Muawiyah the Founder of the Umayyad Caliphate Umayyad Caliphate 661 750

Hi! Welcome to Al Muqaddimah, my name is Syawish. By the end of the 7th century CE, Arab Muslims ruled one of, if not, THE largest empire in the world. Their God, with capital had delivered them huge and diverse population that, frankly, they had no idea how to keep in check. For as long as the empire was expanding, it provided enough resources to keep everyone happy but when it stopped expanding, it began to falter. caliph was assassinated, crisis of succession ensued and civil war tore the Muslims apart. All of that came to an end in the summer of 661 when Mu’awiyah ibn Abu Sufyan entered Kufa, in southern Iraq ending the bitter civil war and putting himself on the throne of the Caliphate. He established the first dynasty of Islam, the Umayyad Dynasty. This video is brought to you by, well, you guys. Thanks to my patrons for supporting the channel and making these videos possible. Al Muqaddimah is funded only by Patreon and as you can see, the videos take long time to research, edit and produce and it’s only because of my patrons that am able to put this kinda time into these videos and keep them free from any kind of paywall. So, if you want to pledge dollar or more to support the channel, you can head over to my Patreon. Link is in the description. You can also become member right here on YouTube. There’s some cool stuff that comes with it. Back to the video. The Umayyads or Banu Umayyah were sub-clan of the Quraysh and lived in Mecca, just like the Prophet’s sub-clan, the Hashemites or Banu Hashim. Banu means “children of”. According to Islamic tradition, they had been an influential family before Islam and strongly opposed Muhammad’s teachings during the early years. Abu Sufyan, an Umayyad, had been the face of the rivalry between Muhammad and the Quraysh. Only few members of the family converted before Muhammad’s conquest of Mecca. One of them was Uthman ibn Affan, who was married to two of the daughters of the Prophet. Everyone else converted when Mecca fell in 630, this included the aforementioned Abu Sufyan and his two sons, Yazid, and the future caliph Mu’awiyah who was younger than 30 at the time, likely closer to 20. This seems like conversion of convenience, if there ever was one. Though, some sources put Mu’awiyah’s conversion, being secret one, two years earlier. While Muhammad and the Umayyads claimed descent from the same person, they had another link which was Abu Sufyan’s daughter, Mu’awiyah’s sister, Umm Habiba, who married Muhammad in 628, making Abu Sufyan, Prophet Muhammad’s father-in-law and Mu’awiyah, his brother-in-law. After the conquest of Mecca and Quraysh’s decisive submission to Muhammad, the Umayyads were redeemed by the Prophet who allowed them to join his rank and used their skills and network to cultivate alliances with Arabian tribes. The prophet himself died in 632 and immediately, rift appeared among the Muslims. Muhammad’s close friend and senior companion, Abu Bakr was chosen as Caliph or successor to Muhammad. Some groups of Muslims weren’t happy with this and wanted Ali, the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law to become Caliph. However, for now, Abu Bakr was caliph and under him and his successor, Umar ibn al-Khattab, the Muslims invaded Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Persia and Egypt. They went as far as Tunisia in the west and India in the East. It is here that the Umayyads enter the story of the Caliphate. In 636, we see Mu’awiyah and his older brother Yazid commanding forces in Syria against the Byzantine Empire. In 637, we see him as witness to the surrender of Jerusalem. Then in 639, he was besieging Caesarea, the capital of the Syria-Palestine Province of the Byzantine Empire. Here, Mu’awiyah seems to be completely in-charge compared to before when he was subordinate to his older brother, Yazid. This was because Yazid had died in the Plague of Amwas which also took large portion of the Caliphate’s army in Syria. The siege was exhaustive and when Caesarea was finally taken, it was pillaged. Although, archeological evidence is less clear than tradition regarding Caesarea’s fate. Whatever the case, it was rebuilt but it never regained its importance. However, it left permanent mark on Mu’awiyah. Since Caesarea was port, it’s possible that here Mu’awiyah saw the importance of navy and later in his career, would focus on building one. With the fall of Caesarea, military operations in Syria had pretty much come to an end but the region was still volatile and the northern border was insecure. The caliph, back in Madinah, needed someone to keep it together. This responsibility fell to Mu’awiyah by accident. At the start of 639, the most senior