my apostasy is poppin

CHAPTER 2: FAMILY MATTERS

There are three intertwining subplots at this point in the story. The first is the ongoing Islamic conquests, which are still happening but have been somewhat interrupted by the second subplot: not everyone brought into the loving embrace of Islam by Mohammed’s men wants to remain within its fold. There is a real possibility of the caliphate breaking apart before it even expands outside of Arabia. Actually, it’s not a “possibility”–it’s already happening.

Ibn Ishaq’s sira, written around 750 AD and the oldest text of Islamic history available to us, concludes with Mohammed’s death. It ends with two mourning poems, prefaced by this ominous note:

“I was told that the last injunction the apostle gave was in his words, ‘Let not two religions be left in the Arabian peninsula’. Aisha used to say: ‘When the apostle died, the Arabs apostatized and Christianity and Judaism raised their heads and disaffection appeared. The Muslims became as sheep exposed to rain on a winter’s night through the loss of their prophet until God united them under Abu Bakr.’"

These incidents of mass apostasy will come to be known as the Ridda (apostasy) Wars, and Abu Bakr will spend most of his time as caliph trying to get the lost sheep back in line. It is the first warning sign that the early caliphs will not actually enjoy their jobs very much.

The final subplot, bubbling under the surface, is the still-unresolved issue with the Banu Hashim. When we left our heroes, Abu Bakr had just been declared the caliph and Mohammed had been buried, in that order. So how do Ali & Friends feel about all this?

Well… not too happy, is the obvious answer. Upon learning that the issue of Mohammed’s succession has been resolved without their input, the Banu Hashim are rather sulky. A hadith describes Ali indicating his displeasure with the whole process to Abu Bakr a few months after this:

“We know well your superiority and what Allah has given you, and we are not jealous of the good what Allah has bestowed upon you, but you did not consult us in the question of the rule and we thought that we have got a right in it because of our near relationship to [Mohammed]."

The same hadith says that Ali “had not given the oath of allegiance” to Abu Bakr for six months following Mohammed’s death, and another hadith states that the rest of the Banu Hashim also avoided pledging fealty to Abu Bakr. They weren’t openly agitating against his rule, but they also weren’t sanctioning it by giving an oath of fealty. The message was clear: Ali and the rest of the Banu Hashim felt  robbed of their rights. Even if being related to Mohammed wasn’t enough to confer the right to rule, it at least conferred the right to decide on the ruler, in their eyes. And Abu Bakr and Umar denied them even that.

Given the delicate nature of the situation, Abu Bakr decides that it’s preferable to just leave the Banu Hashim alone to sulk, so long as they’re not openly opposing him. He knows that engaging in a PR battle (or worse: an actual battle) with Mohammed’s extended family literally immediately after his death is unlikely to positively impact his image. Abu Bakr does, however, feel entitled to the support of his own extended family. Nearly all of them support him already, but there are two holdouts named Talha and Zubayr, with the former being a member of Abu Bakr’s clan and the latter being Abu Bakr’s dumbass son-in-law via his other daughter, Asma. Al-Tabari’s account describes them neglecting to pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr and instead visiting Ali’s house, presumably to grumble about recent events for whatever reason. (As we will later see, both of these guys were opportunists–they weren’t loyal to Ali, but they were happy to ally with him if they thought they would get something out of it.) Umar responds to the situation with his usual tact and grace.

Talhah, al-Zubayr, and some of the [others were] in the house (with Ali). 'Umar cried out, "By God, either you come out to render the oath of allegiance [to Abu Bakr], or l will set the house on fire.” Al-Zubayr came out with his sword drawn. As he stumbled [upon something], the sword fell from his hand, so they jumped over him and seized him.

This story is highly dramatized by many sources, in which Umar actually does set the house on fire, or barges into the house and hurts Fatima in the process, or something similarly outrageous. Those accounts aren’t reliable, but the event itself is mentioned by authors who had no real reason to depict either Abu Bakr or Umar as evil, and Zubayr aligning himself with Ali is something found in strongly-sourced reports. So this may well have actually happened, and if it did, it certainly did not make the Banu Hashim any happier with the way things were going in the caliphate.

Another, more minor problem adds to the Banu Hashim’s  sense of victimhood. Mohammed had owned many pieces of property, and now that he’s dead, his relatives want to inherit those lands. The properties are located in multiple different areas, but the prime land is in a Jewish-majority cluster of cities that had been conquered by the Muslims a few years earlier. It’s rich agricultural land, and it’s extremely valuable in Arabia’s desert climate. Some of Mo’s widows ask Abu Bakr for it, and their requests are denied. Both Fatima and Abbas also request a share of the inheritance. Abu Bakr rejects their petitions.

Fatima and Al-`Abbas came to Abu Bakr, claiming their inheritance of the Prophet’s land of Fadak and his share from Khaibar. Abu Bakr said, “I heard the Prophet (ﷺ) saying, 'Our property is not inherited, and whatever we leave is to be given in charity. But the family of Muhammad can take their sustenance from this property.’ By Allah, I would love to do good to the Kith and kin of Allah’s Apostle rather than to my own Kith and kin.”

“So....” says Fatima.

“So,” agrees Abu Bakr.

“My father is dead.”

“It would seem thus.”

“It says here that when someone’s parents die, their children should inherit a significant portion of their wealth.”

“And?”

“And I am my father’s only surviving child?”

“...and?”

“........and I should inherit from him because of that??”

“Oooooh! Lol sorry I didn’t get where you were going with this. Look, that’s what it says in the Quran, you’re right. But the Amendments to the Quran state--”

“The... the fucking what? The Quran was supposed to have been created before humanity, and it has amendments?”

“Ma’am, I don’t make the rules. As I was saying, the Amendments to the Quran state that these rules actually do not apply if one’s father was a prophet. All the wealth and property owned by prophets is transferred to the state after their deaths, according to clause 5633§26. See?”

Fatima squints at Abu Bakr’s copy of An Idiot’s Guide to the Stuff Allah Forgot to Put in the Quran. In green crayon, someone has written “moe’s agricultural land belongs to the caliphate now -allah”.

This is evidently news to the Banu Hashim, and many of them plainly do not believe that this is what Mohammed actually would have wanted. Now they feel robbed in a political sense and in an economic sense.

On the face of it, this seems way less contentious than the whole succession thing, and it mostly is. But there is one detail that inflates its importance. Fatima is genuinely pissed off at Abu Bakr for rebuffing her, to the point that she holds a grudge against him and doesn’t even speak to him for the rest of her life.

So she became angry with Abu Bakr and kept away from him, and did not [talk] to him till she died.

This is not, as it turns out, a long period of time. Fatima dies around six months after Mohammed, probably of the same infection that killed him. Stress and a lack of self-care due to grief are sometimes also said to be the cause of her death, while some Shia traditions attribute it to miscarriage-related complications or (more dubiously) violence at the hands of Umar. No one really knows for sure, but the last of Mohammed’s children is now dead.

This might surprise non-Muslims, but the reality is that very little is said about any of Mohammed’s daughters in reputable sources. His middle daughters Roqaya and Umm Kulthum might as well not even exist for how little they’re mentioned; his oldest daughter Zaynab has a biography totaling perhaps two paragraphs. Even Fatima, the youngest and the only one who outlived him, is mentioned in only four or five anecdotes over the entire course of her life in reputable sources, one of which is the inheritance incident. They presumably played some important role in early Islam, at least among young Muslim women, but that’s never actually said.

But it is at least clear that Fatima was held in high honor by the Muslim community after Mohammed’s death, being his only surviving child and all. Also, Mohammed had specifically told people to never make her angry. (Funnily enough, this was prompted by something Ali did–he was considering taking a second wife and Mo said no because he didn’t want to upset Fatima, making poor Ali the only Muslim man forced into monogamy! ...well, ignoring his sex slaves, so... a-anyway...)

Fatima is a part of me, and he who makes her angry, makes me angry.

If you’re a Muslim who believes that everything Mohammed said was true, and you know that Abu Bakr made Fatima upset, then how can you avoid the conclusion that this situation would displease Mohammed? And by extension, how could you avoid thinking that something in the new caliphate’s milk ain’t clean? Even if you think Abu Bakr is the rightful caliph, and even if you’ve never really given any thought to the Banu Hashim’s temper tantrum, this still might give you pause. That perhaps explains why Fatima and the Banu Hashim’s refusal to swear loyalty to the empire’s new leader in a time of war–which is ordinarily insubordination, if not worse–was something that many people frowned at, but ultimately let slide.

