from God once they have obtained his favor or whether they will be steadfast in faith. Trials may also result from things revealed by God that some may find difficult to accept. For example, Qur'an describes the revelation of the "Cursed Tree" as "an ordeal for mankind." Another example of this sense is Qur'an , where the number of the angels who guard the Fire has been "made a stumbling-block for those who disbelieve ... and that those in whose hearts there is disease, and disbelievers, may say: What meaneth Allah by this similitude?" Temptation The root also bears the sense of "temptation," as in Qur'an , where those who were hypocritical in their faith will be turned away and told by the steadfast believers, from whom they are separated, "ye tempted one another, and hesitated, and doubted, and vain desires beguiled you till the ordinance of Allah came to pass; and the deceiver deceived you concerning Allah." In Qur'an , Aaron is said to have warned the Israelites, when Moses had left them to meet with God for forty days, that the Golden Calf was only something they were being tempted by (or, in Pickthall's translation, "seduced with"). Harut and Marut warn the people of Babylon, in Qur'an , "We are only a temptation, therefore disbelieve not," although the warning proved to be ineffective for some. Historical usage Aside from its use in the Qur'an, fitna came to have a primary sense of "'revolt', 'disturbances', 'civil war', but a civil war that breeds schism and in which the believers' purity of faith is in grave danger." This was especially so as it came, in the term First Fitna, to refer to the first major civil war of the Islamic Caliphate, which lasted from 656 to 661. "On account of the struggles that marked Mu'āwiya's advent, the term fitna was later applied to any period of disturbances inspired by schools or sects that broke away from the majority of believers." The term thus appears the descriptions of other major conflicts such as the Second Fitna (680–92), the Third Fitna (744–47), the Fourth Fitna (809-827), and the Fitna of al-Andalus (1009–1031). See also Arab Winter Temptation Fitnat al-Wahhabiyya Notes References Soravia, Bruna, "Fitna", in Muhammad in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God (2 vols.), Edited by C. Fitzpatrick and A. Walker, Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO, 2014, Vol