commander in Syria was Abu Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah. Unfortunately, he passed away from the Plague. His office fell to Yazid, Mu’awiyah’s brother, who was respected by the military. Though, he died shortly after as well. Mu’awiyah was now the most senior commander in Syria. Caliph Umar doesn’t seem to have been happy with this but there was no other candidate whom the military respected. Mu’awiyah would have to do. Whatever Umar’s feelings toward Mu’awiyah might’ve been, he was assassinated in 644. The next caliph, Uthman was himself an Umayyad. He was second-cousin to Mu’awiyah. He confirmed Mu’awiyah as the governor of Syria. Uthman was respected companion of the Prophet. Not only was he an early convert, he had also been married to two of the Prophet’s daughters. However, his policies as caliph weren’t popular. He was trying to bring the empire under centralized government and the way he did that was by appointing people he trusted. As it turns out, most of them were his close relatives. Umayyads were, certainly, not seen as the most pious Muslims because of their opposition to the Prophet and so, seeing so many Umayyads in power made many people very angry. Meanwhile, Mu’awiyah was serving as the governor of four provinces, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, and Hims. He was even appointed as governor of Iraq after few years. Mu’awiyah was really effective as governor. He stabilized the region and while he didn’t pursue great conquests or battles, he did keep pressure on the Byzantine Empire. He even retook some key port cities that had been lost to the Byzantines during the confusion following Umar’s assassination. While he didn’t have much of hard time securing the Northern border, he did have trouble with coastal cities which were easier for Constantinople to attack. So, only year or two after being appointed, Mu’awiyah began aggressively pursuing the construction of navy. He had tried this under Umar too but Umar had ordered him not to focus on the navy. Uthman had allowed him and so, by 648, Mu’awiyah had fleet up and running. The next year, Mu’awiyah attacked Cyprus. He fell back after taking tribute from them but attacked again the next year after violation of the treaty and finally conquered it. He even raided as far as Rhodes but didn’t conquer it during his tenure as governor. In 655, came the Battle of the Masts. Off the coast of Western Anatolia, some 500 Byzantine Ships clashed with an equally large or slightly smaller Muslim fleet. The Byzantine fleet was being commanded personally by Emperor Constans while we’re not sure if Mu’awiyah was present with his fleet. It’s also possible that the Muslim fleet was made up of Syrian fleet and an Egyptian fleet. Whatever the case, it was disaster for the Byzantines. The emperor himself was barely able to get away with his life. The dominance of the Byzantine Empire on the Eastern Mediterranean was over, the road to Constantinople was open. On land, he expanded the Caliphate’s control into Armenia which wasn’t exactly conquered but rather just installed as client state. The commander of that army was man named Habib ibn Maslama al-Fihri who would become Mu’awiyah’s trusted general in the coming years. Mu’awiyah was able to build so much power in Syria and rack up successes because he had something no other Muslim governor did, the loyalty of the locals. Syria had many Christian Arab tribes which Mu’awiyah employed in his military and rewarded generously. They had been especially useful in the navy because Arabs from Arabia didn’t know how to sail. Mu’awiyah even married Christian woman from the Banu Kalb tribe to secure an alliance with them. Her name was Maysun bint Bahdal and she was poetess. She came from the desert and didn’t enjoy living with Mu’awiyah in the palaces. lot of her poetry was about missing her homeland. With the support of these tribes, Mu’awiyah was powerful enough to even challenge the Caliph. However, he was quite loyal to Uthman, who was, after all, his cousin. Unfortunately, he was the only one. By the early 650s, there was discontent among many vassals of the Caliph who resented the amount of power Umayyads had accumulated under Uthman. Now, there are various versions of what happened next. We know for sure that there was mutiny against Uthman in which he was assassinated in his home in 656 but the details vary from person to person. Even the names of the Assassins change depending on who’s telling the story. Mu’awiyah’s role in this entire affair is no different. Some sources paint him in favorable light. They tell us that he dispatched an army to protect the caliph but he was too late and the news of the assassination reached him before the army was out of Syria. Other