This is the English translation of «الدين المفتري عليه» (The Slandered Religion), Part 2 of 10.

Chapter One: The Umayyads — From the Nation’s Choice to Hereditary Rule (الفصل الأول: الأمويون — من اختيار الأمة إلى التوريث)

Damascus, Muharram of the year 61 of the Hijra. In the caliph’s hall sits a young man of thirty-four, only months into his reign. A covered tray is placed before him, and the cover is lifted… and there is the head of al-Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib, the grandson of the Messenger of God, peace be upon him, rolling before the onlookers, the blood not yet dry. Yazid ibn Muawiya leans with his staff, poking at the lips of the severed head, reciting old verses — al-Tabari reports that he recited that day the words of Ibn al-Zibari: “The Hashimites played with kingship — no / revelation came down, nor did any divine tidings.” Then an august elder rises from his seat — Zayd ibn Arqam, the Companion who had seen the Prophet, peace be upon him, with his own eyes — and speaks the words history preserved: “Lift your staff from those two lips, for by God, I saw the lips of the Messenger of God, peace be upon him, kissing them.” Then a captive woman of the Prophet’s household, Zaynab bint Ali, steps forward and delivers her thundering sermon in the caliph’s face: “Plot your plots, strive your utmost, exert your effort — for by God, you shall never erase our memory, nor kill our revelation.”

Stop here a moment and ask yourself: how did the nation of Muhammad, peace be upon him — a mere fifty years after his death — reach a scene in which his grandson’s head is poked at in the مجلس of the “Commander of the Faithful”? What deviation is this that makes the blood of the Prophet’s daughter’s son the price of a throne the nation never chose? This chapter tells the story of that deviation: how the principle “the ruler is chosen” turned into the rule “the ruler is inherited,” and how this transformation donned religion’s garb.

Siffin: When the Qur’ans Were Raised on Spears

The principle of the nation’s choosing its ruler did not fall in a single day; it eroded across years of conflict. After the assassination of Uthman, may God be pleased with him, the nation split: Ali in Iraq pledged as caliph by a general pledge, and Muawiya in Syria demanding Uthman’s blood, refusing the pledge, seeing himself as more entitled to rule or at least not bound to obey Ali.

And the two hosts met at Siffin in the year 37 AH / 657 CE. The scales were tipping toward Ali, the Syrian troops retreating, until came the moment that changed the entire course of Islamic history: Amr ibn al-As advised Muawiya to have his soldiers raise the Qur’ans on the tips of their spears, crying: “O people of Iraq, the Book of God is between us and you.” Picture the scene: an army on the verge of victory sees the Book of God raised in its face, and halts… and splits. Ali spoke that day his immortal words that became a proverb: “A word of truth intended for falsehood.” He knew the Qur’ans were not raised out of love for the Qur’an’s rule, but as a ruse to stop a defeat.

And the matter ended in arbitration: Abu Musa al-Ash’ari representing Ali, and Amr ibn al-As representing Muawiya. Whatever the reports differ over in the details of what happened in the arbiters’ مجلس, the established result is that the arbitration settled nothing, but produced a third split: the Kharijites who rebelled against Ali himself, raising the slogan “judgment belongs to God alone,” and began excommunicating both camps together. Thus the nation emerged from Siffin with three camps instead of two, and with a dangerous precedent: the first time religion — the Qur’an raised on a spear — was used as a political weapon to overturn the balance of power. And ask yourself: had Ali’s army pressed on in its fight that day and settled the battle, would the nation ever have known hereditary rule? No one knows. But what is certain is that those raised Qur’ans were the first time truth was defeated not by falsehood’s strength, but by the employment of the sacred itself. And from that day tyrants learned the lesson: do not fight religion… raise it on your spear.

Then came the final stab: in Ramadan of the year 40 AH / 661 CE, the Kharijite Abd al-Rahman ibn Muljam assassinated Ali ibn Abi Talib as he went out to the dawn prayer in Kufa. The man who had been pledged by the choice of the people of authority and influence died, and the question hung suspended: who rules after him?

“The Year of the Community”… or the Year of the Sword?

Al-Hasan ibn Ali was pledged after his father, and marched with the Iraqi army to confront Muawiya — but his army was fractured and faint-hearted, and al-Hasan saw that battle meant a massacre among Muslims, victory for no one. So he chose to spare blood and stepped down in favor of Muawiya in the year 41 AH / 661 CE, in what was called “the Year of the Community.”

