There were diverse revolts in the Islamic Ummah in the beginning period. This is not very well known but those who investigate, will find out:
Underneath, also check out: Khawarij and Ibadi
The Great Berber Revolt of 739/740–743 AD (122–125 AH in the Muslim calendar) took place during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and marked the first successful secession from the Arab caliphate (ruled from Damascus). Fired up by Kharijite puritan preachers, the Berber revolt against their Umayyad Arab rulers began in Tangiers in 740, and was led initially by Maysara al-Matghari. The revolt soon spread through the rest of the Maghreb (North Africa) and across the straits to al-Andalus.
The Umayyads scrambled and managed to prevent the core of Ifriqiya (Tunisia, East-Algeria and West-Libya) and al-Andalus (Spain and Portugal) from falling into rebel hands. But the rest of the Maghreb was never recovered. After failing to capture the Umayyad provincial capital of Kairouan, the Berber rebel armies dissolved, and the western Maghreb fragmented into a series of small Berber statelets, ruled by tribal chieftains and Kharijite imams.
The Berber revolt was probably the largest military setback in the reign of Caliph Hisham. From it, emerged some of the first Muslim states outside the Caliphate. It is sometimes also regarded as the beginning of Moroccan independence, as Morocco would never again come under the rule of an eastern Caliph or any other foreign power until the 20th century.
The underlying causes of the revolt were the policies of the Umayyad governors in Kairouan, Ifriqiya, who had authority over the Maghreb (all of North Africa west of Egypt) and al-Andalus.
From the early days of the Muslim conquest of North Africa, Arab commanders had treated non-Arab (notably Berber) auxiliaries inconsistently, and often rather shabbily. When they arrived in North Africa the Umayyads had to face a Christian-majority population in Africa Proconsularis (which became Ifriqiya, modern-day Tunisia) and pagans in the Maghreb al-Aqsa (now Morocco) with Jewish minorities. Some Berbers of the Maghreb quickly converted and participated in the growth of Islam in the region, but the Arab authorities continued to treat them as second-class people.
Although Berbers had undertaken much of the fighting in the Umayyad conquest of Hispania, they were given a lesser share of the spoils and frequently assigned to the harsher duties (e.g. Berbers were thrown into the vanguard while Arab forces were kept in the back; they were assigned garrison duty on the more troubled frontiers). Although the Ifriqiyan Arab governor Musa ibn Nusair had cultivated his Berber lieutenants (most famously, Tariq ibn Ziyad), his successors, notably Yazid ibn Abi Muslim, had treated their Berber forces particularly poorly.[1]
Most grievously, Arab governors continued to levy extraordinary dhimmi taxation (the jizyah and kharaj) and slave-tributes on non-Arab populations that had converted to Islam, in direct contravention of Islamic law. This had become particularly routine during the caliphates of Walid I and Sulayman.
In 718, the Umayyad caliph Umar II finally forbade the levying of extraordinary taxation and slave tributes from non-Arab Muslims, defusing much of the tension. But expensive military reverses in the 720s and 730s had forced caliphal authorities to look for innovative ways to replenish their treasuries. During the caliphate of Hisham from 724, the prohibitions were sidestepped with reinterpretations (e.g. tying the kharaj land tax to the land rather than the owner, so that lands that were at any point subject to the kharaj remained under kharaj even if currently owned by a Muslim).
As a result, resentful Berbers grew receptive to radical Kharijite activists from the east (notably of Sufrite and later Ibadite persuasion) which had begun arriving in the Maghreb in the 720s. The Kharijites preached a puritan form of Islam, promising a new political order, where all Muslims would be equal, irrespective of ethnicity or tribal status, and Islamic law would be strictly adhered to. The appeal of the Kharijite message to Berber ears allowed their activists to gradually penetrate Berber regiments and population centers. Sporadic mutinies by Berber garrisons (e.g. under Munnus in Cerdanya, Spain, in 729-31) were put down with difficulty. One Ifriqiyan governor, Yazid ibn Abi Muslim, who openly resumed the jizya and humiliated his Berber guard by branding their hands, was assassinated in 721.[2]
In 734, Ubayd Allah ibn al-Habhab was appointed Umayyad governor in Kairouan, with supervisory authority over all the Maghreb and al-Andalus. Coming in after a period of mismanagement, Ubayd Allah soon set about expanding the fiscal resources of the government by leaning heavily on the non-Arab populations, resuming the extraordinary taxation and slave-tribute without apologies. His deputies Oqba ibn al-Hajjaj al-Saluli in Córdoba (Al-Andalus) and Omar ibn el-Moradi in Tangier (Maghreb) were given similar instructions. The failure of expensive expeditions into Gaul during the period 732-737, repulsed by the Franks under Charles Martel, only increased the tax burden. The parallel failure of the caliphal armies in the east brought no fiscal relief from Damascus.
