understand. Where are the praetorians? There were none. Because at that time in Arabia and in the old days of Rome, the only indigenous tribes, families, the strength of the difference is very little, only external expansion, only to get people together to join the army to go to war. There was the Senate inside and the legions outside. The Roman legions could not cross the Rubicon, and the Arab legions could not march back to Medina.

Opsman tormented, his family armament are before Syria, this time worried, outside the religious students every day, cousin Mushwiye's Damascus corps and can not be transferred back. Then it can only be wise, a variety of persuasion, finally persuade the various representatives back home to ensure that the future must be changed, and never settle scores, but the heart of anger, write a secret letter to the younger brother - the governor of Egypt, this batch of people go back to bleed one by one, one does not stay. I did not expect the secret letter leaked, the Egyptian delegation killed back, Berkel's son (also said Ali's adopted son), the first out of the knife, killed Osman.

There is trouble here and trouble when the anti-Ottoman families are involved, but now who will take over is a problem. The three candidates, that is the three of the last six who are still alive, have come out to vote. But this time it was a general election, so Ali was elected. The first problem after the election was what to do with the Righteous Son. Some of the darker elements said: "You can kill your own family. Then you're still not fit for politics. If they work for you and you are selfless, will the base follow you?

So he was released and promoted to governor of Egypt. I'd rather give my political enemies an excuse than turn my back on the base. After that, the two will be defeated, Aisha in the internal chaos, Mushwiyeh in the external chaos. Both said that Ali was the mastermind of the assassination and wanted to avenge Osman. Ali was caught in a war on two fronts. The key is the result, the internal calm, Aisha under house arrest, the external also won, but Mushwiye military division Amur, out of the idea, see to fail, so the gun pick scripture, asked for the General Assembly arbitration, on the spot Ali's team of major clans are seconded, anyway, if they can't be, who is the same, there is no need to be someone else's position, out of their own money. Can then talk about it.

Ali inside is collapsed, but there is no way, because only rely on the basic disc can not destroy each other, can only talk, and did not talk about a result, any troops back to camp, but out of this kind of thing. There were some extremists who announced that they were leaving Ali's camp. Their theory was that the Ottomans and Umayyads should be killed because they had tampered with the Qur'an, and that Ali, by agreeing to arbitration, had impure beliefs, and that everything on earth was subject to God's judgement, so they were anti-Mushawiyeh and anti-Ali, so what kind of logic is that? They were called hawalee and sectarian.

But history continues, Muawiyah continues to launch an offensive behind the scenes, Ali's two most important ministers, the governor of Kufa, Mujirai, the governor of Basra, Ziyad, the former appeared in the previous article, Muawiyah sent Amur to lobby, two political calculators, what can not be talked about? Faced with the latter, Muawiyah himself wrote a letter that began, "My dear brother". Ziad also froze, what is this, as we all know, my mother is a slave girl, famous street sex worker, I am a mother only do not know father of the pariah birth, how will be more luxury brother? When I read it carefully, Muawiyah said: "My father, Sufyan, used to work for your mother, so you are my half-brother"! Ziad slaps the table and stands up, cursing, "I have never seen such a brazen man, but I have decided to follow him because brazenness has a winning bonus and I will be on the side of the winner. Hassan's rear is unstable, the front line is also urgent, Mushwiye launched a silver bullet offensive, 1 million gold coins, 500,000 deposit to buy the front generals, do not ask you to turn against me, only please withdraw from the battlefield for a period of time after the end of my victory and then pay the final payment of 500,000, the failure of the down payment does not have to be paid back by you.

The frontline tribes have withdrawn their camps and abandoned the defensive area. Hassan here would like to march in person to do the last battle, but the result of Havali and assassins came again, this time stabbed Hassan in the thigh, at least half a year to recover. Quick war is no longer possible, hold each other also no gold, so compromised, accept each other's terms, Hassan of course not only for the money, the key is to abstain, to wait for another day. After all, he is only 38 years old, and Mu'awiyeh was 58 years old, the future rise again, the next election, but also a great opportunity, did not expect Mushwiyeh in Jerusalem as the caliphate, and then make the plan, Hassan was murdered.The Holy Family has suffered greatly.

（Note: This article is from a netizen's contribution）