This year is celebrated in the history books as the nation’s reunification after division — but look at it with a discerning eye: did the nation gather around Muawiya by free choice? Or did it gather because the sword had decided, and because the alternative was an endless civil war? The bitter truth is that the “Year of the Community” was in reality the crowning of a dangerous transformation: the first time the caliphate was decided by the sword rather than by shura, and the first time the logic of force became the arbiter of who rules the Muslims.

And Muawiya sat on the throne twenty years (41–60 AH), a shrewd politician of the Arabs without dispute. His famous saying sums up his philosophy of rule: “If there were a single hair between me and the people, it would never snap; when they pull it I loosen it, and when they loosen it I pull it.” Muawiya was no foolish tyrant, but a skillful politician who knew when to soften and when to harden, when to buy loyalties and when to cut necks. But political shrewdness — however great — does not change the nature of the system: Muawiya founded a hereditary kingship dressed in the caliphate’s title, and left to his sons after him a precedent that would cost the nation rivers of blood.

The Pledge to Yazid: Breaking the Rule

The decisive step came when Muawiya decided to extract the bay’ah for his son Yazid after him, while he was still alive. This was a precedent Muslim history had never known: the four Rightly Guided Caliphs — Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali — each came by a different mechanism, but what they all shared was that the nation (or its people of authority and influence) chose. As for hereditary succession: power passing from father to son as an estate and livestock pass — this was an explicit break with the rule.

And the senior Companions refused it. Al-Husayn ibn Ali refused to pledge a man in whom he saw corruption and debauchery, and spoke his words that became a principle: “One like me does not pledge one like him” — it was no personal refusal of Yazid, but a declaration that the bearer of the message may not grant legitimacy to one who demolishes religion. Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr likewise refused and took refuge in Mecca. And Abdullah ibn Umar — the nation’s scholar — withheld the pledge at first, holding to the principle that leadership is a choice, not an inheritance.

But Muawiya imposed it by force and inducement together: gifts for those who yielded, threats for those who refused, until the provinces submitted. And history recorded the most famous voice of opposition: when Marwan ibn al-Hakam preached in Medina calling for Yazid’s pledge and said “the practice of Abu Bakr and Umar,” Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr — the son of al-Siddiq — stood and answered him: “Rather, the practice of Heraclius and Caesar!” The words were painfully precise: what is the difference between a Caesar bequeathing his son the empire, and a caliph bequeathing his son the “caliphate”? The only difference is that the second does it in religion’s name. And the historians report that on his deathbed he counseled his son Yazid with advice revealing he knew the magnitude of the crime he was committing: he enjoined him to treat al-Husayn ibn Ali well, telling him in effect that if he got hold of him he should pardon him, for he knew the people would not stay silent over an imposed pledge. Then Muawiya died in Rajab of the year 60 AH / 680 CE, and Yazid sat on a throne the nation had never chosen, and its finest men had never approved.

And here comes the question every reader must stop at: what makes a ruler think the nation is a flock to be inherited? The answer: the absence of a mechanism to stop him. When the nation owns no right to choose its ruler, remove him, and hold him accountable, rule becomes booty divided among the strong, and religion merely a seal stamped upon the booty.

Karbala: The Price of the Inherited Pledge

No sooner had Muawiya died than Yazid wrote to his governor in Medina, al-Walid ibn Utba, ordering him to extract the pledge from al-Husayn ibn Ali immediately — “and if he refuses, strike his neck” — and Marwan ibn al-Hakam urged him not to miss the opportunity. But al-Husayn left Medina by night for Mecca, and wrote to his brother Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya his immortal testament that sums up why he refused: “I did not go out in insolence or arrogance, nor as a corrupter or wrongdoer; I went out seeking reform in the nation of my grandfather Muhammad, peace be upon him — I wish to enjoin the good and forbid the evil.”

Then came to him the letters of the people of Kufa — thousands of letters pledging him and inviting him — so he sent his cousin Muslim ibn Aqil to scout the matter, then set out himself with his household and companions. But Yazid dismissed Kufa’s governor and appointed over it Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, a man who knew no mercy; he killed Muslim ibn Aqil, bought loyalties, frightened the people, and they abandoned al-Husayn.

And at Karbala, on the tenth of Muharram in the year 61 AH / 680 CE, Yazid’s army surrounded some seventy men, women, and children. The night before, al-Husayn gathered his companions and said to them: “I know no companions more loyal or better than my companions, nor any household more dutiful or caring than my household… This night has covered you, so take it as your camel, and let each man of you go to his own land — for the people seek only me.” They all refused, saying: we will not leave you. And in the morning he preached to Ibn Sa’d’s army, reminding them of his lineage: the grandson of the Prophet, peace be upon him, the son of his daughter, a master of the youth of Paradise, he and his brother — then spoke his immortal words when given the choice between the pledge and humiliation: “Behold, Ibn Ziyad has given me the choice between two things: between the sword and humiliation — and humiliation is far from us.”

