Emmanuel Adedoyin

The Ridda The Ridda-known in Arabic as the apostasy-was one of major events in the history of Islam. During the lifetime of the prophet, Mohammed, alliances were forged with virtually all the tribal chiefs in Arabia, thus resulting in the creation of the Umma (House of Islam). This new social unit, one in which individuals were bound not by blood but by a single religion, greatly reduced the inter-tribal skirmishes that characterised pre-Islamic Arabia. The sudden death of Mohammed on June 8, 632, portended the dissolution of the Umma and the return to the old order as many tribal chiefs repudiated the pacts they had made with him giving the excuse that the agreement, being personal, ended with his demise. Meanwhile, rival prophets were also springing up in other parts of Arabia, the most prominent being Musailima, who had built a large following in central Arabia. Significance The responsibility of ensuring that the Umma was not dissolved fell on Abu Bakr, Mohammed's successor and the first in a series of rulers of the Muslim community called caliphs. Failure to quell the splintering of these tribes from the confederacy that Mohammed had built would have most likely amounted to the end of the fledgling faith of Islam; reversion to the old order was tantamount to the resumption of blood feuds and other barbaric practices such as the burying of female infants. In this sort of situation it was only a matter of time before several tribes would collude against the Muslims in the jostle for power. The preservation of the Arab confederacy under the caliphs was undoubtedly the only way to preserve Islam itself. Abu Bakr, a man in his sixties, and also one of Mohammed’s closest companions, was equal to this seemingly daunting task. He treated the situation with the acumen expected of the prophet’s successor by dividing the Muslim army into eleven corps headed by renowned commanders like Khalid Ibn Walida man who had once sworn to crush Islam but was now one of its strongest converts-and Amr b.al-As, the future conqueror of Egypt. Before the soldiers set out, Abu Bakr made an impassioned plea to the renegades to honour the pact they made and yield. For several months battles between the Muslim forces and the renegades were fought over the greater parts of Arabia. Outcome The Muslim army routed the opponents of Islam one after the other and Khalid’s decisive victory at Akraba in 633 CE where Musailima was killed marked the victory of Islam, although at the cost of heavy casualties. By managing to quell the Ridda, Abu Bakr established the supremacy of the emerging Islamic caliphate, at least in Arabia. The now unified forces of Arabia could now be deployed in the conquest of the peripheral territories of Syria, Egypt and Persia.