Everything about Muawiyah I totally explained
Mu'awiyah I (; 602-680) was a
companion of the
Islamic prophet
Muhammad and later the
Umayyad caliph in Damascus. He engaged in a civil war against the fourth and final
Rightly Guided Caliph,
Ali (Muhammad's son-in-law) and met with considerable military success, including the seizure of
Egypt. He assumed the
caliphate after Ali's assassination in 661 and reigned until 680.
Because of his involvement in the
Battle of Siffin against Ali, whom the
Shia Muslims believe was Muhammad's true successor (see
Succession to Muhammad), the belief that he broke the treaty he made with
Hasan ibn Ali (as) by appointing his son Yazid as ruler and the belief that he was responsible for the deaths of various companions, Mu'awiyah has been hated and reviled by generations of Shi'a.
Early life
Mu'awiyah ibn Abi-Sufyan was born (c. 600) into a powerful clan, (
Banu Abd Shams), of the
Quraysh tribe. The Quraysh controlled the city of
Mecca, in what is now western
Saudi Arabia, and the Banu Abd-Shams were among the most influential of its citizens. His father,
Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, opposed Muhammad before becoming a Muslim after the Prophet conquered
Mecca. Muawiyah is reported to have been of a polite, charming and confident nature and has been described as being tall, fair and handsome in appearance.
In 630 CE, Muhammad and his followers conquered Mecca, and most of the Meccans, including the Abd-Shams, formally submitted to Muhammad and accepted Islam. General consensus among early Islamic historians is that Muawiyah, along with his father Abu Sufyan, became Muslims at the conquest of Mecca when further resistance to Muslims became an impossibility. According to some historians Muāwiyya accepted Islam at an earlier date in defiance of his relatives.
Muhammad welcomed his former opponents, enrolled them in his army and gave them important posts in the expanding Islamic empire. After Muhammad's death in 632, he served in the Islamic army sent against the
Byzantine forces in present-day
Syria. He held a high rank in the Muslim Army which was led by his brother
Yazid bin Abu Sufyan.
Governor of Syria
Caliph
Umar ibn al-Khattab had appointed
Yazid Ibn Abu Sufyan as governor of Syria. In the year 640, Umar appointed Muawiyah as governor of Syria when his brother died in an outbreak of plague. Muawiyah gradually gained mastery over the other areas of Syria, instilling remarkable personal loyalty among his troops and the people of the region. By 647, Muawiyah had built a Syrian army strong enough to repel a Roman attack and, in subsequent years, to take the offensive against the Romans in campaigns that resulted in the capture of
Cyprus (649) and
Rhodes (654) and a devastating defeat of the Roman navy off the coast of
Lycia (655). At the same time, Muawiyah periodically dispatched land expeditions into
Anatolia.
According to the chronicler
Theophanes the Confessor,Muawiyah I after capturing
Rhodes sold the remains
Colossus of Rhodes to a traveling salesman from
Edessa. The buyer had the statue broken down, and transported the bronze scrap on the backs of 900 camels to his home. Pieces continued to turn up for sale for years, after being found along the caravan route.
All these campaigns came to a halt with the accession of
Ali to the
caliphate, when a new and decisive phase of Muawiyah's career began.
Conflict with Ali
Muawiyah sought justice for the assassinated caliph
Uthman ibn Affan.
Aisha bint Abu Bakr (Muhammad's widow),
Talha ibn 'Ubaydullah and
al-Zubayr ibn Awwam were all in agreement with Muawiyah that those who assassinated Uthman should be brought to justice. However, Ali refused to apprehend and punish Uthman's murderers, citing rebel infiltration of the Muslim ranks resulting in Muawiyah's refusal to acknowledge Ali's caliphate.
Muawiyah didn't participate in the campaign by Aisha, Talha and al-Zubayr against Ali that ended in the
Battle of the Camel. . The city of Basrah went over to them but they were defeated in battle by 'Ali. Talha and al-Zibayr were killed. Ali pardoned Aisha and had her escorted back to Medina.
Ali then turned towards Syria, where Mu'awiyah was is open opposition. He marched to the
Euphrates and engaged Mu'awiyah's troops at the famous
Battle of Siffin (657). Accounts of the clash vary -- however, it would seem that neither side had won a victory, since the Syrians called for arbitration to settle the matter, arguing that continuing civil war would embolden the
Byzantines. There are several conflicting accounts of the arbitrations.
