Husayn ibn Ali (680) † The Second Fitna was a period of general political and military disorder and civil war in the Islamic community during the early Umayyad Caliphate.

After the assassination of the third caliph, Uthman, the Islamic community experienced its first civil war over the question of leadership, with the main contenders being Ali and Mu'awiya.

Ali emerged victorious against these early opponents at the Battle of the Camel near Basra in November 656, thereupon moving his capital to the Iraqi garrison town of Kufa.

[4] Mu'awiya, the governor of Syria, and a member of the Umayyad clan to which Uthman belonged, also denounced Ali's legitimacy as caliph, and the two confronted each other at the Battle of Siffin.

Ali reluctantly agreed to talks, but a faction of his forces, later called the Kharijites, broke away in protest, condemning his acceptance of arbitration as blasphemous.

[11] With no precedence in Islamic history, hereditary succession aroused opposition from different quarters and the nomination was considered the corruption of the caliphate into a monarchy.

[15] Historian Fred Donner writes that contentions over the leadership of the Muslim community had not been settled in the First Fitna and resurfaced with the death of Mu'awiya in April 680.

[19] In the view of the Islamicist G. R. Hawting, "... tensions and pressures which had been suppressed by Mu'awiya came to the surface during Yazid's caliphate and erupted after his death, when Umayyad authority was temporarily eclipsed.

[25] In addition to the growing influence of Ibn al-Zubayr in Medina, the city's inhabitants were disillusioned with Umayyad rule and Mu'awiya's agricultural projects,[3] which included confiscation of their lands to increase government revenue.

They were unpersuaded, however, and on their return to Medina narrated tales of Yazid's lavish lifestyle and practices considered by many to be impious, including drinking wine, hunting with hounds and his love for music.

[28] With the demise of Yazid and the withdrawal of Syrian troops, Ibn al-Zubayr was now de facto ruler of the Hejaz and the rest of Arabia,[note 3] and he openly declared himself caliph.

[36] Ibn Ziyad convinced Marwan to put forward his own candidacy as Khalid was considered too young for the post by the non-Kalbites in the pro-Umayyad coalition.

[41][42] The weakening of central authority resulted in the outbreak of tribal factionalism and rivalries that the Arab emigrants of the Muslim armies had brought with them in the conquered lands.

The Rabi'a opposed Zubayrid rule due to their hatred of the Mudarite Ibn Khazim, who ultimately suppressed them, but soon after faced rebellion from his erstwhile allies from the Banu Tamim.

[53] A few prominent Alid supporters in Kufa seeking to atone for their failure to assist Husayn, which they considered a sin, launched a movement under Sulayman ibn Surad, a companion of Muhammad and an ally of Ali, to fight the Umayyads.

After caliph Yazid's death and the subsequent ouster of Ibn Ziyad, the Tawwabin openly called for avenging Husayn's slaying.

[54] Although they attracted large-scale support in Kufa,[55] they lacked a political program, their chief objective being to punish the Umayyads or sacrifice themselves in the process.

[58] Since his return to Kufa, Mukhtar had been calling for revenge against Husayn's killers and the establishment of an Alid caliphate in the name of Ali's son Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya, while declaring himself his representative.

In October 685, Mukhtar and his supporters, a significant number of whom consisted of local, non-Arab converts (mawali), overthrew Ibn al-Zubayr's governor and seized control of Kufa.

After their disastrous defeat at Marj Rahit, the Qays had regrouped in the Jazira and had hampered Ibn Ziyad's efforts to reconquer the province for a year.

[68] With Ibn Ziyad dead, Abd al-Malik abandoned his plans to reconquer Iraq for several years and focused on consolidating Syria,[69] where his rule was threatened by internal disturbances and renewed hostilities with the Byzantines.

The Kharijites had resumed their raids in Arabia, Iraq and Persia following the collapse of central authority as a result of the civil war.

With a significant number of his forces and his most experienced commander Muhallab ibn Abi Sufra away to guard Basra from the Kharijites, Mus'ab was unable to effectively counter Abd al-Malik.

The siege lasted for six to seven months; the bulk of Ibn al-Zubayr's forces surrendered and he was killed fighting alongside his remaining partisans in October/November.

[87] In addition, Arabic was made the official language of the bureaucracy and a single Islamic currency replaced Byzantine and Sasanian coinage,[88] giving the Umayyad administration an increasingly Muslim character.

[92] The division persisted long after the Umayyads' fall; the historian Hugh Kennedy writes: "As late as the nineteenth century, battles were still being fought in Palestine between groups calling themselves Qays and Yaman".

[93] The death of Husayn produced widespread outcry and helped crystallize opposition to Yazid into an anti-Umayyad movement based on Alid aspirations.

[97] This period also saw the end of purely Arab Shi'ism in the revolt of Mukhtar al-Thaqafi,[98] who mobilized the marginalized and socioeconomically exploited mawali by redressing their grievances.

[99][100][101] Despite its immediate political failure, Mukhtar's movement was survived by the Kaysanites, a radical Shi'a sect, who introduced novel theological and eschatological concepts that influenced the later development of Shi'ism.

[105] Although the title had previously been applied to Muhammad, Ali, Husayn, and others as an honorific, Mukhtar employed the term in a messianic sense: a divinely guided ruler, who would redeem Islam.