Dissension in the Utnma • 59languages they were used to. Few Jews or Christians rushed to convert to
Islam, for they were protected as "People of the Book." Zoroastrians and
Manichaeans in Iraq and Persia were less tolerated and more apt to be¬
come Muslim, but even they changed slowly. It was hard for early Muslims
to get used to the conversion of non-Arabs to Islam. Having assumed that
Muhammad was God's messenger to the Arabs, they conferred honorary
Arab status on any non-Arab male convert. They did this by making him a
client member (mawla; plural mawali) of an Arab tribe. Persians and
Arameans who flocked to the garrison towns were especially apt to turn
Muslim. Soon the mawali outnumbered the Arabs living in such towns as
Basra and Kufa. How ironic, considering that those cities had been set up
to keep the Arabs from being corrupted by Persian civilization! They soon
became melting pots and centers of cultural interchange.
DISSENSION IN THE UMMAThe garrison towns also became hotbeds of dissension and intrigue, espe¬
cially after Umar's guiding hand was removed by assassination. Before he
died, Umar appointed a shura, or electoral committee, to choose the third
caliph. Some modern writers cite the shura to prove that early Islam was
democratic. In fact, it consisted of six Meccan associates of Muhammad,
all caravan traders who belonged to the Quraysh tribe. Owing perhaps to
personal rivalries, they ended up choosing the only man in the shura who
belonged to the prestigious Umayyads, the clan that had long opposed
Muhammad.
Their choice to succeed Umar, Uthman (r. 644-656), has come down in
history as a weak caliph, eager to please the rich Meccan merchants and to
put his Umayyad kinsmen into positions of power. But such an interpre¬
tation is unfair to Uthman, who had defied his clan to become one of
Muhammad's earliest converts. He also defied many of Muhammad's
companions when, as caliph, he decided on a single authoritative version
of the Quran and ordered the burning of all copies that contained variant
readings. Many reciters were appalled when their cherished versions of the
Quran went up in smoke, but would Islam have fared better with seven
competing readings of its sacred scriptures?
As for the issue of Uthman's relatives, it is true that some lusted after
power and that others lacked the ability to govern. But Uthman used his
family ties to assert greater control over the government. His cousin
Mu'awiya (already appointed by Umar) administered Syria well. He and
his foster brother in Egypt built Islam's first navy to conquer Cyprus in