Ali in the context of "Saqifah"

Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Muslim community, being appointed at the meeting of Saqifa. This contrasts with the Shia view, which holds that Muhammad appointed Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 656–661) as his successor. Nevertheless, Sunnis revere Ali, along with Abu Bakr, Umar (r. 634–644) and Uthman (r. 644–656) as 'rightly-guided caliphs'.

The term Sunni means those who observe the sunna, the practices of Muhammad. The Quran, together with hadith (especially the Six Books) and ijma (scholarly consensus), form the basis of all traditional jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. Sharia legal rulings are derived from these basic sources, in conjunction with consideration of public welfare and juristic discretion, using the principles of jurisprudence developed by the four legal schools: Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki and Shafi'i.

The Rashidun Caliphate (Arabic: ٱلْخِلَافَةُ ٱلرَّاشِدَةُ, romanized: al-Khilāfah ar-Rāšidah) is the early Islamic polity led by the first four successive caliphs (lit. "successors") Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali, collectively the Rashidun, or "Rightly Guided" caliphs. These early caliphs led the Muslim community from the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in 632 CE to the foundation of the Umayyad Caliphate in 661 CE.

The title Rashidun stems from the Sunni Islamic belief that the caliphs were "rightly guided". Endowed with superior piety and wisdom, their era is regarded in Sunni Islam as a "golden age", second only to the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad in sanctity and in providing moral and religious guidance. Sunni Muslims consider the "rightly guided" reign of the first four caliphs as a model to be followed and emulated from a religious point of view. The term Rashidun is not used by Shia Muslims, who make up 10–15% of the global Muslim population, as they reject the rule of the first three caliphs as illegitimate.

The Fatimid Caliphate (/ˈfætɪmɪd/; Arabic: الخلافة الفاطمیّة, romanized: al-Khilāfa al-Fāṭimiyya), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa and West Asia, it ranged from the western Mediterranean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. The Fatimids traced their ancestry to the Islamic prophet Muhammad's daughter Fatima and her husband Ali, the first Shi'a imam. The Fatimids were acknowledged as the rightful imams by different Isma'ili communities as well as by denominations in many other Muslim lands and adjacent regions. Originating during the Abbasid Caliphate, the Fatimids initially conquered Ifriqiya (roughly present-day Tunisia and north-eastern Algeria). They extended their rule across the Mediterranean coast and ultimately made Egypt the center of the caliphate. At its height, the caliphate included—in addition to Egypt—varying areas of the Maghreb, Sicily, the Levant, and the Hejaz.

Between 902 and 909, the foundation of the Fatimid state was realized under the leadership of da'i (missionary) Abu Abdallah, whose conquest of Aghlabid Ifriqiya with the help of Kutama forces paved the way for the establishment of the Caliphate. After the conquest, Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah was retrieved from Sijilmasa and then accepted as the Imam of the movement, becoming the first Caliph and founder of the dynasty in 909. In 921, the city of al-Mahdiyya was established as the capital. In 948, they shifted their capital to al-Mansuriyya, near Kairouan. In 969, during the reign of al-Mu'izz, they conquered Egypt, and in 973, the caliphate was moved to the newly founded Fatimid capital of Cairo. Egypt became the political, cultural, and religious centre of the empire and it developed a new and "indigenous Arabic culture". After its initial conquests, the caliphate often allowed a degree of religious tolerance towards non-Shi'a sects of Islam, as well as to Jews and Christians. However, its leaders made little headway in persuading the Egyptian population to adopt its religious beliefs.

Alawites (Arabic: العلويون, romanized: al-ʿAlawiyyūn) are an ethnoreligious group who live primarily in the Levant region in West Asia and follow Alawism, an offshoot of Shia Islam as a ghulat branch during the ninth century. Alawites venerate Ali ibn Abi Talib, the "first Imam" in the Twelver school, as a manifestation of the divine essence. It is the only ghulat sect still in existence today. The group was founded during the ninth century by Ibn Nusayr, who was a disciple of the tenth Twelver Imam, Ali al-Hadi, and of the eleventh Twelver Imam, Hasan al-Askari. For this reason, Alawites are also called Nusayris, although this term can be considered derogatory in the present day.

Surveys suggest Alawites represent an important portion of the Syrian population and are a significant minority in the Hatay Province of Turkey and northern Lebanon. There is also a population living in the village of Ghajar in the Golan Heights, where there had been two other Alawite villages (Ayn Fit and Za'ura) before the Six-Day War. The Alawites form the dominant religious group on the Syrian coast and towns near the coast, which are also inhabited by Sunnis, Christians, and Ismailis. They are often confused with the Alevis, a religious group in Turkey that shares certain similarities with the Alawites but has key differences.

