Mu'awiya I

Mu‘āwīyah ibn Abī Sufyān (Template:ArB)‎ (602 - 680) was the founder of the Umayyad dynasty of caliphs. He engaged in a civil war against the fourth Sunni Caliph and first Shia 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 he opposed Ali, whom the Shia believe was Muhammad's true successor (see Succession to Muhammad), he has been hated and reviled by generations of Shi'a.

Early life

Muawiyah 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. Muawiyah's father Abu Sufyan ibn Harb and mother Hind bint Utbah are famous individuals in their own right.

Many of the Abd-Shams opposed Muhammad when he was preaching his new faith in Mecca, and joined in the armed battles that followed the flight of Muhammad and his followers to Medina.

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.

According to some historians Muāwiyya accepted Islam in defiance of his relatives. The Shi'a dispute this and charge that Muawiyah did not convert until after the conquest of Mecca made it politically expedient to do so.

Muhammad welcomed his former opponents, enrolled them in his army and gave them important posts in the expanding Islamic empire. Muawiyah became one of Muhammad's scribes. 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 under his brother Yazid, who was appointed governor of the newly conquered province.

Governor of Syria

Upon the death of Yazid in 640, Muawiyah was appointed Governor of Syria by Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab and 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 Byzantine attack and, in subsequent years, to take the offensive against the Byzantines in campaigns that resulted in the capture of Cyprus (649) and Rhodes (654) and a devastating defeat of the Byzantine navy off the coast of Lycia (655). At the same time, Muawiyah periodically dispatched land expeditions into Anatolia.

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

As a kinsman of the slain caliph Uthman ibn Affan, Muawiyah bore the duty of revenge. Because Ali did not apprehend and punish Uthman's murderers, Muawiyah regarded him as an accomplice to the murder and refused to acknowledge his caliphate. However, he did not participate in the Rebellion of Aisha (the prophet's widow), Talha and Zubayr ibn al-Awwam who went to war against Ali in the Battle of the Camel. Ali was victorious and pardoned Aisha, had her escorted to Medina and allocated her a pension.

Ali then turned towards Syria, which was in open revolt under her governor. He marched to the Euphrates and engaged Muawiyah'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 an arbitration to settle the matters, 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, when some former supporters, later known as Kharijites, felt that Ali had betrayed them by entering into negotiations. While Ali was quelling the Kharijites, Muawiyah sent a force to seize control of Egypt.

When Alī was assassinated by a Kharijite in 661, Muawiyah held both Syria and Egypt and, as commander of the largest force in the Muslim Empire, had the strongest claim to the Caliphate. Ali's son Hasan, after initial defiance of Muawiyah, ceased hostilities and retired to Medina, where he lived a quiet private life.

Sunni Muslims state that Hasan pledged allegiance to Muawiyah. Most Shi'a Muslims say that he never pledged allegiance, merely ceased to advance his claim to the caliphate. This was done out of consideration for the supporters of Ali's family, who had been much reduced during the tumults of Ali's caliphate.

Rule

After his accession to the position of Caliph by the year 666, Muawiyah governed the geographically and politically disparate Caliphate, which spread from Egypt in the West to Iran in the East, by strengthening the power of his allies in the newly conquered Arab territories. Prominent positions within 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. Muawiyah 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 Muawiyah: the Diwan al-Khatam "Chancellery" and the Barid "Postal Service", both of which greatly improved communications within the empire.

Muawiyah died May 6, 680. He was succeeded by his son Yazid I. Muawiyah had held the expanding empire together by force of his personality, through personal allegiances, in the style of a traditional Arab shaykh. However Muawiyah's attempt to start a dynasty failed because both Yazid and then his grandson Muawiya II died prematurely. The caliphate eventually went to a descendent of another branch of his clan.

Legacy

Muawiyah greatly beautified Damascus and developed a court to rival that of the Byzantines. 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 converting the Caliphate into a dynasty. According to Shi'a doctrine, this was a clear violation of the treaty he made with Hasan, in which he said he would not make his son his successor. He attempted to preserve the form of the election however, by causing his nobles and the chiefs of the empire to elect and swear allegiance to his son in his own lifetime, a tradition that endured for several succeeding dynasties. However the Shi'ites were not an important factor in the resistance to Yazid which was led by the anti-caliph Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr.

Sunni view of Muawiyah

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Some Sunni historians see him as a religious ruler and a companion of the prophet, worthy of the same respect that would be given to Abu Bakr or Ali. They say that he should be considered one of the rightly guided caliphs, according to a prayer Muhammad:

Allah, make him guided, a guider, and guide people through him.

He is also favorably depicted in a hadith from Bukhari which reads:

...Muawiya 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 (i.e. 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..."

Some say that Muawiyah and the Umayyad dynasty that followed him had descended into mere worldly rule, kingship rather than religious leadership.

However, Sunnis advocate restraint in critiquing his character and regime, citing his status as a companion of Muhammad, a narrator of hadith generally regarded as sound, and the belief that he served Muhammad as a scribe and may have written down some parts of the Qur'an.

Shi'a view of Muāwiyah

Main article: Shi'a view of Muawiyah I

The Shi'a have an extremely dim view of Muawiyah. They dismiss his supposed conversion to Islam before the conquest of Mecca as untrue, and mere hypocrisy on Muawiyah's part. He is said to have opposed Ali, the rightful Caliph, the first man to accept Islam, and cousin of the Prophet, out of sheer greed for power and wealth. His reign opened the door to unparalleled disaster, marked by persecution of Ali and his followers, resulting in Yazid I coming into power, shortly followed by the Battle of Karbala. He is said to have killed many of Muhammad's companions (Sahaba), either in battle or by poison, due to his lust for power. He is also accused of killing the children of Ubaidullah and is referred to as a bitch in Shi'a ahadith collections:

[...] Then he [i.e. Mu'awiyah] was informed that Ubaidullah had two infant sons. So he set out to reach them, and when he found them - they had two (tender) forelocks like pearls - [and] he ordered to kill them.

While, by Allah, Mu'awiyah is nothing but a bitch howling at other dogs!

Ali's own collection of sermons, the Nahjul Balagha, lists many letters from Ali to Muawiyah and speeches in which Ali explains the reasons for his opposition of Muawiyah and criticises Muawiyah from betraying Islam by establishing an illegitimate monarchy and indulging in wine, women and splendor.

See also

• Umayyad dynasty
• Sahaba

External links

• Biography of Muawiya ibn Abu Sufyan
• Mu'awiya as a Model of Islamic Governance