8. The Assassination of Ali Transformed a Limited Power Dispute Into a Permanent Rift Within Islam
Ali went ahead with the arbitration to settle his dispute with the rival Caliph Muawiyah. However, the arbitration turned into a fiasco without settling the dispute, and only served to weaken him politically. The Khawarij soured on Ali, whom they now viewed as much of a usurper as his rival. So they decided to get rid of both, and hatched an assassination plot to kill the rival Caliphs on the same day during Friday prayers.
Ali’s assassins succeeded in stabbing him to death in the Great Mosque in Kufa, Iraq, but those sent after his rival only wounded him. Muawiyah survived, emerged as sole Caliph, and went on to found the Umayyad Dynasty. The Khawarij rose in rebellion against Muawiyah, who eventually crushed them. Embers remained, however, and the Khawarij became the anarchists of Islam’s first centuries. Rejecting the Caliph’s authority, they engaged in a campaign of terror and assassinations, combined with a low-level insurgency that flared up every generation or two into a major rebellion. They became the model for modern Islamist terrorists, such as Al Qaeda and ISIS.