And al-Husayn, his household, and his companions were all killed that day, and the heads were carried to Kufa then to Damascus, where the scene with which we opened this chapter took place: the head before Yazid, the staff poking at the lips, Zayd ibn Arqam protesting, Zaynab preaching. Karbala fell, then, not because al-Husayn sought a kingdom, but because he refused to grant legitimacy to an inherited rule the nation had never chosen. Karbala was the first blood invoice paid for Yazid’s pledge — and it would not be the last.

Al-Harra and Mecca: Three Years of Terror

No sooner had two years passed since Karbala than Medina itself exploded. A delegation of Medinans had visited Yazid in Damascus and seen with their own eyes what was rumored of his debauchery: wine, revelry, and abandoning prayer. They returned and deposed him at the Prophet’s pulpit, expelled his governor and officials, and pledged Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr in Mecca. So Yazid prepared an army from Syria thousands strong, appointing over it Muslim ibn Uqba — whom the people of the Hijaz called “Musrif” (the Prodigal) for how much blood he spilled.

And in 63 AH / 683 CE came the “Day of al-Harra”: the Medinans were defeated under Abdullah ibn Hanzala — the son of “he whom the angels washed” — and he was killed in the battle along with many Companions, sons of Companions, and bearers of the Qur’an. Then Muslim gave free rein over Medina — the city of the Messenger of God, peace be upon him — to the Syrian army for three full days: killing, plundering, and violation, from which none escaped except those who pledged Yazid as his “slave.” Three days in which the holiest city after Mecca was violated, in revenge for refusing a pledge it had never chosen.

Then the army marched to Mecca to crush Ibn al-Zubayr. Muslim ibn Uqba died on the way, and al-Husayn ibn Numayr took over, besieged Mecca in the year 64 AH / 683 CE, set up catapults on its mountains, and pelted the Kaaba with stones and fire until its covering burned and its walls cracked. The Kaaba — God’s Sacred House, never pelted in pagan times nor in Islam — pelted by catapult by order of the “Commander of the Faithful”!

Three years only of unelected rule sufficed to spill the blood of the Prophet’s grandson, violate his city, and strike his Sacred House. Such is power when freed of every restraint: no religion deters it, for it is the one that defines religion; no nation deters it, for it has stripped the nation of the right to speak.

Nor did the tragedy end with Yazid’s death in the year 64 AH. Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr remained a recognized caliph in the Hijaz and Iraq for years, until power settled with Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, who sent al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf against him in the year 72 AH; he besieged him in Mecca six months and pelted the Kaaba with the catapult anew from atop Mount Abu Qubays, until Ibn al-Zubayr was killed in 73 AH / 692 CE — an old man past seventy — and his body was crucified. And his mother Asma bint Abi Bakr — Dhat al-Nitaqayn, past a hundred — stood before al-Hajjaj unbowed and spoke her famous words: “The sheep is not harmed by being skinned after it is slaughtered.” She died days after her son’s killing, as though refusing to live in a world where the Companions’ sons are crucified by order of the “caliphate.”

Ziyad and al-Hajjaj: The Sultan’s Whip

Tyranny does not rule by the sword alone; it needs those who terrorize the people in its name, and those who legitimize it with religion’s tongue. And the Umayyad age presented both models together: the executioner-governor, and the court jurist.

As for the executioner-governor, his example is Ziyad ibn Abihi, whom Muawiya appointed over Basra then added Kufa and Khurasan to it. Ziyad entered Basra, mounted the pulpit, and delivered his famous “batra” sermon — so called because, unlike the preachers’ custom, he did not open it with praise of God, but entered straight into threats: “Food and drink are forbidden to me until I level it to the ground with demolition and burning,” and sealed it with his rule of governance: “I have seen that the end of this affair is set right only by what set right its beginning: gentleness without weakness, and severity without violence.” And among his mottos the people passed on: “Whoever drowns, we drown him; whoever burns, we burn him.” Thus open terror became the official language of rule, delivered from the pulpit of the Messenger of God, peace be upon him.

