3 – Start of the Second Fitna & the Battle of Karbala (680)
Muawiyah ruled without too many issues for 19 years but the period after his death was marked by military and political disorder. There is some debate over the beginning of the Second Fitna. Some historians believe it started with the death of Muawiyah in 680 while others suggest it began in earnest with the death of his son and successor, Yazid I in 683.
In many ways, you could say the First and Second Fitnas were merely different rounds of the same war as they were fought between the same factions for more or less the same reasons. Although the first civil war was apparently about Ali’s unwillingness to punish Uthman’s assassins, there was another important reason. There was a fear that his rise to power would result in an inherited caliphate which the vast majority of Muslims did not want. When Muawiyah died, his son became the next caliph which of course meant that the loathed institutional monarchy was a reality.
As was the case with Ali who had to fight off threats to his leadership, Yazid I faced the same problems. Husayn, who was Ali’s youngest son, and was also the grandson of Muhammad, had supporters who wanted their man as leader. Husayn refused to pledge allegiance to Yazid and fled to Mecca and then towards Kufa to avoid arrest. He believed that the people of Kufa would back him in his fight against Yazid, but when he came close to the city, he found out that the people were standing by the current caliph.
Husayn was in a terrible spot and decided to stay and fight against the army that Yazid had sent after him. He had no more than 150 men while the enemy had at least 4,000 soldiers with some estimates claiming there were up to 30,000. In what was known as the Battle of Karbala in 680, Husayn fought bravely, but he died along with the vast majority of his troops.
As well as marking the end of one of Yazid’s main threats to his leadership, some historians believe Karbala marked the breaking up of the Sunni and S’hia sects of Islam. However, both sects continue to commemorate the battle on the Day of Ashura. It is also a fact that there was no such thing as the Sunni order at that stage in history! However, Karbala was important because it marked the beginning of another rift. Those who had once been Ali’s partisans started to feel like ‘outsiders’ from the Caliphate and began to reject its authority.
Experts in early Islamic history believe that if Karbala did not happen and Husayn died peacefully in old age, the movement now known as Shi’ism would have taken a very different course or perhaps never even started at all. Historically, the Battle of Karbala is slated as the end of the first period of the Second Fitna.