Everything about Second Fitna totally explained
The
Second Fitna, or
Second Islamic Civil War, was a period of general political and military disorder that afflicted the Islamic world during the early
Umayyad dynasty, following the death of the first Umayyad
caliph Muawiyah I. There seems to be a lack of solid consensus on the exact range of years that define the conflict, with several different historians dating the Second Fitna differently. Some see the end of Muawiya's reign in 680 AD as marking the beginning of the period, while the year 683 (following the death of Muawiya's son the caliph
Yazid I) is cited by others. Similarly, the end is variously dated from 685 (after the ascension of caliph
Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan) to 692 (following the death of
Ibn al-Zubair and the termination of
his revolt). The dates 683-685 seem to be the most commonly used.
The Second Fitna was a time of complexity in the Islamic world, involving a number of different occurrences that were seemingly not directly connected with one another. A brief sketch of the major events of the period may however be given as follows.
The first Umayyad caliph
Muawiya I was succeeded upon his death in 680 by his son,
Yazid I. Yazid's first opposition came from supporters of
Husayn ibn Ali, who was the grandson of the prophet
Muhammad and the son of the former caliph
Ali ibn Abi Talib, who had been assassinated. Husayn and many of his closest supporters were killed by Yazid's troops at the
Battle of Karbala. This battle is often cited as the definitive break between the
Shi'a and
Sunni sects of Islam, and until this day it has been commemorated each year by Shi'a muslims on the
Day of Ashura.
Following these occurrences, Yazid faced a second revolt from
Ibn al-Zubair, who was the son of a former
Sahabi,
Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, who had previously revolted against the caliph
Ali at the
Battle of Bassorah. Ibn al-Zubayr's rebellion was seen by many as an attempt to return to the pristine values of the early Islamic community, and his revolt was welcomed by a number of parties that were unhappy with the
Umayyad rule for various reasons. Following the sudden death of Yazid and his son Muawiyah II in 683, Ibn al-Zubayr gained widespread recognition as caliph, but he was isolated in the
Hejaz region when
Kharijite rebels established an independent state in central
Arabia in 684.
Other
Kharijite uprisings followed in
Iraq and
Iran, while
Shiites revolted in
Kufah to avenge the death of Husayn and to promote another of Ali's sons as a candidate for caliph. Eventually, order was restored by Syrian forces supporting the Umayyad chief
Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, who attained the caliphate in 685. He was able to defeat all of his various rivals, and he killed Ibn al-Zubair in 692, bringing this period of exceptional turbulence to an end.
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