Prophet Muhammad, Sall-Allahu alayhi wa sallam, and the Khulafa Ar-Rashidun

570 CE Prophet Muhammad, Sall-Allahu alayhi wa sallam, born.
610 CE Prophet Muhammad, Sall-Allahu alayhi wa sallam, receives first revelation at Mount Hira.
615 CE Persecution of the Muslims by the Quraish. A party of Muslims leaves for Abyssinia. (First Hijrah to Abysinnia).
616 CE Hamza and Umar accept Islam. Second Hijrah to Abysinnia.
619 CE Sayyidna Khadija, Radi-Allahu anha, and Abu Talib die. Visit to Taif. Isra and Miraj.
621 CE First pledge at Aqaba.
622 CE Second pledge at Aqaba. Prophet Muhammad, Sall-Allahu alayhi wa sallam, migrates to Madinah.
624 CE, 2 A.H Battle of Badr.
625 CE, 3 A.H Battle of Uhud.
627 CE, 5 A.H Battle of Trench.
628 CE, 6 A.H Hudaybiyah Treaty.
629 CE, 7 A.H Battle of Khaybar.
630 CE, 8 A.H Conquest of Makkah. Battle of Hunain.
631 CE, 9 A.H Battle of Tabuk. Year of Deputations.
632 CE, 10 A.H Farewell Pilgrimage. Prophet Muhammad, Sall-Allahu alayhi wa sallam, dies. Election of Sayyidna Abu Bakr, Radi-Allahu anhu, as the Khalifah. Usamah leads expedition to Syria. Campaigns against Bani Tamim and Musailima, the Liar.
633 CE, 11 A.H Compilation of the Quran begins.
634 CE, 12 A.H Death of Sayyidna Abu Bakr, Radi-Allahu anhu. Sayyidna Umar, Radi-Allahu anhu, becomes Khalifah. Conquest of Damascus.
635 CE, 13 A.H Conquest of Madain.
636 CE, 14 A.H Conquest of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Palestine.
637 CE, 15 A.H Conquest of Egypt.
640 CE, 19 A.H Government starts minting Islamic coins.
644 CE, 23 A.H Martyrdom of Sayyidna Umar, Radi-Allahu anhu. Sayyidna Uthman, Radi-Allahu, anhu becomes Khalifah.
645 CE, 24 A.H Campaigns in North Africa. Conquest of the island of Cypress.
646 CE, 25 A.H Campaigns against the Byzantine.
647 CE, 26 A.H Naval battle of the Masts against the Byzantine. Persian Empire defeated.
648 CE, 27 A.H Rebellions against the rule of Sayyidna Uthman, Radi-Allahu anhu.
649 CE, 28 A.H Martyrdom of Sayyidna Uthman, Radi-Allahu anhu. Sayyidna Ali, Radi-Allahu anhu, becomes the Khalifah. Battle of the Camel.
650 CE, 29 A.H Sayyidna Ali, Radi-Allahu anhu, shifts the capital from Madina to Kufa. Battle of Siffin.
651 CE, 30 A.H Sayyidna Ali, Radi-Allahu anhu, recaptures Hijaz and Yemen from Muawiyah, Radi-Allahu anhu. Muawiyah, Radi-Allahu anhu, declares himself as the Khalifah at Damascus.
652 CE, 31 A.H Martyrdom of Sayyidna Ali, Radi-Allahu anhu. Muawiyah, Radi-Allahu anhu, becomes Khalifah

Tribe and State in Arabia: Second Essay

As we have seen, the appearance of the unifying ideology of Islam, coupled with the skillful use of both traditional and novel means of political consolidation, resulted in the emergence under Muhammad and Abu Bakr of a new state that was able to organize and dominate more effectively than ever before the different tribal groups of the Arabian peninsula. In place of the extreme political fragmentation that had formerly existed in Arabia, with various tribal groups vying with one another for local dominance, there emerged a relatively centralized, unified, and unifying polity that integrated most of these tribes into istelf and made them functioning parts of the larger whole.