But the sympathy train can’t last forever. And now that Fatima is dead, the Banu Hashim have lost their prophet-approved excuse for holding out on Abu Bakr. They have to rethink their strategy, and fast.

So after she dies, a clearly pissed-off Ali buries her by himself, without Abu Bakr’s involvement. It’s hard to tell that snub was due to Fatima’s own wishes or Ali’s. Regardless, keeping the caliph away from the funeral of the prophet’s kid is A Choice.

When she died, her husband `Ali buried her at night without informing Abu Bakr and he said the funeral prayer by himself.

This was essentially the end of an era for Ali. The day he put Fatima in her grave was the last day he could get away with feuding with the caliph, and he knew it. The above hadith continues:

When Fatima was alive, the people used to respect `Ali much, but after her death, `Ali noticed a change in the people’s attitude towards him.

Times are tense in Medina: the Ridda Wars are ongoing at this point, the caliphate has fallen apart, and this feud is no longer cute in the people’s eyes. The general population may have looked the other way when Fatima was alive, owing to Mohammed’s own instructions, but now she’s dead and people think it’s time for the Banu Hashim to grow the fuck up. The negative change in people’s attitudes is evidently immediate, so the Banu Hashim, deprived of what little support they had, effectively surrender.

So `Ali sought reconciliation with Abu Bakr and gave him an oath of allegiance. `Ali had not given the oath of allegiance during those months (i.e. the period between the Prophet’s death and Fatima’s death). `Ali sent someone to Abu Bakr … So Abu Bakr entered upon them

Ali explains why he’d delayed swearing allegiance for so long and tells Abu Bakr how aggrieved the Banu Hashim have been feeling over everything that’s happened. Abu Bakr doesn’t apologize, but strikes a conciliatory tone, letting bygones be bygones.

And when Abu Bakr spoke, he said, “By Him in Whose Hand my soul is to keep good relations with the relatives of Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) is dearer to me than to keep good relations with my own relatives. But as for the trouble which arose between me and you about his property, I will do my best to spend it according to what is good”

Later that day, Ali finally publicly swears allegiance to Abu Bakr, ending the feud. The rest of the Banu Hashim follow him, and the people of Medina stop giving them the cold shoulder.

On that `Ali said to Abu Bakr, "I promise to give you the oath of allegiance in this after noon.” So when Abu Bakr had offered the Zuhr prayer, he ascended the pulpit and uttered the Tashah-hud and then mentioned the story of `Ali and his failure to give the oath of allegiance, and excused him, accepting what excuses he had offered; Then `Ali (got up) [and] praised Abu Bakr’s right …

On that all the Muslims became happy and said, “You have done the right thing.” The Muslims then became friendly with `Ali as he returned to what the people had done (i.e. giving the oath of allegiance to Abu Bakr).

This is the end of the drama between the Banu Hashim and Abu Bakr. It is not the end of the drama regarding the Banu Hashim in general, and while they may have publicly forgiven Abu Bakr for “usurping” their rights, they certainly have not forgotten it. Ali himself may be playing nice for now, but he and Abu Bakr aren’t friends, and Ali isn’t friends with anyone in Abu Bakr’s circle, either. Especially not Aisha, who has loathed him ever since his involvement in a romance subplot straight out of a shitty show on The CW. These issues will all come to a head later on. The true beginning of the Shia-Sunni split, you see, didn’t happen right after Mohammed died. It happened years later, and it was an absolute disaster involving civil war, assassinations, and lots of tears. We will shortly see that the real Miracle Of Islam is that these people’s empire didn’t disintegrate due to their headassery.

Relatedly, you may have noticed that some of the people I listed in the cast of characters last time, namely the Banu Umayya, have been awfully quiet throughout all this inter-Quraysh drama. Where are they? Well… they’re around. Watching.

Lol let’s get rid of that “more rights than men” part real quick, the Quran literally says the opposite and the entirety of Islamic history 610 AD-present cements the point. Call me when they discover a magic alternate Quran that gives women twice the inheritance share of men, twice the say in court, the ability to beat their husbands, and the ability to possess four husbands and infinite male sex slaves. Like… the DELUSION of people who try this, girl I–

But marriage and divorce! Let’s launch into an unexpected lesson in fiqh. As always, I’d recommend reading an actual book about this topic if you’re really curious, but I can summarize it. If you are a young lady in the Abbasid caliphate in the 10th century or so–or one unfortunate enough to live in a modern place where secular laws and customs haven’t overridden Islamic ones–how do you get married under Islamic law, given that the religion prohibits physical contact with unrelated men and romantic escapades aren’t allowed?

Well, the first thing to do is get yourself a male guardian. Just kidding–one’s already been assigned to you, you don’t get to choose, LOL! It’s probably your dad or grandpa or whoever else is available. They will find you someone to marry. It will probably be someone from your extended family and it may be your first cousin. Sorry. If it makes you feel better, his parents are probably “encouraging” him to marry you just like yours are “encouraging” you to marry him. Mothers/grandmothers/etc certainly may be involved in this process, but theologically speaking their involvement is informal; the agreement must formally be through the girl’s male guardian:

No woman should arrange the marriage of another woman, and no woman should arrange her own marriage.

The only school to even partially disagree with this is the Hanafi school, in which some jurists believe that mature women can arrange marriages, even though it’s not ideal. But even they say that a marriage arranged without the consent of the woman’s male guardian can be overruled by that guardian if he determines it is unacceptable. Not all Hanafis agreed with letting women arrange marriages, and none of the other schools of jurisprudence agreed with it, since it flies in the face of Islamic tradition. And Mohammed’s own views of the matter seem pretty straightforward.

Any woman whose marriage is not arranged by her guardian, her marriage is invalid, her marriage is invalid, her marriage is invalid.

Now, according to essentially all schools of Islamic jurisprudence, fathers/grandfathers/whatever have the legal authority or ijbar to agree to marriages on behalf of their minor children. “Minor” here is defined as pre-pubescent. So if you’re a really young girl, congratulations, you are now on your way to getting married and have zero say in the matter. At least your husband is meant to wait until you get your period before he rapes you for the first time. Feminism!

If instead you are deemed to no longer be a minor–ie you’ve started going through puberty–your outlook is a bit better under some schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Virgins who are not minors, you see, must be asked for their consent to the marriage. They do not actually have to give it…. but they have to be asked, according to a hadith.

a virgin should not be married until her consent is sought, and her consent is her silence

Some schools of Islamic jurisprudence say this only applies if you’re acting as the male guardian of someone who is not your own daughter, and otherwise you don’t have to ask her. But let’s assume you’re lucky enough to live in an area dominated by one of the other schools.

You have two options here. You could say “absolutely NOT!”… but you probably know better than to do that. Presumably you are a typical medieval Arab girl and you do not want your family to yell at you and call you a disgrace for rejecting a marriage. Nor do you want them to pressure you into marrying another guy who’s even worse than your cousin, which they may do to get rid of you–a girl remaining an unwed virgin for too long brings shame to a family, after all. So when your father informs you that he has arranged a marriage with your cousin, you just sit there and stare at the floor. Congratulations! You have now “consented” to the marriage and are in the same position as your hypothetical pre-pubescent counterpart.

The one bright spot here is if you’re not a virgin. You are, I am sure, a morally upstanding young lady, so you are not a virgin because you were previously married and your husband died in a tragic and embarrassing boating incident. I am sorry for your loss. However, this means that you will have more of a say in your second marriage–at least theoretically–than you did in your first marriage. That is because Mohammed said:

A woman who has been previously married (Thayyib) has more right to her person than her guardian

In Islamic law, age is irrelevant to discussions about marriage. There is nothing in the Quran or the ahadith that imposes any sort of age restrictions on any part of the marriage process. The two factors that matter are 1) puberty status and 2) virginity status. Pre-pubescent girls, as I said, are controlled entirely by their male guardians and may be married off without their permission. Pubescent girls who are still virgins have a limited say, though their male guardians do not need their explicit permission to marry them off. Pubescent or post-pubescent girls and women who are not virgins have the most rights out of all; they must clearly agree to the marriage plans. In other words, just staying silent is not enough for your male guardian to continue the marriage process. You still may feel compelled to go through with it–but you have to say you want it.