sources paint him in negative light, telling us that Mu’awiyah deliberately tried to exploit the situation to his benefit. According to some, he did so through inaction and according to others, he actively misguided the Caliph and practically doomed him. The truth is difficult to ascertain. As Stephen Humphreys writes... Whatever Mu‘awiya did or did not do during the mutiny, he now faced crisis of his own. His response displayed all the qualities for which he became famous: allowing situation to ripen before committing himself to course of action, concealing his own motives and purposes from public scrutiny, longterm planning combined with capacity to seize unexpected opportunities, patient seeking for allies even as he relentlessly undermined loyalties among the supporters of his opponents, and willingness to be perfectly ruthless at critical moments. The sources disagree on many things but on this portrait they are of one mind. In any case, Uthman was assassinated. For the second time in just 24 years, there was crisis of succession in the Caliphate. For the mutineers, there was only one candidate to succeed Uthman. That candidate was Ali ibn Abi Talib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet. There was case to be made for him. He was the head of the Prophet’s house and he had been very early convert. He was the father to the Prophet’s only male descendants, Hassan and Hussain. He was also considered pious and devoted Muslim who would lead the community in the path laid down by the Prophet. While Ali was young when the Prophet passed away, he was in his 50s by now. He had been passed over for caliphate thrice but now, it was his time. However, Ali wasn’t political figure at all. He had been mostly absent from leadership roles up to this point. He had never led an army. His role during the mutiny is also debated. According to some sources, he had left Madinah but according to others, he, along with his sons was guarding Uthman’s house, in respect for his office. The mutineers offered the caliphate to Ali who accepted and thus became the fourth Caliph of the Rashidun, the Rightly Guided. This was contentious, to say the least. The Umayyads, who held considerable power, objected to Ali accepting the Caliphate. Their argument was that the blood of caliph couldn’t determine the election. By accepting, Ali was admitting that what the mutineers had done was justified. By accepting, Ali was complicit, after the fact, in the assassination of Uthman. Credibility was lent to this argument by the fact that the Umayyads asked for retribution for Uthman’s assassination but Ali protected the assassins. Mu’awiyah wasn’t very vocal in the process. So far, the only thing he had done was not swear allegiance to Ali. However, another faction appeared in opposition to Ali. This was led up of Aisha (the Prophet’s wife), al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam (the Prophet’s Nephew, through marriage), and Talha ibn Ubaydullah (a senior companion of the Prophet). All three of them had been critical of Uthman’s policies but here, they claimed to be against Ali’s disregard for justice for Uthman. They went to Iraq and raised an army. Ali did the same and met them in the Battle of the Camel in 656. Both al-Zubayr and Talha were killed during the Battle and Aisha was captured. She was forced into retirement in Madinah where she lived for the rest of her days, away from the political arena. By winning this battle, Ali had proven himself and had hence secured Iraq and Arabia. The only part of the Caliphate he didn’t have were Syria and Egypt. We don’t know what either of them were thinking. Maybe Mu’awiyah just wanted to be confirmed as Governor. Maybe Ali just didn’t want to seem weak by accepting terms of allegiance from Mu’awiyah, subordinate. In any case, Ali marched from Kufa to attack Syria. Mu’awiyah gathered his forces and prepare to meet Ali in the Battlefield. According to some sources, Mu’awiyah was sent the bloody shirt of Uthman which he hung in the mosque and used to inspire his troops. The two armies met in 657 in the Battle of Siffin. We don’t know the details of the battle because there are lot of things added later to the narrative that don’t seem plausible. According to one story, Ali was winning but Mu’awiyah had his troops tie pages from the Qu’ran to their lances. This forced Ali’s troops to stop attacking. This is almost certainly colorful detail meant to exaggerate the difference between the two sides. According to Christian sources, though, it seems Mu’awiyah had the upper hand in the battle which makes more sense since the battle took place in Syria and Mu’awiyah’s troops were Syrian nomads who usually do better against settled tribes such as the ones in Ali’s army. Whatever