The Saqifa (Arabic: سَقِيفَة, romanized: Saqīfah) of the Banu Sa'ida clan refers to the location of an event in early Islam where some of the companions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad pledged their allegiance to Abu Bakr as the first caliph and successor to Muhammad shortly after his death in 11 AH (632 CE). The Saqifa meeting is among the most controversial events in early Islam, due to the exclusion of a large number of Muhammad's companions, including his immediate family and notably Ali, his cousin and son-in-law. The conflicts that arose soon after Muhammad's death are considered to be the main cause of the current division among Muslims. Those who accepted Abu Bakr's caliphate were later labeled Sunnis, while the supporters of Ali's right to caliphate were later labeled Shia.

Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 656–661) as both his political successor (caliph) and as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community (imam). However, his right is understood to have been usurped by a number of Muhammad's companions at the meeting of Saqifa, during which they appointed Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) as caliph instead. As such, Sunni Muslims believe Abu Bakr, Umar (r. 634–644), Uthman (r. 644–656) and Ali to be 'rightly-guided caliphs', whereas Shia Muslims regard only Ali as the legitimate successor.

Shia Muslims believe that the imamate continued through Ali's sons, Hasan and Husayn, after which various Shia branches developed and recognized different imams. They revere the ahl al-bayt, the family of Muhammad, maintaining that they possess divine knowledge. Shia holy sites include the shrine of Ali in Najaf, the shrine of Husayn in Karbala, and other mausoleums of the ahl al-bayt. Later events, such as Husayn's martyrdom in the Battle of Karbala (680 CE), further influenced the development of Shia Islam, contributing to the formation of a distinct religious sect with its own rituals and shared collective memory.

The Rashidun (Arabic: الراشدون, romanized: al-Rāshidūn, lit. 'the rightly-guided') are the first four caliphs (lit. 'successors') who led the Muslim community following the death of Muhammad: Abu Bakr (r. 632–634), Umar (r. 634–644), Uthman (r. 644–656), and Ali (r. 656–661).

The reign of these caliphs, called the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), is considered in Sunni Islam to have been 'rightly guided' (Arabic: rāshid), meaning that it constitutes a model (Sunnah) to be followed and emulated from a religious point of view.

From 613 to 619 CE, the Islamic prophet Muhammad gathered in his hometown of Mecca a small following of those who embraced his message of Islam and thus became Muslims. The first person who professed Islam was his wife, Khadija bint Khuwaylid. The identity of the second male Muslim, after Muhammad himself, is disputed largely along sectarian lines, as Shia and some Sunni sources identify him as the first Shia imam Ali ibn Abi Talib, a child at the time, who grew up in the household of his cousin, Muhammad. Other sources report that the first male convert was Abu Bakr, who later succeeded Muhammad as the first Sunni caliph, or Muhammad's foster son, Zayd ibn Haritha. While it is difficult to establish the chronological order of early conversions, the identities of early Muslims are known with some certainty.

The Shahada (Arabic: الشَّهَادَةُ aš-šahādatu; Arabic pronunciation: [aʃʃahaːdatʊ], 'the testimony'), also transliterated as Shahadah, is an Islamic oath and creed, and one of the Five Pillars of Islam and part of the Adhan. It reads: "I bear witness that there is no god but God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God."The Shahada declares belief in the oneness (tawhid) of God and the acceptance of Muhammad as God's messenger. Some Shia Muslims also include a statement of belief in the wilayat of Ali, but they do not consider it as an obligatory part for converting to Islam. A single honest recitation of the Shahada is all that is required for a person to become a Muslim according to most traditional schools.

Mu'tazilism (Arabic: المعتزلة, romanized: al-muʿtazila, singular Arabic: معتزلي, romanized: muʿtazilī) is an Islamic theological school that appeared in early Islamic history and flourished in Basra and Baghdad. Its adherents, the Mu'tazilites, were known for their neutrality in the dispute between Ali and his opponents such as Mu'awiya after the death of the third caliph, Uthman. By the 10th century the term al-muʿtazilah had come to refer to a distinctive Islamic school of speculative theology (kalām). This school of theology was founded by Wasil ibn Ata.