For the sake of argument, let’s say you do. You’re pretty sure your cousin is the result of an affair anyway and not even your blood relative, and it’s not like you feel any familial attachment to the guy, since you have 80 cousins and never interact with the male ones. The marriage process may now proceed. Your two families will agree to a mahr, or dower, with its exact value and the number of installments in which it is paid being left up to the families. A marriage contract will be drawn up and endorsed by your male guardian and the groom’s party. Then a marriage ceremony (a ceremony meaning, basically, a party, it’s not a religious ceremony per se) will be held, the mahr or at least part of it will be paid to you, and you and your husband will go consummate your marriage. Congratulations! As of now, your husband is entitled to your body at his leisure, and you are prohibited from denying his “lawful” (NO BUTT STUFF) advances. You are forbidden from sexual contact with any other person, though your husband may have sex with up to three other wives and an unlimited number of sex slaves.

Now for the less-happy topic. It’s four years later, and your marriage isn’t going too great. How were you supposed to know he was into weird vore shit? Well, we have three scenarios here (all marriage in Islam is het so don’t @ me asking where the gayz are):

1) The man wants a divorce, but the woman does not.

2) Both spouses agree to divorce.

3) The woman wants a divorce, but the man does not.

If you’re a man, divorcing a wife for any reason is extremely easy, whether she wants a divorce or not. All he has to do, literally, is say that he’s divorcing her. This process is called “talaq” and mentioned in the Quran; judging by the ahadith, it was the most common form of divorce in Mohammed’s era.

The way it’s meant to work is this. A man states his intent to divorce his wife when she doesn’t have her period. He waits three months before the divorce can be finalized to ensure there’s no pregnancy, during which time he is obligated to financially provide for her. At the end of this period, the divorce is finalized. Assuming there is no pregnancy and no outstanding mahr to be paid, that’s all he has to do, and the marriage ends with no further obligations. (If there is an outstanding mahr, it must be paid.)

If he changes his mind and takes her back during the waiting period, this is allowable. And then he can say he’s divorcing her again, change his mind again, and take her back again. (The woman has no say in this btw, if a man wants to take his wife back like this then he can do so.) The third time he does this, the divorce is irrevocable and his obligations to his wife are over immediately. The two spouses can’t reconcile, unless the woman marries another man and divorces him. Then the first husband can inexplicably marry her again. Mohammed…. his mind…!

While that is the “proper” way of doing it, a discouraged but still technically valid way of conducting talaq is for a guy to say that he’s divorcing his wife three times at once, instantly making the divorce permanent. But divorcing a woman and leaving her alone with zero notice and no ability to reconcile with her husband (uh… without marrying another guy first) is obviously ruinous to her. So while this way of doing it does have precedent in early Islam and has a long history of being practiced, it’s still frowned-upon in most of the modern world. You hear about it more in Asia than elsewhere these days.

…Out of curiosity, I just looked up whether “triple talaq”, as the three-times-fast thing is called, is legal under India or Pakistan’s legal systems. Apparently they’re trying to get rid of it in India but Muslim women’s groups are fighting it… because it’s permissible in Islam and therefore must remain legal. Stay self-hating, dumbasses!

Anyway, that’s the Quranic way to obtain a divorce. But talaq can only be used by men. Allah neglected to mention what people should do if the woman is the one who wants a divorce (but he did make sure to mention how much he wanted Mohammed to marry his beautiful daughter-in-law. Priorities!). Fortunately, the ahadith contain another method of divorce that can occur if both the man and the woman agree to it.

This khul process is also fairly simple, and can be accomplished by the woman paying her husband back the mahr (dower) that he gave her when they got married. There is a waiting period, again to ensure there’s no pregnancy, and then the marriage just ends. This is based almost solely on a hadith in which a divorce is conducted by a woman returning the garden her husband had given her as mahr and the husband accepting it. If the man rejects the woman’s attempt to return her mahr, she can try increasing the “payment” until he accepts; alternatively, if the husband wants a fast divorce, he may accept something worth less than the value of the mahr. But some sort of transaction like this must be mutually agreed-upon for the divorce to be valid.

The benefit of this process vs the other one, for a man, is that the man is not obligated to pay any of the remaining mahr, and in fact gets some of it back. Also, most schools of Islamic jurisprudence state that the husband isn’t required to financially provide for the wife during the waiting period unless she is pregnant. That’s because khul is an irrevocable divorce, and a reputable hadith says:

there is no lodging and maintenance allowance for a woman who has been given irrevocable divorce.

…and also the Quran seems to limit financial maintenance in the irrevocable-divorce waiting period to pregnant women in surah 65. Khul became increasingly common in later eras of Islamic history, though many of the cases involving khul probably weren’t truly with the wife’s full consent. After all, why would you want to pay your soon-to-be-ex-wife and provide for her for a few months, when you could get paid by her and not have to provide for her at all?

The third and final option, involving a woman who wants a divorce but a man who does not want a divorce, is much trickier. There are two ways that a Muslim woman may end her marriage even if the husband doesn’t want to under Islamic law.

One must be done in advance of any trouble: if a guy vows to his wife that “I will divorce you if I [whatever]” or “you can leave if I [whatever]”, and it can be proven that this happened, then he is bound to uphold his oath if he does… whatever that thing is, since it is taken as a legally-binding declaration. Typically this happens at the beginning of the marriage. The stipulation must be bound to an oath from the man, it cannot be done retroactively, and women cannot force their husbands to do it. So this does still require the husband’s agreement, just advanced agreement.

If there is no previously agreed-upon “conditional divorce” or it can’t be proven, but the woman still wants a divorce and her husband says no, then an alternate method has to be used. This has no precedent in the Quran or ahadith, and had to be “inferred” by jurists due to a lack of guidance, which was one of several reforms of Islam in the Abbasid era.

Unilateral female divorce is not conducted independently by the couple, unlike the other methods. A woman in this situation cannot initiate a divorce on her own and instead must have her request for a divorce considered by an Islamic judge. Permission to divorce is granted based on several criteria. First, there must be an indisputably valid reason for the divorce. No-fault divorces are not allowed when initiated by women and in fact result in women going to hell:

Any woman who asks her husband for a divorce when it is not absolutely necessary, the fragrance of Paradise will be forbidden to her.

Second, when there is a valid reason for the divorce, the fault of this must be assignable to the man. In other words, if it’s found that the woman wants another dick and that’s why she wants a divorce, it will not be granted to her–the man has to be the one who did something worthy of divorce. Finally, there must be evidence of this fault and the irreparable negative impact of it. The woman saying “he’s mean to me” or whatever won’t suffice. Witnesses and written documents may be consulted. In some cases, an investigation may be carried out. For example, if a woman says that her husband cannot financially provide for her, some schools of jurisprudence recommend investigating to see if the man’s financial situation is temporary and if it will improve after a certain period. If that period elapses and it still hasn’t improved, they judge this valid grounds for divorce.

Different schools of Islamic jurisprudence have different lists of what constitutes a valid, provable fault. The most stringent of them accept only one, namely impotence. If a guy never consummates the marriage or is physically incapable of having sex, then the marriage can be dissolved so that the woman can have kids with another man. (Some schools of jurisprudence only give women a certain period of time, usually a year, to claim this right; otherwise they’re stuck in their sexless marriages.) Other schools of jurisprudence broaden the list and include things like abandonment and destitution. Few go any further than that, and none include simple marital disharmony or incompatibility.

If a woman believes she has a valid reason and evidence of it, it’s time to begin the proceedings. Often the first step is arbitration. In classical Islamic law, this is conducted with male members of both the husband and wife’s families. If you are a woman and find yourself undergoing arbitration in divorce proceedings, you’d better hope that your family’s arbitrators will stick up for you and won’t mind you moving back home for a little while. Otherwise… time to get some plastic surgery, move to Mexico, and start a new life as a waitress named Maria in a seaside resort town.

The judge will usually take the arbitrators’ recommendations into account before pronouncing his verdict, in addition to the evidence necessary to prove the husband’s fault. Judging by historical records, the outcome was basically a crapshoot, since it was all at individual judges’ discretion; in many places it was split 50-50 in terms of the divorce being granted or not. But when the judge rules in the woman’s favor, he pronounces the marriage over, based on the idea that a judge can declare talaq on the husband’s behalf. The divorce may be revocable (which is not ideal for the woman, if you think about it) or irrevocable, depending on the fault.