the case, the battle was likely stalemate. However, there was so much bloodshed that both sides were shocked and agreed to negotiate. Again, the details of the negotiation change from person to person. They certainly weren’t able to achieve anything and different sources blame either Mu’awiyah or Ali for this. One thing we know for sure is that Ali’s position was weakened by this, especially in the eyes of his more puritanical supporters. They believed that Mu’awiyah had rebelled against sitting caliph and so, he had to be fought till he was defeated and punished. By negotiating, they believed, Ali had obstructed justice. They left Ali’s side and formed third side known as The Khawarij, those who left. Khawarij or Kharijites would become, sort of, the dirty word of Islamic history where it was, and still is, applied arbitrarily to whomever one was fighting at given time. The Khawarij maintained that only as long as caliph was pious, term which was defined by them, could he remain caliph. If he isn’t pious anymore, he can be removed by force Ali tried to make peace with them but it didn’t work out and in 658, he defeated them in the Battle of Nahrawan although, they weren’t completely broken. While Ali was busy with them, Mu’awiyah was able to install one of his men as the governor of Egypt which extended his control from Syria to Egypt while Ali’s control was eroding. This gave Mu’awiyah the confidence to declare himself Caliph in 660. This far, he hadn’t made any claims to the Caliphate. His struggle, he claimed, was only to get justice for his cousin but now, he had taken this bold step. He coronated himself in Jerusalem. He even visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of St. Mary. This was probably done to win over the Christians who were the vast majority of the population in Syria. The next year, in 661, Ali was stabbed in the Najaf Mosque in Kufa by Kharijite assassin. There are some sources that claim that there was plot to assassinate both Ali and Mu’awiyah but Mu’awiyah’s assassin was caught. This makes sense because we know that Mu’awiyah kept personal guards while Ali didn’t. Mu’awiyah, however, hadn’t won yet. Ali’s son and successor Hassan still had claim. Mu’awiyah simply struck deal with him. Once again, the details of the deal are different depending on who you ask. At the end of the day, Mu’awiyah was now the sole caliph of the Islamic World. His rule would go for twenty years and in those twenty years, Caliph Mu’awiyah ibn Abu Sufyan would define what it means to rule in the Islamic World. Unfortunately, the sources on Mu’awiyah’s reign as Caliph aren’t as plentiful as the ones about the civil war. So, it’s difficult to draw chronology of his reign, year by year but we can draw some major points of his reign. Also, it could be because his reign seems to have been largely calm and without any major disturbances within the Caliphate. Anyhow, having just come out of brutal and bloody civil war, it was important for Mu’awiyah to reconcile the different sides of the Caliphate. The most important was Iraq. Iraq was fertile and rich but it had sided with Ali and so, it had to be brought around. Mu’awiyah visited Kufa in 661 and appointed new governor. The governor, al-Mughira ibn Shu’ba al-Thaqafi, companion of the Prophet, had previously governed this region and was good choice. Mu’awiyah gave Iraqi tribes autonomy as long as they promised to not cause trouble. Mu’awiyah also gave al-Mughira the task of eliminating or at least keeping the Kharijites at bay. Ali had nearly wiped them out before he was assassinated but there were still some around. The Kharijites themselves claimed caliphate for their leader al-Mustawrid but due to their rigid our-way-or-death approach, they couldn’t win many supporters. At their peak, in 663, they had 300 people. In 664, Mu’awiyah’s army was able to defeat them and kill al-Mustawrid. Another problem was Basra. Unlike Kufa, it hadn’t sided with anyone and had just fallen into anarchy during the civil war. Mu’awiyah installed Ziyad ibn Sumayya, whose mother was prostitute, as Basra’s governor. He also supported Ali during the war. Ziyad, with his suspect parentage wasn't popular and was known as Ziyad ibn Abihi, Ziyad, the son of his father. Mu'awiyah claimed Ziyad was his own brother. He claimed that his father Abu Sufyan had fathered him out of wedlock in pre-islamic times. Hence, Mu'awiyah was able to install his new brother as Governor. This shows how Mu’awiyah valued talent over lineage and personal hostility. Ziyad is considered great administrator and an even greater speaker. His inaugural sermon in Basra is often held up as an example of Arabic eloquence. He was given the Province of Kufa as well in 668 when al-Mughira died. Eventually, Ziyad