The later Mu'tazila school developed an Islamic type of rationalism, based around fundamental principles: the oneness (Tawhid) and justice (Al-'adl) of God, human freedom of action, and the creation of the Quran. The Mu'tazilites are best known for rejecting the doctrine of the Quran as uncreated and co-eternal with God, asserting that if the Quran is the literal word of God, he logically "must have preceded his own speech". This went against a common Sunni position (followed by the Ashʿarī and Māturīdī) which argued that with God being all-knowing, his knowledge of the Quran must have been eternal, hence uncreated just like him. The school also worked to resolve the theological "problem of evil", arguing that since God is just and wise, he cannot command what is contrary to reason or act with disregard for the welfare of His creatures; consequently evil must be regarded as something that stems from errors in human acts, arising from man's divinely bestowed free will.The Mu'tazila opposed secular rationalism, but believed that human intelligence and reason allowed Man to understand religious principles; that good and evil are rational categories that could be "established through reason".

Mu'awiya I (c. 597, 603 or 605–April 680) was the founder and first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 661 until his death. He became caliph less than thirty years after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and immediately after the four Rashidun ('rightly-guided') caliphs. Unlike his predecessors, who had been close, early companions of Muhammad, Mu'awiya was a relatively late follower of Muhammad.

Mu'awiya and his father Abu Sufyan had opposed Muhammad, their distant Qurayshite kinsman and later Mu'awiya's brother-in-law, until Muhammad captured Mecca in 630. Afterward, Mu'awiya became one of Muhammad's scribes. He was appointed by Caliph Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) as a deputy commander in the conquest of Syria. He moved up the ranks through Umar's caliphate (r. 634–644) until becoming governor of Syria during the reign of his Umayyad kinsman, Caliph Uthman (r. 644–656). He allied with the province's powerful Banu Kalb tribe, developed the defenses of its coastal cities, and directed the war effort against the Byzantine Empire, including the first Muslim naval campaigns. In response to Uthman's assassination in 656, Mu'awiya took up the cause of avenging the murdered caliph and opposed the election of Ali. During the First Muslim Civil War, the two led their armies to a stalemate at the Battle of Siffin in 657, prompting an abortive series of arbitration talks to settle the dispute. Afterward, Mu'awiya gained recognition as caliph by his Syrian supporters and his ally Amr ibn al-As, who conquered Egypt from Ali's governor in 658. Following the assassination of Ali in 661, Mu'awiya compelled Ali's son and successor Hasan to abdicate and Mu'awiya's suzerainty was acknowledged throughout the Caliphate.

The Umayyad dynasty (Arabic: بَنُو أُمَيَّةَ, romanized: Banū Umayya, lit. 'Sons of Umayya'), or the Umayyads (Arabic: الأمويون, romanized: al-Umawiyyūn) was an Arab clan within the Quraysh tribe who were the ruling family of the Umayyad Caliphate in 661–750 and the Emirate and later Caliphate of Córdoba in 756–1031.

In the pre-Islamic period, the Umayyads were a prominent clan of the Meccan tribe of Quraysh, descended from Umayya ibn Abd Shams. Despite staunch opposition to the Islamic prophet Muhammad, the Umayyads embraced Islam before the former's death in 632. Uthman ibn Affan, an early companion of Muhammad from the Umayyad clan, was the third Rashidun caliph, ruling in 644–656, while other members held various governorships. This included Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, the long-time governor of the Levant, who opposed the fourth Rashidun caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib in the First Muslim Civil War (656–661) and afterwards founded the Umayyad Caliphate with its capital in Damascus. This marked the beginning of the Umayyad dynasty, the first hereditary dynasty in the history of Islam, and the only one to rule over the entire Islamic world of its time. Umayyad authority was challenged in the Second Muslim Civil War, during which the Sufyanid line of Mu'awiya (which includes only the three first Umayyad caliphs) was replaced in 684 by Marwan I, who founded the Marwanid line of Umayyad caliphs, which restored the dynasty's rule over the Caliphate and remained so until the fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba.

The First Fitna (Arabic: الفتنة الكبرى) was the first civil war in the Islamic community. It led to the end of the Rashidun Caliphate and the establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate. The civil war involved three main factions; the supporters of the fourth Rashidun caliph Ali, the supporters of Uthman, primarily led by Mu'awiya and Aisha, and the Kharijites.

The roots of the first civil war can be traced back to the assassination of the second caliph, Umar. Before he died from his wounds, Umar formed a six-member council which elected Uthman as the next caliph. During the final years of Uthman's caliphate, he was accused of nepotism and killed by rebels in 656. After Uthman's assassination, Ali was elected the fourth caliph. Aisha, Talha, and Zubayr opposed Ali's accession and revolted against Ali to depose him. The two parties fought the Battle of the Camel in December 656, from which Ali emerged victorious. Afterwards, Mu'awiya, the long-time governor of the Levant, refused to recognise Ali as caliph and declared war. The two parties fought the Battle of Siffin in July 657, which ended in a stalemate and arbitration.