If the marriage produced young children past a certain age, they are assigned to the father’s custody. The exact age at which this happens varies between the schools of jurisprudence, but on average it’s 7 years old. Some schools have complicated rules for this based on the gender of the kid, in which sons go to their fathers earlier than daughters. Even if the mother is assigned custody, the father still retains his role as the kid’s male guardian; also, women can lose custody of even their very small children if they marry another man (due to the belief that they need to devote themselves to their “new” family) based on this hasan hadith:

A woman said: Messenger of Allah, my womb is a vessel to this son of mine, my breasts, a water-skin for him, and my lap a guard for him, yet his father has divorced me, and wants to take him away from me. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: You have more right to him as long as you do not marry.

I should add that all these rules vary in Islamic law depending on whether one or both of the spouses are slaves. Predictably, enslaved people, and especially enslaved women, are treated like complete garbage.

…meanwhile, pre-Islamic Bedouin women divorced their husbands by kicking them out of their tents.

Let me give you a brief rundown of the sources for everything that follows. Written Islamic history began in the mid-8th century, over a hundred years after these events unfolded, though it built upon a systematized oral learning tradition. By that point, the first two dynasties of Islam had faded away, and the third, called the Abbasid dynasty, was freshly in control of the majority (but not all) of the territory conquered by the first generation of Muslims. The Abbasids were descended from a member of Mohammed’s extended family, and this fact was essentially their sole claim to rulership. They engaged in constant propaganda against their predecessors, called the Umayyad dynasty, who by this point had been reduced to a tiny stub of their former territory. The Umayyads were descended from the same tribe as Mohammed, but were not specifically descended from his family within that tribe.

For reasons that will eventually become obvious, this means that all accounts of the complete political clusterfuck that was the caliphate in the 50 years following Mohammed’s death have to be looked at with some degree of skepticism. There were reasons why authors writing in this period would feel compelled to characterize certain individuals as evil or at least misguided and others as pure souls, and they doubtlessly exaggerated and embellished some reports. And even the reports that truly do seem to go all the way back to the first generations of Islam can’t be fully trusted--these people were talking about their own lives, defending their own actions and criticizing those of their political enemies. Despite that, we have enough solid reports from enough people on different sides of each divide to put most of the story together. The main events of the story actually don’t differ that much between sources--the differences are mostly in the ways people are depicted during those parts.

Full disclosure: I was raised Sunni. I do not have the emotional attachment to certain historical figures that Shia people do. Even non-religious Shia people have a tendency to cry when they hear some of the stories that we’ll talk about, whereas I just think “lol that’s a biT much tbh”. However, given my current belief that all of these guys were dumb assholes, I feel that I can offer my fairly unbiased take on which dumb asshole deserved to be King of the Dumb Assholes.

After reading this, I believe you’ll come to agree with my thesis statement, namely that the true hero of Islam is the one who probably didn’t even believe in the damn religion.

And so I present my pre-Ramadan gift: part one of The Death of Crazy Mo.

THE CAST OF CHARACTERS

THE QURAYSH: The tribe in charge of Mecca and essentially the only relevant people in the story. Prior to this whole fiasco, they made a living primarily as merchants, traveling along caravan routes to other lands. They also catered to polytheistic pilgrims visiting their shrine, called the Kaaba. Most of Mohammed’s early followers (including Mohammed himself) were from clans of the Quraysh. Though most of the Quraysh originally strongly opposed Mohammed, they were worn down by years of conflict and “embraced Islam” following the conquest of Mecca. The leader of the Quraysh’s military prior to Mecca’s conquest was Abu Sufyan, a member of the Banu Umayya clan. Abu Sufyan is the father of one of Mohammed’s wives (Ramla) and several other children, including a son named Muawiya. He and his sons “converted” the day Mecca was conquered and have served Mohammed ever since. Muawiya currently works as one of Mohammed’s scribes.

MOHAMMED: Some old guy from the Banu Hashim clan of the Quraysh. Spends most of his time in a state of fever-induced delirium while ranting about religious minorities. Had several children, but all but one--his youngest daughter Fatima--have died of disease.

ABU BAKR: A wealthy, well-connected merchant of the Quraysh who converted to Islam early on and brought a bunch of people into the religion. He knew his fellow merchant Mohammed before Islam’s creation and grew to become his best friend. Mohammed bestowed the title of “as-Siddiq” or “the Truthful” upon him when Abu Bakr affirmed his belief that Mohammed took a round trip to Jerusalem on a magic horse/donkey in the middle of the night. As the years went on, he established himself as Mo’s closest confidante and has been vested with a great deal of political and military authority in the Muslim community as a result. His daughter Aisha was married off to Mohammed as a child and has been his favorite wife ever since.

UMAR: A belligerent asshole from a well-known family of the Quraysh who was also an early convert. He is another one of Mohammed’s fathers-in-law via his daughter Hafsa. Everyone knows that Umar is unpleasant, but they are forced to tolerate his existence because Mohammed and Abu Bakr are his buddies. Serves as The Big Guy and is good at yelling at people to whip them into shape.

UTHMAN: A wealthy merchant and old friend of Abu Bakr’s, who converted at the latter’s insistence. Went on to marry two of Mohammed’s daughters, Roqaya and Umm Kulthum, both deceased at this point in time. As such, he is also a member of Mohammed’s inner circle. He is from the Banu Umayya clan, meaning that Abu Sufyan & Sons are his relatives. This will cause drama later on.

ALI: Mohammed’s cousin (the son of his father’s brother) and son-in-law via Fatima, with whom he has two young daughters and two young sons, Hasan and Hussein. Mohammed was raised by his uncle, Ali’s father Abu Talib, after his own parents died. As an adult he returned the favor and helped raise Ali when Abu Talib was in a tough financial situation. Ali converted essentially right away as a teenager due to the fact that he lived with Mohammed and his family. He has been one of the Muslim army’s most notable soldiers since his early twenties and is one of the most prominent members of the community despite his relative youth. Like his father and cousin, he is a member of the Banu Hashim clan.

ABBAS: One of Mohammed’s uncles (his father’s brother), though the two are actually very close in age. Originally a successful spice merchant, he converted to Islam shortly before the conquest of Mecca and served in his nephew’s army. His son Abdullah ibn Abbas is only a teenager at the moment, but he will be relevant in the future. From the Banu Hashim.

THE ANSAR: The Muslims from Medina, mostly from the Aws and Khazraj sister tribes. After getting kicked out of Mecca (because the Ansar pledged to assist him in battle and the Quraysh learned of this stunt), Mohammed moved to Medina and brought a couple hundred of his followers from Mecca with him. Medina became the Muslim base of power, and the heads of the two tribes were made essentially subservient to him. Anyone who opposed him was gradually “dealt with”, and now the Ansar are more or less 100% Muslim. Whether their loyalty extends to Mohammed’s entire tribe is an open question.

MUSLIMS WHO ARE UNRELATED TO THE ANSAR OR QURAYSH AND NON-MUSLIMS IN GENERAL:

PROLOGUE: IN WHICH THE JEWS AND/OR COCCOBACILLI BACTERIA ARE AT IT AGAIN

Mohammed falls sick with a sudden, debilitating illness. We don’t know exactly what it was, and it’s blamed on The Devious Jews in many sources, but it was clearly one of the many infectious diseases that battered the Middle East throughout the sixth and seventh centuries. Islamic sources state that Medina in particular endured some sort of plague around that the time. He’s described as becoming shaky and fever-ridden essentially overnight, and so his companions put him on bed rest.

His condition is not improving, and it soon becomes obvious to everyone, including himself, that he is probably going to die. His followers move him into the home of his youngest and favorite wife Aisha, and he is given around-the-clock care. Mohammed’s fever worsens, though he remains lucid for most of his illness. He spends most of his time in bed, but sometimes he gets up and is sort of dragged around with the help of a couple of guys.

A few things happen around this time that will be relevant later. First of all, due to Mohammed’s illness, he can no longer perform his role as the imam (leader of prayers). So he appoints Abu Bakr to fill in for him. Abu Bakr has been Mo’s bestie and a member of his inner circle for decades, so this doesn’t surprise anyone. But appointing someone the leader of Medina’s prayers has certain implications.