became the Viceroy of the East, ruling Iraq and Iran and becoming ridiculously rich and powerful. He was to Mu’awiyah what Mu’awiyah had been to Uthman. However, due to his humble ancestry, he couldn’t even dream of overthrowing Mu’awiyah and so he remained loyal. When Mu’awiyah came to power, nearly thirty years had passed since the death of the Prophet. From those thirty years, five had been of open civil war. Before that, Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman hadn’t ruled much. They had sent armies to conquer territory and then they had taxed those territories. Central Government was weak and it wasn’t uncommon that governors refused orders from the Caliph. You can also get an idea from the fact that this empire, that Mu’awiyah ruled, was previously divided between the Sassanids and Byzantines who had been fighting each other for century. There were dozen religious denominations and even more languages. On top of that, the Arab Muslim elites only made up something like 5% of the population. This was obviously very difficult empire to rule. Mu’awiyah didn’t try to impose anything on them because he didn’t wanna stir the pot too much. He ruled indirectly by delegating to governors. He knew he couldn’t control everything from his capital at Damascus and so, he tried to make peace with everyone by giving them autonomy and accepting tribute in return. Of course, finding loyal governors would have been challenge but he could always rely on his own Umayyads and the Banu Kalb. To some, Mu’awiyah was an overlord who respected his clients. To others, he was brutal tyrant. Here, too, he used his political ability more than the fear of the military. He made sure that the people he couldn’t win over were too weak to do something about it. This included the people who’d supported Ali as well as the Meccans who saw the Umayyads as being the old rivals of the Prophet. He also moved the populations of entire towns around in order to secure cities that might cause trouble in the future. He probably gave or approved major policies, for instance, expansion campaigns but they were executed by his governors. The Empire did expand in the west, particularly in North Africa where it almost reached the Atlantic but the region wasn’t consolidated till few decades after Mu’awiyah’s death. In terms of the empire’s economy, Mu’awiyah, again, didn’t interfere much. Provinces were free to do what they had been doing for centuries. This meant, Greek systems in Egypt and Persian ones in Iran. This included coinage. He minted coins and early on, he might’ve even tried to create his own Islamic style but those coins were rejected by the people and so, he went back to copying coins from the Byzantine and the Sassanian Empires. Only small part of the revenue went to Damascus from the provinces because they had to pay their own expenses. Mu’awiyah doesn’t seem to have used this money for traditional monarch stuff like palaces and tombs. Rather he used most of it to keep the tribes in Syria happy. Speaking of Syria, the vast majority of people there were Christians. Mu’awiyah employed many of them without much bias based on faith. This included the grandfather of John of Damascus, Mansur ibn Sarjun. Almost all contemporary and near-contemporary Christian sources applaud Mu’awiyah’s reign. However, he didn’t fund any churches or bishoprics with few exceptions here and there. That could be because nomadic Christian tribes, whom Mu’awiyah relied on, didn’t have churches, and city folk, who had churches, he didn’t really need. Although, he does seem to have tried to cultivate an image as the new protector of the Christian Church since the Byzantine Emperor, he claimed, had failed. Speaking of the Byzantine Empire, Mu’awiyah didn’t aggressively pursue policy of expansion. However, he did send regular campaigns into Anatolia but they were mostly to raid and to keep his men busy. Still, he was able to harass the Byzantines so much that lot of Central Anatolia was no man’s land. His naval campaigns seem to have been more serious issue. Archeological evidence suggests that many cities on the Aegean coast of Anatolia were abandoned so, there seems to have been quite bit of destruction involved. Whatever the intention of these campaigns, they did serve Mu’awiyah when he decided to attack Constantinople. With the interior in ruins, the Caliph could send fleet for Constantinople without fear of reinforcements. He did that in 674 under the command of his son and future Caliph, Yazid. Although, there’s some debate about whether it was one campaign or two with one taking place in 669. The first Islamic siege of Constantinople is currently being reevaluated and should be revisited in future video. From 674 to 678, Constantinople