Mu'awiya

Ameer Muawiya: Early History

Muawiya has an interesting background, not least because his father, Abu Sufyan, was vigorously opposed to the Prophet Muhammad. How did he change from being the son of an opponent of Islam to becoming the leader of the Islamic world?

Ameer Muawiya in Islamic Calligraphy, Wikimedia Commons

Early life: Abu Sufyan and Conversion to Islam

Muawiya was born at the turn of the seventh century, between 597 and 605 C.E. His father, Abu Sufyan, was a prominent merchant from Mecca who was also the leader of the Quraysh tribe. This tribe held polytheistic views, which meant that Abu Sufyan clashed with the Prophet Muhammad, who had founded the last monotheistic religion, Islam.

Relations between Abu Sufyan and the Prophet Muhammad softened in 629, partially because of the Prophet's second marriage to Muawiya's widowed sister, who had embraced Islam. When Muhammad captured Mecca in 630, the whole family followed her lead and converted to Islam, although some historians speculate that Muawiya had secretly become a Muslim a couple of years earlier. Muhammad made Muawiya a scribe to attempt to reconcile with the Quraysh.

Muawiya's Rise to Power

After the Prophet Muhammad died in 632 C.E., the Rashidun caliphs took power of the emerging Islamic community - Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali. Under the Rashidun caliphate, Muawiya and his elder brother became commanders of the Islamic forces in the Muslim conquest of Syria. Muawiya became governor of most of Syria after his brother died of the plague in 639 C.E.

Muawiya proved an effective ruler, making shrewd political decisions. When Caliph Uthman took up leadership, he extended Muawiya's power further by enlarging his governorship to include the whole of Syria and Palestine. Uthman was also an Umayyad like Muawiya, and he liked appointing his kinsmen to high positions.

After Uthman was assassinated in 656 C.E, civil war broke out in the Islamic community - the First Fitna. The first uprising, led by Muhammad's widow against Caliph Ali, was put down quickly. However, Ali soon turned on Muawiya since he saw him as a potential rival.

Ameer Muawiya as Caliph

Painting of Caliph Muawiya before the conquest of Cyprus, Moustafa Farroukh, Wikimedia Commons

Muawiya ruled as caliph from 661 to 680 - let's look at how he got this position and what he did during his time as ruler.

Muawiya's Accession to Caliph

Muawiya's Syrian army made great territorial gains, including Egypt in July 658 C.E, which represented a major blow to Ali's authority.

However, Ali was assassinated in January 661 C.E, before Muawiya could defeat him in battle. Ali was succeeded by his son, Hasan.

Muawiya negotiated a financial settlement with Hasan, which stipulated that Hasan would abdicate in exchange for a large payment. Muawiya was recognised as Caliph in the summer of 661. In so doing, he founded the Umayyad Caliphate, so named because Umayya was an ancestor he shared with the Prophet Muhammad, and therefore it boosted his legitimacy to rule.

Mu'awiya's Rule

Muawiya preferred to rule the caliphate by financial diplomacy than military force. He tended to bribe influential leaders in the provinces of his empire to be loyal to him by building up their power in exchange for their allegiance.

Muawiya waged a long war against the Byzantine Empire. Although Muawiya eventually lost this war and was forced to pay 3000 gold coins in tribute to the Byzantine Emperor each year, the war still benefited him through war spoils, the continued training of his army, and the prevention of any Byzantine campaigns into Syria itself.

He was more successful in his western military expeditions, conquering the region of Ifriqiya in central north Africa in 678 C.E.

Death of Mu'awiya

Muawiya died of illness in 680 C.E., at eighty years old. He appointed his son, Yazid, as his successor in an unusual move for Islamic politics, where successful commanders usually took over. His body was buried at the Bab al-Saghir gate of the city of Damascus.

Ameer Muawiya: Meaning of His Rule

Muawiya was a significant figure in many ways:

1. He founded the Umayyad Caliphate, which would rule the Islamic world for nearly a century.
2. He changed the shape of Islamic political rule. Whereas the Rashidun caliphs had styled themselves 'deputy of the messenger of God,' Muawiya and his successors adopted the title 'deputy of God'.
3. He was a good diplomat, meaning that his administration ran peaceably despite ruling over many different tribes.
4. He preserved the unity of the caliphate after a period of intense civil war that could have split the Islamic community in two. The significance of this watershed moment is borne out by the fact that traditional sources within Islam name his accession as 'the year of unification of the community'.
5. He created a vast navy that made the Umayyad Caliphate the most powerful force in the eastern Mediterranean.
6. Muawiya's war against Caliph Ali led to the Sunni-Shia split in Islam. Although this was probably not Muawiya's intention, the effects of his victory over Ali would change the political character of the Islamic community forever.