The immediate issue is that Mohammed serves as the head of his state’s government, military, and legal system in addition to serving as the head of its official religion, Islam. Whoever succeeds him as the leader of this state--which is in a constant state of warfare in order to extend its borders--will likewise have to serve a triple role as a religious, military, and political authority figure. This will not be easy, as the new Islamic nation includes a number of people who are not particularly happy about living under its rule, and their numbers grow every month as the attacks continue. Ibn Ishaq’s sira states that before he fell ill, Mohammed had ordered raids both south and north, into Yemeni and Syrian territory. His nation is still almost entirely located in Arabia in this era, but it is getting quite large and complex, and there isn’t really any appropriate bureaucracy to deal with it. Whoever takes over will have to come up with that on his own, and will need everyone to go along with his decisions. Mohammed’s own claim to rulership comes “from Allah”, and it looks like Allah isn’t interested in conferring the same honor on anyone else.

That brings us to the second thing, which is something that did not happen: Mohammed never actually stated who he wanted to succeed him. In hindsight, this is a puzzling decision. By this point in the story, Mohammed knows he is seriously ill and probably going to die. He is pretty old (a grandfather in his sixties). He is very sick, but he’s still able to communicate with people in a clear manner, until, like, the very last day of his life. And he’s always been more than happy to issue orders for how his followers should eat, shit, and breathe, in addition to a litany of other religious, social, and political rules. Why he not only neglected to name a successor but even a process by which that successor could be named by others is a mystery. He just evidentially made virtually no preparations for what would happen after his death. Maybe he was in denial--he obviously wasn’t planning on dying at that point, and had unfinished business related to conquest and/or ethnic cleansing. Maybe he thought he had a little more time. Maybe he believed it was obvious that he wanted Abu Bakr to succeed him. In any case, he never named his “heir”.

There is one hadith narrated by Abdullah ibn Abbas that is sometimes believed to be related to this topic:

When [Mohammed] was on his deathbed and there were some men in the house, he said, 'Come near, I will write for you something after which you will not go astray.' Some of them said, 'Allah's Messenger is seriously ill and you have the Qur'an. Allah's Book is sufficient for us.' So the people in the house differed and started disputing. Some of them said, 'Give him writing material so that he may write for you something after which you will not go astray,' while the others said the other way round. So when their talk and differences increased, Allah's Apostle said, "[Get out]." Ibn `Abbas used to say, "No doubt, it was very unfortunate (a great disaster) that Allah's Messenger was prevented from writing for them that writing because of their differences and noise." 

What was he going to write? (“Wait, I thought he was illiterate!” was he tho) Another hadith says one of his last orders related to the state was just a “remember to FUCK UP the polytheists, lads” thing, and Ibn Ishaq’s sira says that his last command was to "let not two religions be left in the Arabian peninsula". But that can’t be what we’re talking about, because everyone already knew that Operation Bring Everyone Into The Loving Embrace Of Islam was the plan. They didn’t need it written out for them. A third hadith informs us that Umar was one of the people who refused to give Mohammed something to write with, believing him to be delirious and declaring that the Quran contained all the instructions they needed anyway (lolololol). So because of goddamn Umar, we really don’t know for sure what Mohammed meant to do there.

A story involving Ibn Abbas’ father, Abbas, provides a hint as to what some people wanted him to write:

[Abbas said to Ali:] “By Allah, I think that [Mohammed] will die of this illness. I recognise death in the faces of the Banu Abdu'l-Muttalib when they are dying. Let us go to [Mo] and ask him who will have this authority. If it is for us, then we will know that, and if it is for other than us, we will know it and he can advise him to look after us." Ali replied, "By Allah, if we ask him for it and he refuses us, then the people would never give it to us afterwards. By Allah, I will not ask it from the Messenger of Allah." 

Abbas and Ali here are both from Mohammed’s clan, the Banu Hashim. (Abdul-Muttalib was Mo’s grandpa.) When Abbas says that he wants to know if Mohammed’s empire “is for us”, he means for their clan. So while Mohammed is dying, it’s clear that at least some people believe that he might keep the leadership of the state/theocracy/whatever within the family. If Mo did opt for that, Ali was a reasonable choice. He was young--like 30 years younger than Abu Bakr & Pals--but he had been vested with a great deal of military authority already, he had been given the honor of carrying Mohammed’s banner in battle, and he was the closest thing Mohammed had to a son (besides Zayd the Ignominiously Un-Adopted, but he’s dead by now so whatever). Mo was very protective of his almost-son/cousin, as evidenced in this adorable hadith involving slave rape, and described him as the Aaron to his Moses. He told everyone that they must view Ali as their ally (some of Ali’s followers would later interpret this as Ali being declared Mohammed’s heir, though it was obviously not viewed as such at the time).

But again: at this point, Mohammed’s days are numbered, and he hasn’t indicated he wants Ali or anyone else to succeed him. And Abu Bakr is the one leading the prayers. It’s easy to dismiss the whole account above as some dumb Abbasid story--the Abbasids are so named because they are descended from Abbas--but it seems like it either actually happened or was strongly believed to have actually happened by the early Muslims. That’s because there is a sort of competing hadith to the one about the would-be letter declaring Ali the rightful caliph, this one narrated by Aisha and involving a would-be letter declaring Abu Bakr the rightful caliph:

A'isha reported that Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) in his (last) illness asked [her] to call [her father] and her brother too, so that he might write a document, for he feared that someone else might be desirous (of succeeding him) and that some claimant may say: “I have better claim to it”, whereas Allah and the Faithful do not substantiate the claim of anyone but that of Abu Bakr.

So the idea that Mohammed was going to write something related to the succession seems to have truly been A Thing  in the first generation of Islam, with different camps offering different spins on what he wanted to write. Obviously, no letter was ever actually written, thus the problem. But there were plenty of reasons why Abu Bakr also made sense as Mohammed’s successor, apart from his high standing in the community and his appointment as the designated imam. He was fanatically loyal to Mohammed and had joined him in holy broship, so he was viewed as unlikely to “betray” Mo’s final wishes. Mohammed had entrusted him with increasing religious authority even prior to his illness, and in the year following the conquest of Mecca, Abu Bakr had been put in charge of the pilgrimage to the Kaaba. He had also led platoons of Muslim soldiers (more slave rape in that one jsyk!) and was treated as essentially a substitute teacher at times:

A woman came to the Prophet (ﷺ) who ordered her to return to him again. She said, "What if I came and did not find you?" as if she wanted to say, "If I found you dead?" [Mohammed] said, "If you should not find me, go to Abu Bakr."

Plus, the guy was old. Around Mohammed’s age, actually, in a society that prized the wisdom of elders. So Abu Bakr had quite a bit going for him at this juncture. The one thing he permanently lacked was Ali’s close blood relationship to Mohammed--and Ali held multiple advantages here. It wasn’t just that he and Mo were cousins, it was also that Ali was the husband of Mohammed’s daughter and the father of Mohammed’s only grandsons. Abu Bakr’s daughter was Mohammed’s wife, but neither she nor any of Mohammed’s other wives from his polygamous days had any surviving children. Fatima’s boys were the only males around with his blood. (Mo had granddaughters too, from both Fatima and one of his other daughters; the latter granddaughter also ended up marrying Ali.)

A final note is that not all Muslims were eager for either Abu Bakr or Ali to succeed Mohammed. Some weren’t interested in living under permanent Qurayshi rule. In particular, the Ansar of Medina wondered why exactly the Quraysh were seemingly destined to rule them just for being related to Mohammed, when the Ansar were the ones who sheltered Mohammed and his followers for years after the Quraysh kicked him out of town.

As people ponder all of this and the power struggles start to heat up, Mohammed is still in his bed, dying of disease. Oh, and just a teensy problem: some people have gotten word of his illness and think that now is a great time to try their luck and break away from the proto-caliphate. Some are in open revolt and refusing to pay tribute to the state, while others have even declared competing religious movements and have started building up their own armies. Mohammed’s successor, whoever he is, will have a lot to deal with. As all of these people will learn within the next two decades, it turns out running an enormous expansionist state is actually a shitty job with a lot of headaches, many of which involve being stabbed to death.

CHAPTER 1: PRESS ﷺ TO PAY RESPECTS

Despite his followers’ best attempts to cure him by using the “methods” he’d taught them, Crazy Mo dies in Medina around noon on a hot June day in the year 632. He was 62 years old, and had served as the self-declared prophet of Islam for the last two decades of his life.

The Muslims are, naturally, distraught by their leader’s death. Mohammed’s wives immediately begin hitting themselves (uhh... it was a custom) in mourning when his heart stops in Aisha’s room. The news slowly spreads. Some wail; others are frozen in fear. Some like Umar take a more denial-of-reality approach to hearing the rumors. He addresses a crowd of people and begins rambling:

When the apostle was dead, Umar got up and said: "Some of the disaffected will allege that the apostle is dead, but by God he is not dead; he has gone to his Lord as Moses went [for] forty days, returning to them after it was said that he had died. By God, the apostle will return as Moses returned and will cut off the hands and feet of men who allege that the apostle is dead."

