Mu'awiya I
 |
| Muawiyah I | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reign | 661 – 680 | ||||
| Predecessor | Ali | ||||
| Successor | Yazid I | ||||
| |||||
| House | Banu Abd Shams | ||||
| Dynasty | Umayyad | ||||
| Father | Abu Sufyan | ||||
| Mother | Hind bint Utbah | ||||
Mu‘āwīyah ibn Abī Sufyān (Template:ArB) (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 he opposed Ali, whom the Shia Muslims 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. His father, Abu Sufyan, opposed Muhammad before becoming a Muslim after the Prophet conquered Mecca. His mother, Hind bint Utba, ripped the chest of Hamza (uncle of Mohammad) in the battle of Uhud and chewed his liver. 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. [1] [2] According to some historians [who?] Muāwiyya accepted Islam 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. During Muhammad's last years, Muawiyah served him by writing down the revelations of the Koran which were revealed to the Prophet. 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 with 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, the brother of Yazid Ibn Abu Sufyan, as governor of Syria when the latter died due to 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.
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 (Muhammad's widow), Talha and 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.[citation needed] However, Muawiyah did not participate in the Rebellion of Aisha, Talha and Zubayr ibn al-Awwam who went to war against Ali in the Battle of the Camel. It should be noted that Aisha, Talha, Zubayr ibn al-Awwam and Muawiyah did not want to cause Muslim bloodshed [3]. The following few sentences from a speech made by Aisha before the start of the Battle of the Camel speak for themselves:
"People used to find fault with Uthman and his officers. They would come to Madina and consult us. They understood whatever advice we gave them about keeping peace and order. When we considered the grievances they had against Uthman, we found Uthman innocent, God-fearing, and truthful, and these agitators, sinful, treacherous and liars. Their hearts concealed one thing whereas their lips gave utterance to another. When they gathered strength and entered the house of innocent Uthman without any just cause and shed blood which it was not lawful to shed. They plundered what it was not lawful to take. They desecrated the soil whose sanctity it was their duty to respect. Now listen! The work before us which it does not behove us to neglect is to arrest the assassins of Uthman and see that the law of God has its way".[citation needed]
The city of Basrah fell to Aisha, Talha and Zubayr ibn al-Awwam. Most of the mischief mongers[citation needed] were rounded up and killed. Nonetheless, Ali was victorious and pardoned Aisha, had her escorted to Medina and allocated her a pension. Talha and Zubayr ibn al-Awwam were killed in the Battle of the Camel.
Ali then turned towards Syria, which was in open revolt under governor Muawiyah. 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 arbitration to settle the matter, arguing that continuing civil war would embolden the Byzantines.[4] 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. Ali set out to quell the Kharijites. At about the same time, unrest was brewing in Egypt and some of its citizens were demanding retribution for the blood of Uthman.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] Seeing these events, Muawiyah ordered Amr ibn As to invade Egypt and was successful in doing so.
When Alī was assassinated in 661, Muawiyah, as commander of the largest force in the Muslim Empire, had the strongest claim to the Caliphate. [citation needed] Ali's son Hasan, after initial defiance of Muawiyah, ceased hostilities and retired to Medina.
Sunni Muslims claim that Hasan pledged allegiance to Muawiyah. [citation needed] Most Shi'a Muslims say that he never pledged allegiance, merely ceased to advance his claim to the caliphate out of consideration for the supporters of Ali's family, who had been much reduced during the tumults of Ali's caliphate. [citation needed]
Rule
After his accession to the position of Caliph by the year 661, 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 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.
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 descendant of another branch of his clan.
Legacy
Caliph Muawiyah 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 Caliph Muawiyah's most controversial and enduring legacies was his decision to designate his son Yazid as his successor, thereby the Caliphate became 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.[citation needed] 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 Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr, the son of Zubayr ibn Awwam, the companion of Muhammad.
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 view him as a fifth Rightly Guided Caliph.
- "Allah, make him guided, a guider, and guide people through him." [5]
He is favorably depicted in a hadith from Bukhari which reads:
"..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..." [6]
Sunni scholars rationalize that Hasan's willingness to abandon the caliphate to Muawiyah suggests that Hasan did not view Muawiyah as an apostate, renegade and hypocrite. They argue that Hasan did so for the sake of peace and ending Fitnah. He gave the caliphate to Muawiyah because he had little support and Muawiyah had conquered most of the cities in the empire and the people of those cities ended up giving him bay'ah.
Sunnis tend to discourage criticizing Muawiyah's character and rule, observing his status as a companion of Muhammad. However, Sunnis hold a critical view of Muawiyah's decision to give the Caliphate to his son, Yazid.
Shi'a View
The Shi'a tend to vilify Muawiyah. His supposed conversion to Islam before the conquest of Mecca is dismissed as a fable, or mere hypocrisy. He is said to have opposed Ali, the rightful Caliph, 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
[...] 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.[7]
References
- ^ The History of al-Tabari, Volume IX, The Last Years of the Prophet, p32, SUNY Press
- ^ Life of Muhammad, Ibn Hisham, Volume 2, p597 (Urdu)
- ^ The Early Caliphate, Maulana Muhammad Ali, Al-Jadda Printers, pg. 169-206, 1983
- ^ pg.22 Mu'awiyah: Restorer of the Muslim Faith, Aisha Bewley, Dar al Taqwa Ltd. 2002.
- ^ Sunan Al-Tirmidhi, Book of Virtues #3824 and Sahih Al-Tirmidhi #3018
- ^ Sahih Bukhari 3:49:867
- ^ 21:6 Secrets of Mu'awiyah from Al-Amali: The Dictations of Sheikh al-Mufid