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Horrific Facts from History that Will Invade Nightmares

Khalid Elhassan October 31, 2021 35 min

Hulagu and a cowering Caliph after the fall of Baghdad. Deadliest Blogger

9. Unwittingly, These Early Islamic Radicals Helped Establish the First Muslim Hereditary Caliphate

Ali ignored Khawarij’s objections and went ahead with the arbitration. In hindsight, he might have regretted it. The arbitration turned into a fiasco, and neither settled the succession dispute nor produced a result other than to weaken Ali 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.

The Khawarij assassins who went after Ali succeeded and got their man in 661. However, those who went after his rival Caliph Muawiya only managed to wound him. He survived, emerged as the lone Caliph, and went on to establish the Umayyad Caliphate, a hereditary monarchy in all but name. The Khawarij rose in rebellion against Muawiya, now Islam’s sole ruler thanks to a helping hand from the Khawarij’s botched plot that had killed his rival, but left him alive.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.