“SO THIS MOUNTAIN, SEE?!”, exclaims Umar, who is in a state of mania. “THE MOUNTAIN IS JUST, LIKE, IN AISHA’S APARTMENT. ALLAH MOVED IT THERE, THEN SHRANK IT, THEN MADE IT BIG AGAIN, BUT YOU CAN’T SEE IT FROM HERE--LIKE THE MAP OF NI NO KUNI, YOU KNOW?--AND THE PROPHET CLIMBED IT TO GET SOME TABLETS LIKE MOSES. HE’LL BE BACK WITH THOSE TABLETS, WHICH WILL SAY ‘FUCK Y’ALL’, AND THEN HE’LL MURDER EVERYONE WHO SAID HE WAS DEAD. YOU’LL SEE!!!”

“That sounds incorrect, but I don’t know enough about mountains to say it is false,” decides an onlooker, thoughtfully.

Abu Bakr pushes through the crowd that has gathered to gawk at Umar. He visits Aisha’s room to observe Mohammed’s corpse and confirm his death. Satisfied with the deadness of the body, he returns to Medina’s center to put a stop to his buddy’s maniacal ranting:

Umar was still speaking and he said gently, "Umar, be quiet." But Umar refused and went on talking, and when Abu Bakr saw [this] he said: "O men, if anyone worships Mohammed, Mohammed is dead, but if anyone worships Allah, Allah is alive". Then he recited this verse: "Mohammed is nothing but an apostle. Apostles have passed away before him." By God, it was as though the people did not know that this verse had come down until Abu Bakr recited it that day.

(Hmmm at that last part.)

“Umar,” says Abu Bakr, gently.

“BRO! YOU’RE WITH ME, RIGHT? EVERYONE’S SAYING ‘THAT’S THE DUMBEST FUCKING THING I’VE EVER HEARD’, BUT THEY SAID THE SAME THING ABOUT THE FLYING DONKEY, YOU WERE THE ONLY ONE WHO BELIEVED!! NOW YOU’VE GOT MY BACK, RIGHT?”

“Of course,” Abu Bakr replies, sweetly. He then slaps Umar across the face.

Stunned, Umar shuts up for a moment and everyone accepts that Mohammed is, in fact, dead and had not somehow gone missing inside his wife’s bedroom.

Mohammed’s only surviving child, his daughter Fatima, is obviously among the most devastated by his passing. Fatima’s mother Khadija had died when she was still a young girl, her sisters all died of disease within the previous five years, and none of her brothers survived their childhoods. Even Zayd the Ignominiously Un-Adopted is gone. So she is the last of her nuclear family at the age of, like, 25 or younger. Her husband Ali is presumably equally distraught, but as one of Mohammed’s closest surviving male relatives, he has to deal with the burial arrangements. Abbas helps Ali wash Mohammed’s corpse, in keeping with Islamic custom. They respect Mohammed’s never-nude wishes and keep his privates covered during the process.

Meanwhile, the news that Mohammed is dead has spread throughout the entire city. The issues that people had previously been grumbling about, related to the succession to Mohammed, immediately start spilling out into the open. The Islamic empire is engaging in constant, ongoing battles--if a new leader is going to be chosen, it has to happen now. There isn’t any time to waste.

But not everyone is convinced that there needs to be a singular leader. Some of the Muslims believe that Mohammed was irreplaceable in terms of being one single authority figure to whom all Muslims were required to pledge their absolute loyalty. He “earned” that loyalty by being The Prophet, and he was The Last Prophet. He couldn’t have a real successor. People who followed this line of thinking began seriously considering the possibility of de-centralizing the new empire, so that different Muslim tribal confederations would be more or less self-governing, as they had been prior to Islam. After all, Arabs were accustomed to living in tribes, not bureaucratic nations. Why not just return to the way things were, with slightly more attacks on polytheistic shrines?

The Ansar are intrigued by this possible outcome. They know that if there is one single ruler, he is doubtlessly going to come from the Quraysh tribe, and they’ll be relegated to the back seat forever. In the interest of preserving their autonomy (or rather renewing it, now that Mo’s dead), they quietly arrange a meeting to discuss this problem. The goal of the gathering is to agree upon a leader for their community, with Saad, a chief from one of their tribes, being the current frontrunner. They invite the senior members of their tribes to the meeting and pointedly do not invite any of the Quraysh. But some of the latter get word of the gathering, and they move to crash the party immediately.

I (Umar) said to Abu Bakr, 'Let's go to these Ansari brothers of ours.' .... we reached them at the shed of (a clan of the Ansar, the) Bani Sa`da.

After we sat for a while, the Ansar's speaker said, ‘...To proceed, we are Allah's Ansar (helpers) and the majority of the Muslim army, while you, the emigrants, are a small group and some people among you came with the intention of preventing us from practicing this matter (of caliphate) and depriving us of it.'

When the speaker had finished, I intended to speak as I had prepared a speech which I liked ... Abu Bakr said, 'Wait a while.' I disliked to make him angry. So Abu Bakr himself gave a speech ... he said, 'O Ansar! You deserve all (the qualities that you have attributed to yourselves), but this question (of Caliphate) is only for the Quraish as they are the best of the Arabs as regards descent and home, and I am pleased to suggest that you choose either of these two men, so take the oath of allegiance to either of them as you wish.’ And then Abu Bakr held my hand and Abu Ubaida bin al-Jarrah's hand

“Hello friends,” Abu Bakr begins. “Y’all are great. Truly. Thanks for opening your homes to us, surrendering control of your city to our cult leader, and sacrificing your money and lives in battle on his behalf. But here’s the thing, folks: we’re better than you are. I’m sorry but these are the facts. We’re richer. We’re from a more well-developed city. Our tribe is more respected. Abraham himself built a mosque where we live. Mohammed was one of us. Frankly, we’re also better-looking. That’s very important for good PR.”

The Ansar stare blankly at him.

Undeterred, Abu Bakr continues: “Now, we’re not going to force you to follow anyone. There is no compulsion in religion. You have a choice here--between two of our tribe’s most famed assholes!” He grabs two individuals from the crowd and presents them. “On your left: Umar ibn al-Khattab, who many of you know as a short-tempered and over-emotional manchild. On your right: this other guy named Abu Ubaida, who honestly hasn’t done much beyond fight in some battles at this point in the story. I guess there was that time he killed his own father while we were trying to raid one of our tribe’s caravans.... anyway. What are y’alls thoughts?”

[Crickets.]

And then one of the Ansar said, 'I am the pillar on which the camel with a skin disease (eczema) rubs itself to satisfy the itching (i.e., I am a noble), and I am as a high class palm tree! O Quraish. There should be one ruler from us and one from you.'

“OK... first of all, what in the name of Christ is that metaphor,” Abu Bakr replies. “We’re also better at poetic imagery than you are. Forgot to add that, so thanks for reminding me. Second of all, as I just told you, we’re above you. Who the fuck lied to y’all and said you were on our level? Lmao losers”

“We’re not better than fucking UMAR?”, the Ansar retort. “Or this other guy who will remain B-tier in relevancy throughout this entire story?! YOU WOULDN’T EVEN HAVE THIS EMPIRE WITHOUT US, YOU UNGRATEFUL CLOWNS!”

Chaos erupts in the hall. People are five seconds away from throwing hands. Suddenly...!

Then there was a hue and cry among the gathering and their voices rose so that I was afraid there might be great disagreement, so I said, 'O Abu Bakr! Hold your hand out.' He held his hand out and I pledged allegiance to him, and then all the emigrants gave the Pledge of allegiance and so did the Ansar afterwards. And so we became victorious

Umar dramatically declares his loyalty to Abu Bakr in the chaos, recognizing him as the new leader of the Islamic empire, henceforth known as the caliph. Frankly speaking, it probably wasn’t that much of a shock to Abu Bakr himself, as he knew that Umar (and... basically everyone else) wanted him to be the first caliph. The whole offering Umar and Abu Ubaida as options thing was just false modesty he knew would be shot down in favor of himself, imo. But that’s my hot take, not something the sources say.

