Second Fitna

Second Fitna
Part of the Fitnas
Territorial control by the contenders to the caliphate during the peak of the civil war (686)
Date 680–692 Location Arabia Syria Jazira Iraq Result Umayyad victory
Belligerents
Umayyad Caliphate	Zubayrid Caliphate	Alids	Kharijites
Commanders and leaders
Yazid I Muslim ibn Uqba Umar ibn Sa'ad (686) † Marwan I Abd al-Malik Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad (686) † Husayn ibn Numayr (686) † Hajjaj ibn Yusuf	Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr (692) † Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr (691) † Ibrahim ibn al-Ashtar (691) † Muhallab ibn Abi Sufra (Defected)	Husayn ibn Ali (680) † Sulayman ibn Surad (685) † Mukhtar al-Thaqafi (687) † Ibrahim ibn al-Ashtar (Defected)	Nafi ibn al-Azraq (685) † Najda ibn Amir al-Hanafi (691/92) †

The Second Fitna was a period of general political and military disorder and civil war in the Islamic community during the early Umayyad Caliphate.^{[note 1]} It followed the death of the first Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I in 680, and lasted for about twelve years. The war involved the suppression of two challenges to the Umayyad dynasty, the first by Husayn ibn Ali, as well as his supporters including Sulayman ibn Surad and Mukhtar al-Thaqafi who rallied for his revenge in Iraq, and the second by Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr.

The roots of the civil war go back to the First Fitna. 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. Following the assassination of Ali in 661 and the abdication of his successor Hasan the same year, Mu'awiya became the sole ruler of the caliphate. Mu'awiya's unprecedented decision to nominate his son Yazid as his heir sparked opposition, and tensions soared after Mu'awiya's death. Husayn ibn Ali was invited by the pro-Alids^{[note 2]} of Kufa to overthrow the Umayyads but was killed with his small company en route to Kufa at the Battle of Karbala in October 680. Yazid's army assaulted anti-government rebels in Medina in August 683 and subsequently besieged Mecca, where Ibn al-Zubayr had established himself in opposition to Yazid. After Yazid died in November the siege was abandoned, and Umayyad authority collapsed throughout the caliphate except in certain parts of Syria; most provinces recognized Ibn al-Zubayr as caliph. A series of pro-Alid movements demanding revenge for Husayn's death emerged in Kufa, beginning with Ibn Surad's Penitents movement, which was crushed by the Umayyads at the Battle of Ayn al-Warda in January 685. Kufa was then taken over by Mukhtar. Though his forces routed a large Umayyad army at the Battle of Khazir in August 686, Mukhtar and his supporters were slain by the Zubayrids in April 687 following a series of battles. Under the leadership of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, the Umayyads reasserted control over the caliphate after defeating the Zubayrids at the Battle of Maskin in Iraq and killing Ibn al-Zubayr in the siege of Mecca in 692.

Abd al-Malik made key reforms in the administrative structure of the caliphate, including increasing caliphal power, restructuring the army, and Arabizing and Islamizing the bureaucracy. The events of the Second Fitna intensified sectarian tendencies in Islam, and various doctrines were developed within what would later become the Sunni and Shi'a denominations of Islam.

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