In the meantime, dissension broke out in Ali's camp where some of his former supporters, later known as
Kharijites, felt that Ali had betrayed them by entering into negotiations. Ali set out to quell the Kharijites. At about the same time, unrest was brewing in Egypt. The governor of Egypt, Qais, was recalled, and Ali had him replaced with Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr (the brother of Aisha and the son of Islam's first Caliph Abu Bakr Sidiq). Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr's rule resulted in widespread rebellion in Egypt. Mu'awiyah ordered Amr ibn As to invade Egypt and Amr did so successfully. Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr was killed.
When Alī was assassinated in 661, Mu'awiyah, as commander of the largest force in the Muslim Empire, had the strongest claim to the Caliphate. Ali's son
Hasan, after an initial defiance of Mu'awiyah, gave up and retired to private life in Medina.
Rule
After he became commander of the faithful in the year 661, Mu'awiyah governed the geographically and politically disparate Caliphate, which now spread from Egypt in the West to
Iran in the East, by strengthening the power of his allies in the newly conquered territories. Prominent positions in the emerging governmental structures were held by Christians, some of whom belonged to families that had served in Byzantine governments. The employment of Christians was part of a broader policy of religious tolerance that was necessitated by the presence of large Christian populations in the conquered provinces, especially in Syria itself. This policy also boosted his popularity and solidified Syria as his power base.
Mu'awiyah instituted several Byzantine-style bureaucracies, called
diwans, to aid him in the governance and the centralization of the Caliphate and the empire. Early Arabic sources credit two
diwans in particular to Mu'awiyah: the
Diwan al-Khatam (
Chancellery) and the
Barid (Postal Service), both of which greatly improved communications within the empire.
Mu'awiyah died
May 6 680. He was succeeded by his son
Yazid I. Mu'awiyah had held the expanding empire together by force of his personality, through personal allegiances, in the style of a traditional Arab
shaykh. However Mu'awiyah's attempt to start a dynasty failed because both Yazid and then his grandson Mu'awiyah II died prematurely. The caliphate eventually went to Marwan ib Hakam a descendant of another branch of Mu'awiya's clan.
Legacy
Mu'awiyah greatly beautified Damascus and developed a court to rival that of Constantinople. He expanded the frontiers of the empire, reaching the very gates of Constantinople at one point, though failing to hold any territory in
Asia Minor. Sunni Muslims credit him with saving the fledgling Muslim nation from post civil war anarchy.
One of Muawiyah's most controversial and enduring legacies was his decision to designate his son Yazid as his successor, thereby creating a
dynasty. According to Shi'a doctrine, this was a clear violation of the treaty he made with
Hasan in which he said he wouldn't make his son his successor.
Sunni View
Sunni historians see him as a companion of Muhammad, and worthy of respect although he fought the Rightly Guided Caliph of the time,
Ali ibn Abi Talib. A few historians refer to him as the fifth
Rightly Guided Caliph :"Allah, make him guided, a guider, and guide people through him."
A typical Sunni hadith says:
"..Muawiyah who was really the best of the two men said to him, "O 'Amr! If these killed those and those killed these, who would be left with me for the jobs of the public, who would be left with me for their women, who would be left with me for their children?" Then Muawiya sent two Quraishi men from the tribe of 'Abd-i-Shams called 'Abdur Rahman bin Sumura and Abdullah bin 'Amir bin Kuraiz to Al-Hasan saying to them, "Go to this man (for example Al-Hasan) and negotiate peace with him and talk and appeal to him." So, they went to Al-Hasan and talked and appealed to him to accept peace..."
Sunni scholars interpret Hasan's willingness to abandon his claims in favor of Mu'awiyah as proof that Hasan didn't view Muawiyah as an apostate, renegade and hypocrite. Hasan, they say, did so for the sake of peace and ending the civil war.
Shi'a View
The Shi'a tend to vilify Mu'awiyah. His supposed conversion to Islam before the conquest of Mecca is dismissed as a fable, or mere hypocrisy. He opposed Ali, the rightful
Imam, out of sheer greed for power and wealth. His reign opened the door to unparalleled disaster, marked by persecution of Ali and his followers, especially when
Yazid come into power and by the
Battle of Karbala ensued. Mu'awiya is alleged to have killed many of Muhammad's companions (
Sahaba), either in battle or by poison, due to his lust for power.
A typical Shi'ite atrocity story is
[...] Then he [for exampleMu'awiyah] was informed that Ubaidullah had two infant sons. So he set out to reach them, and when he found them - they'd two (tender) forelocks like pearls - [and] he ordered to kill them.
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