Anyway, everyone pauses for a moment to consider this. It probably seems clear to the Ansar at this point that the Quraysh aren’t gonna just leave them alone and let them do what they want; they will have to pledge loyalty to one of these guys eventually. Given that their previous options were Umar and Irrelevant Guy, Abu Bakr likely appears pretty good in comparison. So perhaps it’s not surprising that most of the Ansar present at this gathering decide: “if we gotta serve one of these assholes, might as well be this one”. They sigh and agree to recognize Abu Bakr as the caliph. (Poor Saad gets roughed up afterwards, something Umar considers punishment for daring to even consider himself for the position of caliph.)

So now the whole succession issue is behind us, right? Well... no. We have a slight problem here: Abu Bakr, Umar, and Abu Ubaida may have crashed the Ansar’s party, but zero members of the Banu Hashim were present at the impromptu coronation of their kinsman’s successor. Because they’re busy preparing his corpse for burial. Oh well!

Team Abu Bakr has a more pressing concern, namely telling everyone else in Medina (and those hundreds of thousands of other people living in the caliphate, but who gives a shit about them?) that they have a new ruler. So the next day, Umar and Abu Bakr direct a general assembly to gather in Medina’s mosque, where the people are told to give Abu Bakr their allegiance. First, Umar gives a brief speech in which he basically says that this decision hadn’t come from Mohammed, but is nonetheless the evident “will of Allah”:

O men, yesterday I said something based on my own opinion and which I do not find in God's book, nor was it something which the apostle entrusted to me; but I thought that the apostle would order our affairs until he was the last of us alive. ... God has placed your affairs in the hands of the best one among you ... so arise and swear fealty to him.

The residents of Medina do so, and then Abu Bakr gives his own speech in which he asks the people to “obey me as long as I obey God and His apostle”. Then he leads them in prayer, acting as the caliph for the first time. The commoners apparently don’t have much of a problem with any of this, or at least none are bold enough to disagree with the leaders of their tribes after the latter swore loyalty to Abu Bakr in the hall. So that takes care of that situation.

But the larger issue, namely the fact that the Banu Hashim and their sympathizers have had basically no say in this process, is still unresolved. Mohammed’s burial occurs the day after the general oath of fealty to Abu Bakr, with the men of his extended family lowering him into his grave. They’re now ready to catch up on everything they’ve missed in the past couple of days. It probably isn’t anything important, since the people of Medina have no doubt been so preoccupied with mourning Mohammed’s death that they’ve hardly had time to do anything else.

Aishah had a guest to whom she lent a yellow wrap for him to sleep in. He had a wet dream, and was too embarrassed to send it to her while the traces of the wet dream were present on it. So he submerged it (washing it) in water, then he sent it to her. Aishah said, “Why did he ruin our garment? It would have been sufficient for him to scrape it off with his fingers. Sometimes I would scrape it off of the garment of Allah’s Messenger with my fingers.”

Grade: Sahih (Darussalam)

Oh man anon, this message made me so happy. The “wacky” sects are my favorite. Did you read about the Life of Brian-esque one in which people believed that Ali was meant to be the real prophet, and Mohammed just ended up getting the job by mistake? Can u imagine!! Allah sends Gabriel to earth to go find the next prophet and tells him to go to a certain house in Mecca. Gabriel rings the doorbell and Mohammed, clad in a brown thobe, answers the door.

“…hi,” Gabriel says by way of introduction, awkwardly. “So, um. Does a prophet live here, by any chance? Allah told me he’s been giving someone in this house some calls, and he sent me here to speak to that person.”

“YES!” Mohammed yells, punching the air. “YES, it’s me! I’m the prophet! I knew it!!” He begins jumping around. “Those assholes! They had me doubting myself, but I knew, I knew I was the real deal! Oh, wait until that asshole uncle of mine gets a load of this, I can’t wait to tell him to eat shit on Allah’s behalf.”

“Um,” replies Gabriel, meekly, “are you… quite sure?” He looks down at the Prophet Cheat Sheet that Allah gave him, specifying that the next prophet is “a young boy of the Quraysh tribe living at 436 Brick Lane, Mecca, Hijaz. He’ll be the one dressed in brown. You are instructed to tell him to be all-loving and perform miracles to gain the people’s trust and support”.

“I am sure, bud,” Mohammed says, still jubilant. “I’ve never been surer of anything. So, what’s the first step, like–are we gonna just go smash some idols, or should I get up on a platform and tell people their asses are gonna be fried if they don’t stop the polytheist shit, or what?” He grins.

Gabriel stammers: “O-oh, well, the first step. Um. It’s just. I was–I was just expecting someone younger, I guess? Allah told me he’s ‘young’. But it’s fine. Maybe Allah meant young at heart or something, and you’re–you’re certainly energetic. So, hi, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Gabriel, and I’ll be giving you revelations from now on.”

“See?!” Mohammed shouts into the house. “SEE!!! Khadija–come here, baby, see, I told you the doctor was wrong when he called it a ‘psychotic break’, I really did see an angel in the cave that day! ‘Ooo you’re just plagiarizing the Bible, you stupid dipshit’. Well WHO’S THE DIPSHIT NOW, BUDDY? WHO’S THE DIPSHIT NOW?!”

Several people have come forward from inside the house to gawk at the ranting Mohammed. Gabriel peers over Mohammed’s shoulder to get a look at them. Among the women and girls gathered there, there are two male inhabitants of the house. One is dressed in beige. The other…. is dressed in brown.

“Oh no,” he whispers to himself.

“Hey kids, guess whose daddy and/or cousin just became an official prophet?” Mohammed informs them. “You guys ready to join a cult?”

“…do we get stuff?”, the one dressed in beige asks.

“Of course! Allah will give you whatever you want and make anyone you hate miserable!”

“Yay!” the children cheer in unison.

“Oh no,” Gabriel whispers again.

And that is how Islam was created, according to an apparently-real group of people.

And yes, many people believe that being the wrong sort of Muslim (or, well… they consider them not Muslims at all) is one of the most terrible things in the world, because it combines disbelief with a false claim to the religion. Many Muslims believe that non-Muslims are just ignorant of The Truth and would be Muslim if they knew about its glory and miracles etc. That is due to the concept of fitra, meaning the idea that everyone is born with the proper religious inclination and is only led astray by their disbelieving parents (thus why converts call themselves “reverts”). So they’re regarded, generally speaking, as tragically wrong hellbound people who must be saved from The Fire by “dawah”/Islamic missionaries.

It’s different when the “disbeliever” in question actually has read the Quran and has been raised in the religion, but still has a vastly different take on the religion. Non-Muslims sometimes boil differences between Islamic sects down to trivial things; when it comes to the Shia in particular, people tend to view the debate over Mohammed’s succession as a political thing that has nothing to do with the religion itself. But it does. Shia people have their own theological principles related to the imams that many Sunnis consider heretical, whereas some Shia people consider Sunnis’ refusal to acknowledge the imams as heretical. Both stem from how intertwined empire and faith were in the first generations of Islam. Mohammed wasn’t just a prophet; he was the theocratic leader of a state. If one believes that this state was Allah’s will (as basically all Muslims do), it follows that Allah guided the successes of that state even after Mohammed’s death, into and beyond the conquests of the Middle East and North Africa. So the question of who people were supposed to pledge allegiance to becomes not just a political question, but a religious one.

Thank you anon, and huh! I don’t think anyone’s asked me that before. I dunno, it just kind of… happened, tbh. Like I feel no need to believe in any sort of higher power or deity, there’s nothing about theism in general that appeals to me. I’ve read a lot about other religions since I left Islam and I can certainly appreciate many things about them. But none of the actual theology grabs me. Not to sound like an edgelord, but I can’t convince myself that miracles from 3000 years ago were real events. They make nice stories and I’ll always enjoy reading the history behind them (and The Prince of Egypt had some fantastic animation), but there is a 0% chance of me believing these things actually happened. If a god wants me to believe in him, his ass can send someone who can make miracles now. There are zero convincing reasons that any miracle-based religion offers for why their god of choice can’t send someone to perform miracles in the age of, you know, cameras.

In addition to that, while Islam has its own unique awfulness related to a very wide range of topics, it shares some problems with a lot of other religions. I hate the whole concept of disbelievers being hellbound, I think it’s genuinely cruel and awful, and I would never follow any religion that advocated for similar ideas. There is no way to reconcile “merciful god who cares about humanity” and “god who sends kind people to hell if they refuse to worship him”. And combining that with the concept of an all-knowing god who knows who will go to heaven or hell before they’re even born is extra shitty. Muslims and members of similar faiths can justify it to themselves all they want, but it will always be fucked up to me. Anything based on something like “follow my rules or suffer eternally” is a manipulative ideology imo.