It was this integration of the Arabian tribes into a single new Islamic state that set the stage for the conquests, which in fact represented the fruit of that integration. The process of state consolidation that began with Muhammad continued unabated throughout the whole period of the early Islamic conquests. As under Muhammad, each tribal group integrated into the state during the conquest period was administered by an agent ( amil), often one of the Quraysh or the ansar, who appears to have supervised the tribe and collected the taxes that weer due from it. There were, as we have seen, such governors or agents over some of the tribes of Quda'a in southern Syria under Abu Bakr, and we read that somewhat later, under Uthman, a member of the Quraysh named al-Hakam b. Abi l-'As was appointed to collect taxes from the Quda'a. 

Likewise, Sa'd b. Abi Waqqas had served as Umar's agent in charge of collecting the sadaqa tax from the Hawazin tribe in the Najd before being appinted commander of the army that marched to al-Qadisiyya; Utba b. Abi Sufyan was Umar's agent among the Kinana tribe; and the existence of the agents over other tribes in Arabia in Umar's day is well attested by numerous references. Most notable are those passages that show how, under the early caliphs, the sadaqa or tax in camels was levied by the state on nomadic groups traditionally the hardest groups to control. This was sometimes accomplished by sending agents to the wells to wait for a specific nomadic group to gather there for water, thereupon levying the tax on them. Tribes outside the Arabian peninsula proper that were newly subjected by the Islamic state in the later phases of the conquest of the Fertile Crescent, furthermore, were reduced to paying taxes just as their counterparts in Arabia itself had been during the careers of Muhammad and Abu Bakr. 

In the Jazira, for example, the Islamic state seems to have dispatched two agents, one over the non-Arabs ('ajam) of the region --here approximately equivalent to the settled populace? -- and another over the nomads (al-'arab) of theJazira. In some cases, such as that of the B. Taghlib nomads who lived in northernmost Syria and Iraq, the terms for the tax levied on them depended upon whether they decided to embrace Islam or to remain Christians. Two terms for taxes are commonly used in the sources describing such situations: sadaqa and jizya (or jaza-'). The former appears to mean specifically the tax or tribute levied by the state on nomadic groups, taxes paid usually in camels. The jizya, "tax" or "tribute," appears to have been levied on sedentary populations that had chosen to adhere to their Jewish or Christian faith; presumably the sedentary population of Muslims paid zakat, "alms." 

The existence of a separate term for the tax on nomads (whether they were Muslims or not) highlights the degree to which the state viewed the nomads as members of a different class from settled people -- not a particularly surprising situation, since the ruling elite was, as we have seen, eager to bring the nomads under control by settling them if possible. Indeed, this differential tax system could discomfort nomadic chiefs of considerable stature who preferred to remain Christian, as the case of Jabala b. al-Ayham of the B. Ghassan demonstrates. He is reported to have come to 'Umar and asked, "Will you levy sadaqa from me as you would from the [ordinary] bedouin (al-'arab)?" 'Umar replied that he would collect jizya from him instead, as he did from others of his religion. Jabala's reluctance to pay the "nomads' tax," the sadaqa, however, hints at the negative overtones carried by this levy, itself a reflection of the inferior status that nomadic groups occupied in the new Islamic political order. 

The jizya, "tribute" or "tax," on the other hand, which was levied on settled peoples who were not Muslims and therefore were, strictly speaking, subjects and not allies of the Islamic ruling elite, could be waived if an individual or group performed some service for the Islamic state; thus 'Umar is said to have ordered that the Persian cavalrymen (asawira) who had been in the Sasanian armies should be freed of the jaza' if they assisted the Muslims in the conquest of Iraq. It is not specified, however, whether or not the asawira embraced Islam in joining the Islamic armies. 

The entire discussion of taxes, however, is confused and betrays some meddling by later legal scholars who employed such accounts to provide precedents for their own systematizations of tax laws applying to non-Muslims. But though the details of terminology may have been corrupted, there is no question that some form of tax -- whatever its name or rate of incidence -- was levied on tribal groups such as the B. Taghlib that were newly absorbed by the expanding Islamic state only during the conquest period. This supports the view that the political integration begun during the careers of Muhammad and Abu Bakr continued through the age of the early conquests.

Tribe and State