Coins issued by Yazid, Muawiya's son and successor to the Umayyad dynasty, LouisAragon, Wikimedia Commons

Uthman and Muawiya

There is a debate about whether the Umayyads really began with Muawiya or whether it originated with Caliph Uthman, the third of the Rashidun Caliphs.

Conventional Sunni accounts of Umayyad history identify the start of the Umayyad Caliphate in 661 C.E when Muawiya came to the throne. This version of history makes a sharp break between the four 'rightly guided' Rashidun Caliphs, who were the Prophet Muhammad's closest companions, and the despotic Umayyad Caliphs, whose reign ushered in a focus on political kingship rather than the faith of Islam.

However, historian Andrew Marsham contests this view, pointing out that this overlooks the fact that Uther was an Umayyad and, therefore, the start of the Umayyads ruling the Islamic community really began with Uther, not Muawiya.

However, Marsham is clear in distinguishing between the significance of Uther and Muawiya in this way:

Muawiya: Perspectives and Historiography

Muawiya has a very contentious legacy within Islam and wider historiography.

The Sunni-Shia Debate

Sunni perspectives:

From the eighth century onwards, Sunni historiography divided the history of the Caliphs into two - the 'rightly guided' caliphs of the Rashidun Caliphate, who had been divinely guided and moral exemplars, verses Muawiya and the later Umayyad Caliphs who were oppressive rulers.

However, the Sunni view of Muawiya is not completely negative. They respect him as a scribe of the Qur'anic revelation and ascribe him the status of a companion of Muhammad. They also believe that his war against Ali was an error of judgement rather than due to evil intentions.

Shia perspectives:

Shias believe that Ali was the true successor of Muhammad. Therefore, Muawiya's war with Ali means that Shias view Muawiya as an evil character. A particularly contentious issue is that Muawiya's father, Abu Sufyan, was an opponent of the Prophet Muhammad and only converted when Muhammad took Mecca. Therefore, they think Muawiya's conversion was false and that he was an unbeliever. Shias also deny that Muawiya can be properly understood as a companion of Muhammad and do not see him as a scribe of Qur'anic revelation.

The Good/Bad Ruler Debate

Some scholars see Muawiya as a politically astute leader.

• Julius Wellhausen and Stephen Humphreys, for example, portray him as an intelligent ruler who saved the Islamic empire through his shrewd policies.²
• Erling Petersen argues that political shrewdness won Muawiya the caliphate.³

However, other historians see him as a usurper.

• Wilferd Madelung is the chief advocate of this view, arguing that Muawiya did not deserve to become Caliph and that he debased Islamic ideals as ruler of the Muslim world.⁴
• Michael Morony critiques Madelung's view by arguing that he relies on sources that are highly biased against Muawiya that are shaped like salvation histories about the struggle of the rightful imam Ali against Muawiya.⁵

The Caliphate Debate

Most Western scholars agree that Muawiya became caliph in 661 C.E, after the agreement that he made with Ali's son, Hasan. Julius Wellhausen puts it this way:

Historian Hugh Kennedy goes one step further, suggesting that not only did Muawiya make no claim to be caliph, but that he wanted a council to select the next caliph.⁷

Meanwhile, coming from a very different perspective, Madelung argues that Muawiya did not claim to be caliph because he knew that he lacked the qualifications for it.⁸

However, Khaled Keshk argues that Ali and Muawiya were both contenders for the caliphate during the civil war and that because some in the Islamic community recognised Muawiya as caliph from the Battle of Camel onwards, his reign can be dated as early as 656 C.E.⁹

Keshk bases his argument based on the fact that Ali decided to go to war against Muawiya, which he thinks Ali would not have done if Muawiya did not represent a direct challenge to his rule.

Furthermore, Ali told his messenger to inform Muawiya that:

This statement is only understandable if Ali genuinely believed that there was a possibility that Muawiya was a rival for the caliphate.

If Keshk's opinion were the case, it would complicate the binary view of rightful Rashidun caliphs and bad Umayyad caliphs even further.