As for a general belief in a higher power, my personal feeling is that any belief in a god who cares about humans at all does not make sense.

For example, say I make dua for passing a math test and then I get a good grade on it. A lady makes dua for her sick child and the child dies. I could attribute my success in passing the test to divine intervention (instead of the facts that I studied hard and the test wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be). But if that’s the case… why’d Allah answer my prayer while refusing to answer the mother’s? Why’d he care more about me getting an A- in calculus than a child living to see another day? There is no religion, as far as I’m concerned, that has a good answer for this. (Except for our wise polytheistic forefathers, who said “fate is cruel and inescapable death comes for all when we least expect it, LOL!”)

In Islam, we’re always told some variant of “stop asking questions” as the standard response to this issue. There’s always an implication that Allah knows better than you do, so there’s no way your puny human mind can comprehend why these things happen. That’s not satisfactory. If the mother of the deceased child is more pious than I am and a better person than I am and in a more serious situation than I am, but he still refuses to answer her pleas because they’re not part of The Plan, what’s even the value of prayer? It’s just a crapshoot as to whether your dua ends up in Allah’s spam folder or not because “Allah’s mind is unknowable” or “what is meant to happen will happen”.

To me, that just rules out the existence of a god who answers prayers (at least on any sort of logical basis). So I see no value in prayer tbh, or any value in doing anything to worship any higher power that might or might not exist, cuz the bitch clearly don’t care bout us. I’m just gonna live my life and not worry about it. Hopefully if she/he/it does exist, they are at least more chill than Allah’s needy, narcissistic ass.

The tragic “counterarguments” that religious people always make to points like this are all the same. “What if you’re wrong? Are you willing to bet your soul on it?” Yes, I am willing to “bet my soul” that Mr. Flying Donkey Man was a bullshitter, thanks. “But isn’t life meaningless if there’s no afterlife?” I would love to believe in a heaven where everyone lives on forever, even though I don’t believe in it. But no, the lack of an afterlife doesn’t make me feel like the life I’m living right now has any less meaning. “But how could all of this have come from nothing?!?!?!” I don’t know how the universe was created. We could all be living in a giant sim like that one shitty Star Ocean game. But I do know that the creation stories religious people believe in are myths, so they’ve got nothing to offer me.

This?

When the Prophet heard the news that the people of the Persia had made the daughter of Khosrau their Queen (ruler), he said, “Never will succeed such a nation as makes a woman their ruler.”

No, it’s not misinterpreted. The translation is correct and its meaning is pretty self-evident tbh. The woman who prompted this was Queen Boran, the daughter of the former emperor Khosrow and the reigning monarch of Sassanid Persia at the time. Muslims after Mohammed’s death brought his shitty opinion up in relation to Aisha’s brief but exciting foray into politics following Uthman’s assassination. It was essentially a “stay in the kitchen” thing.

Boran was, incidentally, the final reigning female monarch in the entire Middle East for the next several hundred years. Islam’s glorious birth and the subsequent invention of feminism oddly did not lead to an increase in female rulership. 🤔 Also, the Sassanid Empire was completely destroyed during the Islamic conquest around a decade after Boran’s death, along with its male final ruler. Ah well, no one gets all their prophecies right.

There have been a few female rulers in Muslim history despite that, though their numbers were very small. I think… a half-dozen or so women reigned on their own in all Muslim nations combined from the seventh century onwards (versus women who didn’t officially rule but still exerted power through their husbands or sons).

Most only ruled briefly, though two or three maintained genuine political power for decades. I’ll have to do a post about them sometime.

Hey anon, I took a brief hiatus cuz I was studying for a test that I needed to take in order to apply to grad school, sorry for leaving this (and all my other asks, I see y’all don’t worry!) for so long. But my first post-hiatus post is gonna be about polygamy… this is a terrible omen!!

Short answer is you were fed bullshit, ol’ Mo and his buds had multiple wives long before any battling took place. Mohammed himself was married to Sauda and Aisha before he even left Mecca. This wasn’t particularly unusual, because Arabs were polygamous in the first place. It seems like many guys (particularly poor ones) had only one wife, but many well-off guys had two or three at once. Mo’s grandpa had at least three wives concurrently and had either five or six in total over the span of his life. So polygamy was part of their culture, and Mohammed didn’t change it, he just happened to enshrine it long past its expiration date by putting that “marry those women who please you, two or three or four” line in the Quran. (There are some ahadith that suggest it was socially acceptable for pre-Islamic women to have multiple sexual partners or husbands in some cases too, though obviously that custom didn’t make the polytheism-to-Islam leap.)

So they were always polygamous, there was never a point at which Mo banned multiple wives and then later allowed it, he never gave any time limit to the permissibly of polygamy, and there isn’t anything to suggest that polygamy only became common after the Battle of Uhud or whatever. None of them (“them” meaning men) saw anything wrong with polygamy or thought to question it, so they didn’t, and because of this most Islamic countries are #blessed with the four-wives-max rule to this day. Alternatively, Allah just really likes the concept of a harem.

There is a fairly recent trend in the past two centuries or so of some Muslims, especially women, trying to get rid of polygamy. That’s because they recognize that legalizing polygyny but not polyandry inherently devalues women. But sometimes they use religious-based arguments that aren’t quite right, like the one you were taught.

The most valid one I’ve seen is that that the Quran says that men should only marry one woman (or uhh keep some slave girls around for sexual purposes) if they can’t “deal justly” with multiple wives… and then says in another verse that they can never deal justly with multiple wives. That’s a fair argument, because you’ve got The Good Book right here saying “you should only marry multiple women if you do this, and you can’t do this”. Of course the issue with this is that… Mohammed the rest of the sahaba had multiple wives anyway, so, uh. Usually the contradiction is rationalized by saying that the second verse is only about emotional equality, whereas the first is about fulfilling one’s duties as a husband. You can never love all your wives equally, but you can’t 1) deny any of them children (by refusing to sleep with them), or 2) give one wife food and shelter and such but deny it to the others. It doesn’t actually say that, but there’s no other way to explain it if you assume the Quran is The Word Of Allah and Mo is An Example To Humanity etc.

Aw thank you anon. ^_^ And lol the only ppl who say that are the ones in denial and those who don’t know any better. The Islamic conquests were… conquests, not friendship exercises.

The best way to demonstrate this is to start at the end, when the Muslim community wasn’t the small group that emigrated from Mecca anymore, but instead the group in charge of the entire Hijaz and most of western Arabia. The days of enduring “fitna” at the hands of the evildoing Quraysh were long gone, and the battles were now about bringing people into the loving embrace of Allah. The attack on Dhul-Khalasa, for example, was one of Mohammed’s last orders. It was around a month and a half before he kicked the bucket–he was at the height of his power here and controlled Arabia’s largest army. Early Islamic scholars weren’t shy about telling us exactly what he used his soldiers for.

There was a house called Dhul-Khalasa in the Pre-lslamic Period and it was also called Al-Ka'ba Al-Yamaniya or Al-Ka'ba Ash-Shamiya. Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) said to me, “Will you relieve me from Dhul-Khalasa?” So I left for it with 150 cavalrymen from the tribe of Ahmas and then we destroyed it and killed whoever we found there. Then we came to the Prophet (ﷺ) and informed him about it. He invoked good upon us and upon the tribe of Ahmas.

Dhul-Khalasa was one of several temples similar to the Kaaba in Mecca, and it had its own hajj (this is the temple we need to rebuild to fulfill one of the prophecies, get on it Saudi/Yemeni hoes!!). It was no longer allowed to exist after Islam’s glorious domination of the region, so Mo sent his goons to go destroy it and kill whoever tried to defend it. There is no reason for this given in any source, beyond the fact that Mohammed was “ordered” to wipe out polytheism.

In fairness, the guy was pretty up-front about it all…

I have been ordered to fight the people until they bear witness to La Ilaha Illallah (that there is no god but Allah), and that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger, and they face our Qiblah, eat our slaughtered (meat), and perform our Salat.

…and the early Islamic historians accepted all of the recorded massacres, taking of slaves, conquests, and executions of captives. It’s just his modern-day followers who pretend he was a paragon of virtue and peace who never did anything that would amount to a war crime if it happened today. I guess it’s a sign of growth that many people are squeamish about all the horrible shit nowadays…?