Very important links to check out. It is about the crisis of leadership after the death of the Prophet Muhammad
The Khawarij[needs IPA] (Arabic: الخوارج, al-Khawārij, singular خارجي, khāriji), Kharijites, or the ash-Shurah (Arabic: الشراة,
translit.ash-Shurāh "the Exchangers") are members of a school of thought, that appeared in the first century of Islam during the First Fitna, the crisis of leadership after the death of Muhammad.[1] It broke into revolt against the authority of the Caliph Ali after he agreed to arbitration with his rival, Muawiyah I, to decide the succession to the Caliphate following the Battle of Siffin (657).[2] A Khariji later assassinated Ali, and for hundreds of years, the Khawarij were a source of insurrection against the Caliphate.[3]
The Khawarij opposed arbitration as a means to choose a new ruler on the grounds that "judgement belongs to God alone". They considered arbitration a means for people to make decisions[2] while the victor in a battle was determined by God.[2] They believed that any Muslim—even if not Quraysh or even an Arab—could be the Imam, the leader of the community, if he was morally irreproachable. If the leader sinned, it was the duty of Muslims to oppose and depose him.[3][4]
Some Khawarij developed extreme doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunni and Shia Muslims. They were particularly noted for adopting a radical approach to takfir (declaring self-described Muslims as non-Muslims).[1][5][6]
The Ibāḍī movement, Ibadism, or Ibāḍiyya, also known as the Ibadis (Arabic: الاباضية, al-Ibāḍiyyah), is a school of Islam dominant in Oman.[1] It is also found in parts of Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and East Africa. The movement is said to have been founded around the year 650 CE or about 20 years after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, predating both the Sunni and Shia denominations.[2] Modern historians trace back the origins of the denomination to a moderate current of the Khawarij movement;[3][4][5]:3 contemporary Ibāḍīs strongly object to being classified as Kharijites, although they recognize that their movement originated with the Kharijite secession of 657 CE.[5]:3
The school derives its name from ʿAbdu l-Lāh ibn Ibāḍ of the Banu Tamim.[6] Ibn Ibad was responsible for breaking off from the wider Kharijite movement roughly around the time that Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, the fifth Umayyad ruler, took power.[5]:11 However, the true founder was Jābir ibn Zayd of Nizwa, Oman.[5]:12[7] Initially, Ibadi theology developed in Basra, Iraq.[8] The Ibadis opposed the rule of the third caliph in Islam, Uthman ibn Affan, but unlike the more extreme Kharijites the Ibadis rejected the murder of Uthman as well as the Kharijite belief that all Muslims holding differing viewpoints were infidels.[9] The Ibadis were among the more moderate groups opposed to the fourth caliph, Ali, and wanted to return Islam to its form prior to the conflict between Ali and Muawiyah I.[10][11]
Due to their opposition to the Umayyad Caliphate, the Ibadis attempted an armed insurrection starting in the Hijaz region in the 740s. Caliph Marwan II led a 4,000 strong army and routed the Ibadis first in Mecca, then in Sana'a in Yemen, and finally surrounded them in Shibam in western Hadhramaut.[9] Problems back in their heartland of Syria forced the Umayyads to sign a peace accord with the Ibadis, and the sect was allowed to retain a community in Shibam for the next four centuries while still paying taxes to Ibadi authorities in Oman.[9] For a period after Marwan II's death, Jabir ibn Zayd maintained a friendship with Umayyad general Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, who supported the Ibadis as a counterbalance to more extreme Kharijites. Ibn Zayd ordered the assassination of one of Al-Hajjaj's spies, however, and in reaction many Ibadis were imprisoned or exiled to Oman.[5]:12[dubious – discuss]
It was during the 8th century that the Ibadis established an imamate in the inner region of Oman. The position was an elected one, as opposed to Sunni and Shi'a dynasties where rule was inherited.[2][12] These imams exerted political, spiritual and military functions.[13]
By the year 900, Ibadism had spread to Sind, Khorosan, Hadhramaut, Dhofar, Oman proper, Muscat, the Nafusa Mountains, and Qeshm; by 1200, the sect was present in Al-Andalus, Sicily, M'zab (the Algerian Sahara), and the western part of the Sahel region as well.[7] The last Ibadis of Shibam were expelled by the Sulayhid dynasty in the 12th century.[citation needed] In the 14th century, historian Ibn Khaldun made reference to vestiges of Ibadi influence in Hadhramaut, though the sect no longer exists in the region today.[14]