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Muawiyah I
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Muawiyah I (; 602-680) was a Sahabi (companion) of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad and later the Umayyad caliph in Damascus. He engaged in a civil war against the fourth and final Rashidun (Rightly Guided Caliphs), Ali (Ali ibn Abi Talib) (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 led 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 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.
wiyah ibn Abi-Sufyan was born (602 C.E.) into a powerful clan, the Banu Umayya, of the Quraysh tribe.
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Muawiyah I (; 602-680) was a Sahabi (companion) of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad and later the Umayyad caliph in Damascus. He engaged in a civil war against the fourth and final Rashidun (Rightly Guided Caliphs), Ali (Ali ibn Abi Talib) (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 led 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 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 (602 C.E.) into a powerful clan, the Banu Umayya, 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. Mu'awiya's father is generally accepted as having been Abu Sufyan ibn Harb. However, many post Umayyad scholars regard this as a fabrication, and believe that he was an illegitimate child of an unknown father. His mother, Hind bint Utbah, was considered by many to be a prostitute.
The prominent Muslim philosopher Ibn Abi al-Hadid comments:
"When Mu'awiya was born, four people were thought to have been his father: Abi bin Umar bin Musaafir, Abi Umar bin Waleed, Abbas bin Abdul Muttalib, and Sabah the Ethiopian. 'Abu Sufyan was short and ugly whilst Sabah was young and handsome, Hind offered him sex and amongst the Arabs there was also a view that 'Abu Sufyan's other son Utbah was also a product of this union"
Among other illegitimate sons of Abu Sufyan's wives was Ziyad bin Sumayyah (also known as 'Ziyad son of his father', since his father was unknown and only his mother Sumayyah was known to him).
Abu Sufyan, nevertheless, was very wealthy and raised Mu'awiya as his own son. Like Abu Sufyan, Mu'awiya was a staunch follower of the pre-Islamic polytheism that was dominant in Mecca. Abu Sufyan, opposed Muhammad before becoming a Muslim after Muhammad conquered Mecca.
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 Mu'awiyah, along with his father Abu Sufyan, became Muslims at the conquest of Mecca when further resistance to Muslims became an impossibility. Some scholars hold the view that Mu'awiya was the second of the two to convert, with Abu Sufyan convincing him to do it.
Muhammad welcomed his former opponents, enrolled them in his army and gave them important posts in what was to become the Rashidun Caliphate. After Muhammad's death in 632, he served in the Islamic army sent against the Byzantine forces in Syria. He held a high rank in the Rashidun army which was led by his brother Yazid ibn Abu Sufyan.
His wives
Historian recorded that Muawiyah had many wives, one of them is Maysun bint Jandal a Christian poetess and singer from Bani Kalb in south Syria. She gave birth to Yazid I in 645 when Muawiyah was a governor of Syria pointed by Umar ibn al-Khattab. However, he devorce her later and she took Yazid her only son back to her tribe.
Another wife was Fakhinah bint Qarzhah from the clan of Abdumanaf. He had 2 sons with her: Abdullah and Abdulrahman. Abdullah was dumb and was nicknamed "Abu al-Khayr". Abdulrahman died when he was young.
The third wife was Katwah bin Qarzhah, Fakhinah's sister. When Muawiyah invaded Cyprus he took her with him and she died there.
The fourth wife was Na'ilah bint Ammarah from the same tribe as Maysun. He devorced her after a while. Na'ilah was married to Habib al-Nu'man ibn al-Bashir al-Ansari.
Governor of Syria
Caliph Umar (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 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.
According to the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor, Muawiyah I, after capturing Rhodes sold the remains of the 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 fought a protracted campaign against Ali, allegedly seeking justice for the assassinated caliph Uthman Ibn Affan. Aisha (Aisha bint Abu Bakr) (Muhammad's widow), Talhah (Talha ibn Ubayd-Allah) and Al-Zubayr (Abu ‘Abd Allah Zubayr ibn al-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 did not participate in the campaign by Aisha, Talhah 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. Talhah and Al-Zubayr were killed. Ali pardoned Aisha and had her escorted back to Medina.
Ali then turned towards Syria, where Mu'awiyah was in 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 Abi Bakr (the brother of Aisha and the son of Islam's first caliph Abu Bakr). Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr's rule resulted in widespread rebellion in Egypt. Mu'awiyah ordered 'Amr ibn al-'As to invade Egypt and 'Amr did so successfully. Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr was killed.
When Ali 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 ibn Ali, after an initial six-month defiance of Mu'awiyah, signed a truce and retired to private life in Medina. The conditions of the truce were that after Mu'awiya's death, the Caliphate should return to the Prophet's family. But Mu'awiyah violated the truce by ordering the poisoning of Hasan and appointing his own son Yazid as the next Caliph.
Rule
After giving himself the title Amir al-Mu'minin (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 divans, 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.
To have an insight into Mu’awiyah’s character, we may mention what Ibn Katheer reports in his history book Al-Bidayah wal-Nihayah.
"At the height of tension when fighting was about to erupt at Siffin between Imam Ali and Mu’awiyah, Mu’awiyah was informed that the Byzantine Emperor raised a very large army and was drawing very close to the borders of the Muslim state. He wrote to him, giving him a very clear warning, 'By God, if you do not stop your designs and go back to your place, I will end my dispute with my cousin and will drive you out of the entire land you rule, until I make the earth too tight for you.' The Byzantine Emperor was scared off and abandoned his plans"
However, other scholars contend that he simply placated the Byzantine emperor with offers of land, gold, and slaves ..