was blockaded by Mu’awiyah’s fleet. Eventually, the Byzantines found an opening and attacked the besiegers through both land and sea. They used Greek Fire which resulted in the fleet’s devastation. While spectacular, this setback was relatively minor for Mu’awiyah. However, he never tried to take Constantinople again. Mu’awiyah didn’t build many palaces or tombs. There was palace in Damascus which was so humble that Byzantine envoy commented that the ceiling will do for birds and the walls will do for rats. There were probably some forts built in the Syrian desert where he met tribal leaders from time to time. Also, he built dam near the town of Ta’if in Hijaz. That is the only archaeological remain of his reign. While Mu’awiyah didn’t built many monuments, he did build an empire. The entity he inherited was Caliphate. According to Muslim tradition and popular imagination, this was golden state. It was time of justice under the great Companions of the Prophet. The Caliphs followed Islam and the law of God was everywhere. Unfortunately, the reality wasn’t exactly that. Controlling the Caliphate from Madinah proved to be challenge. Umar, for example, lauded for the conquests, didn’t really have control of his armies. Commanders did ignore his orders here and there. Fortunately, he was respected and so, this was rare. Also, the early Caliphs didn’t have personal guards to make themselves more open to the public. Unfortunately, three out of four of them got assassinated so Mu’awiyah did keep personal guards. The first step that Mu’awiyah took as Caliph was to move the Capital to Damascus. He had already used it as his base for nearly twenty years as Syria’s governor. Damascus was linked to the legacy of the Byzantine Empire more than it was to Islam. However, in many ways, as leader, Mu’awiyah was not that different from the Prophet himself. He served as bridge between the old world and the new. The Caliphate was only sustainable for as long as it was expanding because the armies and the commanders could be paid through loot. When expansion slowed down, the empire needed real revenue and for that, it needed control over its governors. While respect worked for Umar, not everyone had that working in their favor, just look at Uthman. Mu’awiyah was able to pull off ridiculously complicated balancing act and build house of cards. Unfortunately, he balanced it on his palm, and without his particular style, the empire wouldn’t last long. think I'm in pretty good company when say that what Mu’awiyah did here was inevitable. After all, Ibn Khaldun, the man behind the other Al Muqaddimah, also maintained that it was inevitable. He writes... Even though ‘Ali was in the right, Mu‘awiya’s intentions were not evil, for he aimed at the truth but missed it. Each was right in so far as his intentions were concerned. The nature of kingship requires that one person claim all glory for himself and appropriate it to himself alone. It was not for Mu‘awiya to deny this to himself and his kinsmen. Kingship was natural thing that communal solidarity by its very nature brought in its train … banded together and were willing to die for him. Had Mu‘awiya tried to lead them on to another course of action, had he opposed them and not claimed all the power (for himself and them), it would have meant the dissolution of the whole regime that he had consolidated. … Solomon and his father David had the kingship of the Israelites for themselves, as the nature of kingship demands, and it is well known how great share of prophethood and truth they possessed. Likewise, Mu‘awiya named Yazid as his successor, because he was afraid of the dissolution of his regime, inasmuch as the Umayyads did not want to see power surrendered to anyone else. Had Mu‘awiya named anyone else as his successor, the Umayyads would have been against him. Moreover, they had good opinion of Yazid. Mu‘awiya would not have been the man to name Yazid his successor, had he believed him to be really so wicked. Such an assumption must be absolutely excluded in Mu‘awiya’s case. So, to reiterate, Mu’awiyah didn't take the caliphate anywhere it wasn't going. He just found the least bloody path to get there. lot of things about Mu’awiyah and most other people from the first century of Islam are tough to tell without relying on anecdotes from tradition. Fortunately, many of the anecdotes about Mu’awiyah, from different sources, are consistent about his personality so, perhaps they hold some truth. think one anecdote from al-Baladhuri presents his personality very nicely. In this story, Mu’awiyah receives letter from Ibn al-Zubayr whose father had fought against Ali in the Battle of the Camel. Mu’awiyah and ibn al-Zubayr had adjacent properties and there was some sort of dispute. Ibn