Ali and Muawiyah's Dispute: The Beginning of the Collapse of the Khulafaur Rasyidin Institution

Ali and Muawiyah's Dispute: The Beginning of the Collapse of the Khulafaur Rasyidin Institution

The story begins when Ali bin Abi Talib plans to fire Muawiyah who was then governor of Syria in the period of Umar and Uthman. As the fourth Caliph of Muslims, Ali of course had the authority to determine who would be his assistants in terms of administration.

But Muawiyah at that time refused to be fired by Ali. Muawiyah instead urged Ali to investigate the case of Uthman's death first. Muawiyah then draped Uthman's shirt on the pulpit of the Damascus mosque and invited his supporters to ask for the processing of Uthman's death case. The country of Syria was so turbulent that the people of the Kalb tribe vowed to take revenge for Uthman's death.

Both parties have their own arguments in conveying their interests. Ali emphasized that he was a leader to be obeyed, so that Muslims would not equate the position between Ali and Muawiyah. Ali became their choice and therefore it became obligatory for Muawiyah to pledge allegiance to him and obey him.

Meanwhile, Muawiyah's argument was that although Ali did not participate in killing Uthman, he was considered to have protected Uthman's killer. Muawiyah was not willing except to hand over the killers of his distant cousin.

Quoting from the book History of the Umayyad Dynasty , Muawiyah also demanded Ali to resign from the position of caliph and disengage from the affairs of the people. In response to this, Ali said,

" Then they came to me for allegiance while I had disengaged from their business, they said, " Rise to be a leader! But I refused them, until they seduced me repeatedly and said, " Go up, because the people are not willing except with your leadership, and we are afraid that if you don't take it, the people will fall apart. “ I finally accepted the offer , and I was leading by leaning on only one leg. ”

In the case of the investigation into the Uthman case, a narration states that Muawiyah's group wanted a stipulation that Uthman was murdered unjustly so that his blood had to be redeemed. Meanwhile, Ali remained adamant that he had the right to become the caliph without anyone opposing him, and left the affairs of the assassins of Uthman left to Allah.

Imam Ghazali is of the opinion that Muawiyah's reason for demanding a ransom of Uthman's blood as soon as possible was that if Uthman's case was ignored or delayed, an even greater crime would occur because it would serve as an example for the Ummah to act arbitrarily to their leaders and would make them dare to shed blood.

The "cold war" seems to continue to escalate. In the end, the two parties who could not unite agreed to use war methods to solve the problem. Although both of them still feel guilty because they will sacrifice the Muslims they love.

The war was initially started with just a few people using one tribe, but it was not able to solve the problem so they were forced to attack each other using all troops. Ali's army, as narrated, departed with about 50 thousand to one hundred thousand troops, while Muawiyah's army departed with 70 thousand troops. The battle became known in history as the Shiffin War.

The battle according to history has claimed 70,000 lives. This was a very large number, as the battle lasted no more than two days. The battle was indeed very powerful and had never happened in Islam before. The strength of the two armies is relatively even. Muawiyah's troops were initially able to win the battlefield, but the situation was reversed when the commander of Ali's army, Asytar an-Nakha'i, managed to control it with his army.

According to Yusuf al-Isy, an expert on Islamic history, when Ali's troops were about to win the battle, Amru bin Ash advised Muawiyah to lift the manuscripts on their spears and ask for the dispute to be resolved with the book of Allah. Amru bin Ash's proposal came to be known in Islamic history as the Tahkim Incident.

Ali's party at first thought it was a trick from Muawiyah, but the Qur'an and worship experts were afraid because they seemed to deny the Koran as a law if they ignored Muawiyah's invitation. They then went to Ali to ask that the caliph accept the punishment with the Qur'an.

Finally, each side sent a judge. Amru bin Ash represented Muawiyah's side, and Abu Musa represented Ali's side. The two judges then met and Amru bin Ash started the conversation,

" O Abu Musa, don't you know that Uthman bin Affan was murdered unjustly? "Abu Musa replied, " Yes ". He asked again, " Didn't you know that Muawiyah and his family were the guardians of Uthman? " He replied, " Yes ". Then Amru bin Ash read the QS. al-Isra ': 33, " And whoever is killed unjustly, we will give his heirs power, and do not exceed the limit in killing, indeed he will get help. ”

This necessitated the victory of Amru bin Ash because the verse is a strong proof against Abu Musa, namely if Muawiyah was Uthman's heir then why was he not made Caliph. It can be seen that in these negotiations, what tends to be discussed is about Ali's eligibility as caliph, not who killed Uthman.

This shows that Amru bin Ash's biggest intention, as Muawiyah's mouthpiece, was not to appoint Muawiyah to be the caliph, or to find the killer of Uthman, but rather to drop Ali from the caliphate chair. Amru bin Ash proposed to return this matter to the people's deliberation to elect his own caliph because he had influenced Abu Musa that Ali should not continue to hold the caliphate.

The results of the negotiations (tahkim) decided that Uthman was killed unjustly, and the dispute must be stopped by lowering Ali and handing over the caliphate to the deliberation of the Muslims. Ali bin Abi Talib saw this result and was forced to accept it.

Although many friends, especially from Ali's side, disagreed about the validity of the tahkim, because the results of the negotiations were not written and witnessed, the tahkim incident became a symptom of the collapse of the Khulafaur Rashidin dynasty.

The tahkim negotiations gave birth to a figure named Abdurrahman bin Muljam who was disappointed because the caliph had dared to decide and accept the law based on human meetings. He then slashed Ali with a poisoned sword when he was about to lead the Fajr prayer in congregation on 19 Ramadan 49 H. That slash ended the era of the leadership of the khulafaur Rashidun.