The Second Fitna was the second civil war in the Islamic community during the early Umayyad Caliphate. It followed the death of the first Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I in 680, and lasted for about twelve years. The war involved the defeat of three main challenges to the authority of the Umayyad dynasty, the first by Husayn ibn Ali, as well as his supporters including Sulayman ibn Surad and Mukhtar al-Thaqafi who rallied to avenge his death in Iraq, the second by Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr who proclaimed himself caliph in Mecca and Medina and would be nominally recognized throughout most of the Caliphate, and the Kharijites who took over central Arabia and southern Iraq and Persia.

The roots of the civil war go back to the First Fitna. After the assassination of the third Rashidun caliph Uthman, the Islamic community experienced its first civil war over the immediate question of retribution for his murder. Following the assassination of the fourth Rashidun caliph Ali in 661 and the abdication of his successor Hasan the same year, Mu'awiya became the sole ruler of the caliphate. Mu'awiya's unprecedented decision to nominate his son Yazid as his heir sparked opposition, and tensions soared after Mu'awiya's death. Husayn ibn Ali was invited by the pro-Alids of Kufa to overthrow the Umayyads but was killed with his small company en route to Kufa at the Battle of Karbala in October 680. Yazid's army suppressed anti-government rebels in Medina in August 683 and subsequently besieged Mecca, where Ibn al-Zubayr had established himself in opposition to Yazid. After Yazid died in November the siege was abandoned, and Umayyad authority would soon collapse throughout the caliphate following the death of his son except in parts of Syria where Marwan I was proclaimed caliph; most provinces recognized Ibn al-Zubayr as caliph. A series of pro-Alid movements demanding to avenge Husayn's death emerged in Kufa, beginning with Ibn Surad's Penitents movement, which was crushed by the Umayyads at the Battle of Ayn al-Warda in January 685. Kufa was then taken over by Mukhtar, who rallied Husayn's supporters and the disenfranchised mawali to his cause. Though his forces routed a large Umayyad army at the Battle of Khazir in August 686, Mukhtar and his supporters were slain by the Zubayrids in April 687 following a series of battles. Under the leadership of Marwan, the Umayyads would consolidate their power over Syria and retake Egypt from the Zubayrids, and under his successor Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, the Umayyads would reconquer Iraq after defeating the Zubayrids at the Battle of Maskin in 691 and would reassert their control over the Caliphate after killing Ibn al-Zubayr in the second siege of Mecca in 692, while their general Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf would suppress the Kharijites in the years afterwards.

Marwan ibn al-Hakam ibn Abi al-As ibn Umayya (Arabic: مروان بن الحكم بن أبي العاص بن أمية, romanized: Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam ibn Abī al-ʿĀṣ ibn Umayya; 623 or 626 – April/May 685), commonly known as Marwan I, was the fourth Umayyad caliph, ruling for less than a year in 684–685. He founded the Marwanid ruling house of the Umayyad dynasty, which replaced the Sufyanid house after its collapse in the Second Fitna and remained in power until 750.

During the reign of his cousin, the third Rashidun caliph Uthman (r. 644–656), Marwan took part in a military campaign against the Byzantine Exarchate of Africa (in central North Africa), where he acquired significant war spoils. He also served as Uthman's governor in Fars (southwestern Iran) before becoming the caliph's katib (secretary or scribe). He was wounded fighting the rebel siege of Uthman's house, in which the caliph was slain. In the ensuing civil war between the fourth Rashidun caliph Ali (r. 656–661) and the largely Qurayshite partisans of Aisha, Marwan sided with the latter at the Battle of the Camel. Marwan later served as governor of Medina under his distant kinsman Caliph Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680), founder of the Umayyad Caliphate. During the reign of Mu'awiya's son and successor Yazid I (r. 680–683), Marwan organized the defense of the Umayyad realm in the Hejaz (western Arabia) against the local opposition which included prominent companions as well as Muhammad’s own clan, the Bani Hashim, who revolted under the banner of Muhammad’s grandson, Husayn ibn Ali. After Yazid died in November 683, the Mecca-based rebel and sahabi Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr declared himself caliph and expelled Marwan, who took refuge in Syria, the center of Umayyad rule. With the death of the last Sufyanid caliph Mu'awiya II in 684, Marwan, encouraged by the ex-governor of Iraq Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, volunteered his candidacy for the caliphate during a summit of pro-Umayyad tribes in Jabiya. The tribal nobility, led by Ibn Bahdal of the Banu Kalb, elected Marwan and together they defeated the pro-Zubayrid Qays tribes at the Battle of Marj Rahit in August of that year.