Who Were the Rightly Guided Caliphs?
The Rightly Guided Caliphs (Rashidun) were the first four successors of the Prophet Muhammad: Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, who ruled the caliphate from 632 to 661.
The Rightly Guided Caliphs, known in Arabic as the Rashidun, were the first four successors of the Prophet Muhammad: Abu Bakr (r. 632-634), Umar ibn al-Khattab (r. 634-644), Uthman ibn Affan (r. 644-656), and Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 656-661). The four ruled the Muslim community from the death of the Prophet in 632 until the accession of the Umayyad dynasty in 661. The four are called “Rightly Guided” by Sunni Muslims because they are believed to have ruled in accordance with the Qur’an and the sunna (practice) of the Prophet and to have been the models of pious, just, and legitimate Islamic rule.
The period of the Rashidun coincided with the first great wave of the Arab conquests, the consolidation of the Muslim state, and the elaboration of the basic institutions of the caliphate. It was also the period of the first civil war of Islam, the First Fitna, which broke out in 656 and ended with the assassination of Ali and the accession of the Umayyad caliphate. The four caliphs are, accordingly, remembered as a kind of golden age of the caliphate, the model of legitimate rule that later caliphs aspired to imitate but rarely achieved.
Abu Bakr (r. 632-634)
Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, the father of Aisha, was the Prophet’s father-in-law, his close friend, and one of the earliest converts to Islam. He was chosen as the Prophet’s successor at a meeting of the Muslims of Medina shortly after the Prophet’s death, in the famous assembly of Saqifa. The selection was contested by some of the partisans of Ali, but Abu Bakr’s claims were recognized by the broader community, and his accession is generally seen as the foundation of the caliphate as an institution.
Abu Bakr’s brief caliphate (632-634) was dominated by the problem of the riddah, the apostasy of the Arabian tribes that had followed Muhammad but were not yet fully committed to Islam. Abu Bakr organized a series of military campaigns, known as the Riddah Wars, to bring the rebellious tribes back into the fold. The campaigns succeeded, and the Muslim state emerged from the crisis stronger than before, with the new confidence that the Arab tribes had been unified under the caliphate. Abu Bakr also began the great Arab conquests, sending the armies into Syria and Iraq in 633-634. He died in 634, having named Umar as his successor.
Umar ibn al-Khattab (r. 634-644)
Umar, who had been one of the early opponents of Islam before his conversion in 616, became the second caliph in 634. His caliphate was the period of the great Arab conquests: the defeat of the Byzantines at Yarmuk (636), the fall of Damascus (635), the conquest of Jerusalem (637), the fall of Ctesiphon (637), and the conquest of Egypt (639-642). The Muslim state was, by the end of Umar’s caliphate, the largest in the world.
Umar is also remembered for his role in shaping the institutions of the caliphate. He organized the system of provincial governors, the diwan (register) of the soldiers and pensioners, the fiscal system based on the land tax and the alms tax, and the calendar (the Hijri calendar, beginning in 622). He was famous for the simplicity of his personal life, his personal supervision of the welfare of the poor and the orphans, and his careful distinction between the personal property of the caliph and the public revenues of the state. Umar was assassinated in 644 by a Christian slave, and was succeeded by a committee of six that eventually chose Uthman.
Uthman ibn Affan (r. 644-656)
Uthman, a wealthy merchant of the Umayyad clan of the Quraysh, was chosen as the third caliph in 644. His caliphate presided over the further expansion of the caliphate: the completion of the conquest of Iran, the expansion into North Africa, and major campaigns in the east. The most consequential decision of Uthman’s caliphate was the production of a unified text of the Qur’an, the so-called Uthmanic codex, which became the standard text of the Muslim scripture and the basis of the textual tradition that has come down to the present.
Uthman’s caliphate was, however, marked by growing opposition. The Umayyad clan, to which he belonged, was accused of nepotism and of favoring their kinsmen in the appointment of governors. A mutiny of soldiers in Egypt led to Uthman’s assassination in 656. His death precipitated the First Fitna, the first civil war of Islam, and the accession of Ali.
Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 656-661)
Ali, the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, had been one of the earliest converts to Islam and was a member of the Prophet’s household. He had been passed over in the selection of the first three caliphs, and his supporters held that the caliphate was his by right. His accession in 656 was contested from the start by the Umayyad governor of Syria, Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, a cousin of Uthman, who held Ali responsible for failing to bring Uthman’s murderers to justice.
The First Fitna pitted Ali against Muawiyah in a series of battles, including the Battle of the Trench (not the same as the Prophet’s battle) and the Battle of Siffin (657). The war was complicated by the secession of the Kharijites, an egalitarian movement that had broken with Ali after he agreed to submit his dispute with Muawiyah to arbitration. Ali was assassinated in 661 by a Kharijite, and his elder son Hasan briefly succeeded him before abdicating in favor of Muawiyah. The death of Ali’s younger son Husayn at the Battle of Karbala in 680 hardened the Shia sense of grievance against the Umayyads, and the Sunni-Shia split became a permanent feature of Islam.
The Significance of the Rashidun
The four Rashidun caliphs are remembered in Sunni Islam as the model of pious and legitimate rule. Their caliphates were short - altogether, less than thirty years - but they presided over the most consequential period of Islamic history. The institutions of the caliphate, the basic text of the Qur’an, the great Arab conquests, and the foundational divisions of the Muslim community all date from this period. The four are commemorated in the Islamic calendar: in Sunni tradition, the four are collectively known as the Rashidun, the Rightly Guided, and their example is invoked as a standard for later caliphs. In Shia tradition, only Ali is regarded as a legitimate caliph, and the first three are seen as usurpers.