Editing Caliphate (section)

===Rashidun Caliphs===
The caliphate of Abu Bakr (632–634), which signified the continuation of the polity that Muhammad had founded in

Medina, was challenged by a number of tribes in the Arabian Peninsula. They had acknowledged Muhammad’s authority by embracing Islam and sending tribute to Medina, but several of them now refused to continue their tributary status, and some renounced allegiance to the new faith as well. Abu Bakr’s first challenge was to subdue these rebellious tribes to secure the future of the nascent caliphate. The armies he sent against them did not stop at reasserting Medina’s authority, however, but embarked on an extraordinarily daring path of conquests outside the Arabian Peninsula. Muhammad had already led campaigns in the Syrian desert, and Muslim armies now began operations simultaneously in the Byzantine territories of Syria and Palestine and in the Sassanian territories. The degree to which the conquest of the Byzantine and Sassanian territories was the result of careful planning or coordination from Medina is uncertain; yet by the time Abu Bakr died (634), two years after the death of Muhammad, the early Islamic state was already on its way to becoming a major world empire.

The beginnings of the administrative organization of the caliphate are credited to Abu Bakr’s immediate successor, Umar ibn al-Khattab (r. 634–644). He created a military register (''diwan'') for the payment of the troops and for the disbursement of pensions to other members of the Muslim community. It was in his reign that the first garrison towns were established in the conquered lands, a system of taxation was put in place, and efforts were made to minimize the social and economic disruptions inherent in this rapid conquest. Yet it was not just the conquered people but also the new conquerors who had to cope with the changes set in motion by the expansion of the Medinan state. Entire tribes came to settle in the newly acquired territories, and, quite apart from such rivalries as they may have brought with them from their earlier environs, new grievances and conflicts were provoked by the competing claims of those who had converted to Islam early or late (which determined the share of one’s stipends), by the unfamiliar demands of the nascent state on its subjects, and by the conduct and policies of the caliph or his agents.

Such resentments came to the surface in the reign of ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan (r. 644–656), the third Caliph, who was eventually murdered in Medina by disaffected Arab tribesmen from the garrisons of [[Kufa]], Basra, and Egypt. The murder of ‘Uthman inaugurated the series of bitter conflicts within the Muslim community that are collectively known as the ''fitna''—a highly evocative term suggesting a time of temptation and trial, dissension, and chaos. This civil war, Islam’s first, was to continue throughout the reign of ‘Uthman’s successor, ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 656–661), and it ended only with the latter’s assassination and the rise of the Umayyad dynasty (r. 661–750). The events of these years were debated by Muslims for centuries: It is to these events that later Muslims looked in explaining and arguing over their sectarian divisions, some of which were to prove permanent. Even in later centuries, it was never easy to explain how the first community of believers, formed by the Prophet’s own guidance, had fallen into such turmoil so soon after his death.