al-Zubayr wrote letter to Mu’awiyah in which he insulted him. Mu’awiyah showed the letter to his son, Yazid, and asked him what he would do. Yazid, being hothead, recommended arresting and executing him. Mu’awiyah pointed out that Ibn az-Zubayr had sons and brothers who’d protect him so, he’d have to send decent amount of men to arrest him. If he paid each 1,000 Dirhams, he would spend at least hundred thousand dirhams on arresting one man. Gifting the land was much cheaper option and it would win him friend so, that’s what he did. He gave the land to Ibn al-Zubayr. This anecdote shows Mu’awiyah as calm and reasonable person who wasn’t quick to anger and always weighed his options. He also won lot of friends through gifts. lot of anecdotes about Mu’awiyah are about him interacting with his son Yazid. These are meant to show Yazid as the polar opposite of Mu’awiyah. Mu’awiyah received lot of criticism from people who thought they were better Muslims than him. He never said anything about them. Mu’awiyah is said to have told his son that pietist’s insults might sting but he would pose no threat if he were ignored; punishment would make him martyr and rallying point for the discontented. Better to leave him as voice crying in the wilderness. This is lesson Yazid would clearly ignore. His religious beliefs often come under fire from people, as they did in his day. Obviously, we don’t know what kind of man he was, in that regard. Some call him secret Christian because he was really close to them. But he always seems to have stuck to the bigger points of Islam. He is also said to have said that wives of noblemen dominate them while base men dominate their wives. His ability to make and take joke is made clear by another anecdote. These anecdotes could be fictional but still, quite interesting. The great Amir al-Muminin Mu’awiyah ibn Abu Sufyan passed away in April of 680 after nineteen years in office. He was succeeded by his son, Yazid. This is, to this date, the worst thing about Mu’awiyah’s reign. This is considered the last step in Mu’awiyah turning the Caliphate, whatever that means into an Empire, whatever THAT means. Yazid is, today, one of, if not THE, most hated figure in the history of Islam. Okay, now, I'm gonna be an absolute mad lad and try to justify or at least explain this decision. Keep in mind that religiously, I'm strongly opposed to everything Yazid was as person and as tyrant. However, let's look at this, not from religious lens but rather from historical lens. This is history channel, after all. I'm not going to talk about what kind of Caliph Yazid would be, only why Mu’awiyah chose him. Now, Mu’awiyah had other sons but they were young and Yazid was the oldest. Also, Yazid was the son of Maysuna bint Bahdal and so, he had the support of most Syrian tribes. Yazid was also decent commander. We know he played role in the siege of Constantinople, however, the failure there wasn't his fault. All the sources that were written decades after Yazid mention him negatively as decadent and indulgent prince but we don't have any contemporary or near-contemporary sources that talk about his personal life. So, it's tough to get an idea of what kind of person he was. The other two candidates that people usually put on the list are Abdullah ibn az-Zubayr and Hussayn ibn Ali. Both of them were sons of Mu’awiyah’s rivals so, of course, Mu’awiyah’s supporters would never have supported either of them. Neither of them had powerful allies and it's likely that the empire would have been split between the two and another civil war would have taken place. Perhaps, Mu’awiyah’s decision was merely to save the Caliphate from another war, although another war would find its way to the Caliphate’s doors. There was no real succession system in the Caliphate. The first Caliph had been elected in small informal gathering of senior companions, the second wasn't even elected because he was the only real candidate. For the third, we hear there was small electoral body of six companions. By Mu’awiyah’s death, majority of the Companions had passed away. The ones that were left were either too old to be politically influential or too young to remember much of the Prophet’s time. council at that time would have likely been made up of Mu’awiyah’s governors and they most likely would have picked Yazid too. So, again, Mu’awiyah didn't take the caliphate anywhere it wasn't going. He just found the least bloody path to get there. We will talk about Yazid’s reign in future video. For now, let's return to Mu’awiyah. At the end of the day, Mu’awiyah is complicated figure. He’s not just part of Islamic History but he’s also part of the History of Islam. What mean by that is that he’ll always be judged by different standards than