THE ISSUES CONSIDERED in the preceding three chapters- Prophecy, Community, and Hegemony- all address, in one way or another, the question of the Muslim community's relations with non-Muslims. The issue to be explored in this chapter bears primarily on intracommunal questions, i.e. problems of how the Muslims regulated affairs among themselves. The issue of leadership was articulated primarily in five themes we shall term fitna, szrat al-khulafā ‘ , pre-Islamic Arabia, ridda, and pre-Islamic Iran.

Fitna

One of the most important themes of early Islamic historiography, and of the later compilations that drew on it, was the theme of fitna (“temptation,” “sedition“), which referred to religio-political clashes within the Muslim community itself, particularly the “civil wars” in which different Muslims contended for leadership of the community. That is, it focused clearly on the question of who should be imām or caliph. It is primarily a BOUNDARY theme, in that it articulates the basis for the distinctive identities of various groups (parties, sects) within the Islamic community.3

In a sense, this theme represents historicizing legitimation in Islam par excellence, since the purpose of many fitna accounts is to describe how leadership of the community was won (or lost) by a particular person or party through a sequence of mundane events, and to lament or celebrate those events. The events themselves can be viewed either from the victor's side as divine confirmation of his claim to rule, or from the loser's vantage point as an explanation of how the “legitimate” candidate (legitimate on moral or genealogical or other grounds) was deprived of his rightful rule by deceit or oppressive force. In either case, however, such accounts link the question of legitimacy directly to particular historical events, by means of a narrative.