Mu'awiyah died May 6, 680, allegedly from a stroke brought on by his weight. 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 sheikh. However Mu'awiyah's attempt to start a dynasty failed because both Yazid and then his grandson Muawiya II died prematurely. The caliphate eventually went to Marwan I a descendant of another branch of Mu'awiya's clan.
Appearance and habits
There are conflicting reports regarding his appearance. According to some unofficial Sunni and Wahhabi sources, he was handsome and athletic and a proud horseman and warrior .
However, Shia Muslims and several pro-Alid Sunni Imams like Imam Nasa'i, were of the opinion that Mu'awiya was lazy, gluttonous, and obese to the point of not even being able to ride a horse. Nasa'i narrated a Sahih hadith, wherein the Prophet Muhammad, on hearing that Mu'awiya would not meet with him because he was too busy eating, cursed Mu'awiya: "May Allah never fill his belly!" Nasa'i was not the only Sunni scholar who accepted this hadith - there were many others, the foremost being Imam Bukhari himself . Shias often question why there are no reliable precise accounts of Mu'awiya actually participating in any battles after his conversion to Islam - no names of enemies he personally defeated in combat are known.
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 the Byzantines drove him back and he was unable to hold any territory in Anatolia. Sunni Muslims credit him with saving the fledgling Muslim nation from post civil war anarchy. However, Shia Muslims charge that if anything, he was the instigator of the civil war, and weakened the Muslim nation and divided the Ummah, fabricating self-aggrandizing heresies and slander against the Prophet's family and even selling his Muslim critics into slavery in the Byzantine empire .
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 ibn Ali, in which he said he would not make his son his successor.
Sunni View
Many Sunni historians see him as a companion of Muhammad, worthy of respect, and many Sunni revere him as such, taking issue with the Shia vilification of him. However, Muawiyah is seen, not as a hazrat (a title of utmost respect; used only for prophets, saints and the Rashidun), but as a king. Sunnis believe that the legacy of Muawiyah was shadowed by his ambition -he fought against the Rightly Guided Caliph of the time, Ali; and he transformed the regime from an elective monarchy into a hereditary one by designating his son Yezid as his successor.
A 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 (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..."
Sunni scholars interpret Hasan's willingness to abandon his claims in favor of Mu'awiyah as proof that Hasan did not 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. His also described as a manipulator and liar who usurped Islam purely for political and material gain. He was also widely regarded as a tyrant and usurper by both Shia Arabs and Persians, who despite being ruled by Sunni Arabs and their vassals for centuries, ultimately found the egalitarian Shia creed more palatable than the oppressive, Arab-supremacist tribal rule of Mu'awiya. Ali was noted for upholding the rights of non-Arab Muslims, whereas the Umayyads are remembered in Persian history for squashing them. The Umayyads suppressed Persian culture and language, and a number of Iran's greatest contributors to Persian literature - both Shias like Ferdowsi and Sunnis like Sa'di - took the side of Ali, not Mu'awiyah.
Mu'awiya opposed Ali, the rightful Imam, out of sheer greed for power and wealth. His reign opened the door to unparalleled disaster, marked by the persecution of Ali, slaughtering of his followers, and unlawful imprisonment of his supporters, which only worsened when Yazid come into power and 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 few historical figures killed by Mu'awiya include: the Sahaba Amr bin al-Hamiq, Malik al-Ashtar, Hujr ibn Adi (to which the families of Abu Bakr and Umar condemned Mu'awiyah for, and the Sahaba deemed his killer to be cursed) and Abd al-Rahman bin Hasaan (buried alive for his support of Ali).
According to many Sunni sources which Sunni authorities have often suppressed, Mu'awiyah was also responsible for the murder of Ayesha, the Prophet's widow, who ironically was a fellow enemy of Ali on the same grounds as Mu'awiyah (i.e. misdirected "revenge" for the murder of Uthman).
Mu'awiyah was also responsible for instigating the Battle of Siffin, the bloodiest battle in Islam's history, in which over 70,000 people (among them many of the last surviving companions of the Prophet Muhammad) were killed. Notable among the Companions who got killed by Mu'awiya, was Ammar bin Yasir, who was a frail old man of 95 at the time of his murder.
When the tide of the battle was turning in Ali's favor, Mu'awiyah stalled Ali's troops by raising the Qur'an on the tip of a bloody spear as a sort of "holy book shield" against attack by Muslims . This sort of act is widely regarded as blasphemy and desecration of God's word, and Shia scholars condemn Mu'awiyah for it, arguing such a practice would today be condemned by Sunni Muslims just as much as Shia Muslims.
The killing of the two children of Ubaydullah ibn Abbas can also be found in Sunni and Shi'a texts.
[...] 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.
From the Shia point of view, Imam Hasan ibn Ali did not sign the treaty with Mu'awiya because he liked him; rather, he did so to prevent even worse bloodshed than had already happened at Siffin. Hasan's intention was to preserve the Muslim Ummah and eventually restore the Caliphate to its rightful heirs, the Prophet's family (as per the terms of the treaty). Unfortunately he was unable to do this as he was fatally poisoned on Mu'awiyah's orders.
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