And as for al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf al-Thaqafi, whom Abd al-Malik appointed over Iraq and the entire East in the year 75 AH / 694 CE, ruling it twenty years — he entered Kufa veiled, mounted the pulpit, and spoke his sermon still narrated to this day: “O people of Iraq, O people of discord and hypocrisy… I see heads that have ripened and whose harvest has come, and I am their harvester.” Then he followed words with deeds: killing, imprisoning, exiling; he crushed the revolt of Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Ash’ath — which the jurists and Qur’an-reciters joined until it was called “the Revolt of the Reciters” — and finished off the last organized resistance in Iraq with the massacre of Dayr al-Jamajim, and the land submitted to the sword for twenty years. And he imposed the jizya and land tax even on the mawali who had embraced Islam — in explicit violation of Islam’s principle of equality — because the state’s treasury mattered more than religion’s justice.

And as for the court jurist, he is the other face of the coin: a class of scholars grew up around the palaces, whose function was to legitimize absolute obedience and forbid rebelling against the ruler “even if he flogs your back and takes your wealth,” and to dress every sultanic decision in the garb of the texts. Thus was completed the equation that would rule for centuries: the sultan’s sword cuts necks, and the jurist’s whip cuts tongues — in religion’s name in both cases. And it became commonplace to ask the jurist: is it permitted to rebel against the unjust ruler? And he would answer with emphatic prohibition — while no one asked: is it permitted for the ruler to wrong, bequeath, and violate? The very scale of the question was inverted: religion became the sultan’s guardian against the nation, instead of the nation’s guardian against the sultan.

Abd al-Malik: The State Completed… and the Gap Widened

In the reign of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (65–86 AH / 685–705 CE) the Umayyad state reached the peak of its strength and organization: the diwans that had been run in Persian and Greek were Arabized, the unified Arab dinar was struck instead of Byzantine and Persian coinage, and power was centralized in Damascus as never before. It was a strong, awe-inspiring, organized state — and that is precisely the danger: for organized despotism is more lethal than chaotic despotism, because it builds institutions that serve tyranny and immortalize it.

But the price was deepening the gap that would kill the state itself: the mawali — non-Arab Muslims, especially the Persians in Khurasan — paid taxes and land levies and were denied equality with the Arabs in stipends and offices, even after their Islam. Islam became an Arab religion in an Arab state, and the mawali became the fuel of its wars and the pockets of its taxes, without the rights of citizenship. This was the seed of a revolution that would explode decades later, at the hands of the Abbasids who would masterfully exploit this anger — not to do the mawali justice, but to ride their wave to the throne. And the Abbasids understood this equation well: instead of promising the mawali justice, they promised them revenge — and revenge is a keener fuel than justice for mustering armies, though fouler in consequence.

The Exception That Proves the Rule

Amid this dark record one name shines like lightning in a pitch-black night: Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, who assumed the caliphate in the year 99 AH and ruled only two years. He returned wrongs to their owners, stopped the cursing of Ali ibn Abi Talib on the pulpits — that shameful Umayyad innovation — replacing it with God’s words: “Indeed, God commands justice and excellence,” equalized Arabs and mawali, and wrote to his governors: “Look to whoever has a grievance and deliver it to him.” Until he was called “the fifth of the Rightly Guided Caliphs.”

But ask yourself: what happened two years after his death? The state returned to its former ways, as though nothing had been. And this is the lesson this book wants: Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz was a righteous man in a corrupt system, and his righteousness did not reform the system — it died with him. Systems are not built on the righteousness of individuals — for individuals die — but on the institutions that restrain the ruler, whoever he is: a mechanism of selection, a mechanism of accountability, a mechanism of removal. And without these mechanisms, justice remains a passing guest who departs with his host, and injustice remains the resident rule.

The Conclusion

The Umayyads are the first chapter of the deviation: they broke the rule “the ruler is chosen” and replaced it with “the ruler is inherited,” sanctified this transformation with religion, and built for it a strong state, an unsheathed sword, and jurists who legitimize. And since Yazid’s pledge, the question in every later age has been the same: who owns the right to remove the ruler? And to this day, in regimes that bequeath rule — republic or monarchy — we still live with the effects of that first pledge. For every system that places the ruler above questioning — choosing himself, or bequeathing his son, or ruling in an unquestionable sacred name — only reproduces Yazid’s pledge in a modern formula, awaiting its bloody invoices sooner or later.

But the story did not end with the Umayyads’ fall. For in the far east, in Khurasan, the angry mawali — denied equality and burdened with taxes — were whispering in their secret مجالس the name of a mysterious man whose face no one knew, promising them “al-Rida from the House of Muhammad.” Black banners were being sewn in secret, swords sharpened in the dark. The revolution was simmering… and would soon emerge — not to restore shura, but to replace masters with masters. And that is what we shall see in the next chapter.