{ALI, MUÎAMMAD, AND THE AN∑AR∞: THE ISSUE OF SUCCESSION 279 {ALI, MUÎAMMAD, AND THE AN∑AR∞: THE ISSUE OF SUCCESSION MAYA YAZIGI UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA Abstract This article investigates the nature of the support that the anÒar showed towards ¨Ali and MuÌammad respectively, and whether it could in either case have been based on kinship. In particular, it con- siders whether the anÒar were likely to have supported ¨Ali for the succession at the death of MuÌammad, and if so, whether their sup- port for him would have been based on their kinship to him. The article argues that kinship could not have been a factor in the support that the anÒar showed towards MuÌammad at the time of his move to Yathrib, and could not have motivated the anÒar in favour of ¨Ali at the time of the death of MuÌammad. It maintains instead that the anÒar’s later affinity towards ¨Ali stemmed from their worsening cir- cumstances over the period of the early caliphate, and from the feel- ings of frustration and alienation they came to share with him. In his 1997 study of the early caliphate, Wilferd Madelung discussed the immediate aftermath of the death of MuÌammad and wrote: ‘The great majority of the AnÒar would have backed ¨Ali, if he had been proposed as a candidate for the succession, since they consid- ered him, like MuÌammad, as partly belonging to them.’ 1 In this statement, Madelung makes several assumptions about MuÌammad and ¨Ali. First, he assumes and implies that the anÒar had supported MuÌammad because they thought of him ‘as partly belonging to them’, a statement which would make sense only if it is a reference to the kinship tie that linked MuÌammad to the Banu al-Najjar of the Khazraj. Then, he makes two assumptions about ¨Ali: that the anÒar would have supported him as a leader as early as at the death of MuÌammad, and that they would have done so spe- cifically, at least to some degree, on the basis of their kinship bond with him. Journal of Semitic Studies LIII/2 Autumn 2008 doi:10.1093/jss/fgn004 © The author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of Manchester. All rights reserved. 1  Wilferd Madelung, The Succession to MuÌammad: A Study of the Early Cali- phate (Cambridge 1997), 40. at University Of British Columbia Library on September 27, 2011 jss.oxfordjournals.org Downloaded from