most people in Islamic history. For Shias, he’ll always be the corrupt absolutist tyrant who stood up against their beloved Imam Ali. He fought him and then, according to them, poisoned his son Hassan. For Sunnis, he’ll always be the man who turned the caliphate into an empire and put his son on the throne. The son who eventually assassinated the grandson of the Prophet, brutally. There’s simply no excuse or justification that is enough. Also, he was too nice to Christians for lot of orthodox Muslims to be comfortable with. Not only are moral standards different here but all sides even have their own versions of events so, there’s no way to argue for historical Mu’awiyah in religious context. There’s also lot of stuff about him having persecuted the descendants of the Prophet but the sources are really muddled because they were written under the Abbasids, who destroyed the Umayyads so, we can not verify them. They’re very religiously charged and so, didn’t get into any of that. However, when we step out of religion and we see Mu’awiyah as human being in the real world, we see man whose influence on the Islamic World is immeasurable. Here’s man who took over an empire that had been itching to break apart since the death of the Prophet. It was very diverse empire so, what worked for one faction couldn’t have worked for the other. Not only did he manage to rule this empire, but he also kept it together without any major rebellions AND he made it formidable force that matched the great Byzantine Empire over land and sea. There’s no guarantee that Ali, who was, without doubt, more pious Muslim and closer companion of the prophet, could have managed this. After all, during the civil war, Ali had trouble managing his allies while Mu’awiyah didn’t even break sweat. By the Civil War, Mu’awiyah had twenty years of experience in warfare and governance while Ali had none. As Chase Robinson writes... By every reasonable standard, Mu‘awiyah’s near twenty-year reign had been nearly unqualified success: not only is he grudgingly praised by Islamic sources, but he enjoys quite exceptional praise among Christian sources, who sometimes speak of his reign as time of peace and prosperity, “when justice flourished...and there was great peace in the regions under his control,” as one seventh-century Christian writing in northern Iraq put it. The secret of his success seems to have been laissez-faire patrimonialism rather than robust state building: he may have thrown up palace or two, and he may even have dabbled bit in striking some coins. But instead of forging powerful instruments of rule (such as salaried army and robust tax administration), he relied upon his own wits, the counsel and pull of tribal chiefs, and the remnants of Byzantine and Sasanian fiscal systems. “The Arabs had entered world more civilized than their own,” one scholar has written, “and since they came not to destroy but to exploit, it was more reasonable to use machinery already well adapted to that purpose than to try and replace it at once by something else”. Nor did Mu‘awiya vigorously project Islam as legitimizing ideology of rule. He may not have been reconstructed pre-Islamic sheikh, but his was politics of persuasion, and he was at his most persuasive when speaking in the sheikhly idiom that he had learned in pre-Islamic Mecca. Lacking both the good luck and sound judgment of their father, Mu‘awiyah’s two sons had virtually no resources to fall back upon when their father died. The small polity was not robust enough to save the dynasty occupying it. When Mu‘awiya died, his polity died with him. Other empires that expanded with as much speed as the Caliphate had, such as the Mongol Empire and Alexander’s Empire, fell apart shortly after their deaths but Mu’awiyah saved the Islamic Caliphate from sharing that fate. Without him, it’s likely that Iran would’ve fallen to local powers, who would’ve fallen to Turks. As we’ve seen, Muslims made up less than around 5% of the population so, likely, these local powers and Turks wouldn't have been Muslims. Seeing how history turned out, they would’ve easily conquered Greater Syria. Islam could’ve been pushed into Arabia. Of course, that’s just guesswork and my opinion and you don’t have to agree with it but it’s true that Mu’awiyah was man of remarkable abilities. He deserves to be judged by different standards and his contributions to the Islamic World need to be reevaluated. He should be remembered for the incredibly gifted ruler that he was, Caliph Mu’awiyah ‘the Great’. See you next time. Don’t forget to subscribe and press the bell icon. On the screen right now, you can see the names and tiers of the Patrons. You can join them by pledging dollar or more to support the channel. Thank you for watching!