THE UMAYYAD CALİPHATE
THE SUFYANID CALİPHS
1) MU’AWIYA B. ABU SUFYAN
2) YAZID B. MU’AWIYA
3) MU’AWIYA B. YAZID
WHO İS MU’AWIYA B. ABU SUFYAN
His father Abu Sufyan, had emerged as leader of the Meccans in the years that followed the battle of Badr.
He received a political education in the best traditions of the Quraysh.
He became a Muslim at the time of the
conquest of Mecca (like his father)
in the time of first caliph, he and his elder
brother Yazid went on the expeditions to Syria.
Yazid’s premature death from plague meant that Mu’awiya came to be the leader of the family and governor of Syria after the death of Abu Ubayda
He remained governor without interruption or challenge for the next twenty years, thus
obtaining an unrivalled opportunity to build up and strengthen his power base in the province
He knew that most people have a price and he was prepared to pay it to avoid conflict.
in his caliphate, the most serious difficulties he faced were in Iraq.
in the last years of his reign, he was
determined that his son Yazid should succeed him and that he should be formally
acknowledged by the Muslim community in
his father’s lifetime.
YAZID B. MU’AWIYA
On the death of Mu’awiya, Husayn b. Ali’ left his place of retirement in Medina and
travelled across the desert towards Kufa to seek his supporters, accompanied only by a small band of family and friends.
There was a short battle at a place called
Karbala, Husayn and most of his party were
killed.
İn this period, Abdullah b. Zubayr rebelled in the Mecca.
And the Medinese, for their part, were
motivated by other considerations as well; it is clear that Mu’awiya’s agricultural activities in Medina had aroused widespread
opposition.
MU’AWIYA B. YAZID
Yazid was succeeded immediately by his
young son Mu’awiya. His accession was due to the influence of the cousin, Hassan b.
Malik b. Bahdal of Kalb, and the prince
himself proved sickly. Mu’awiya II, the last of the Sufyanids, died after only a few weeks.
The death of Mu’awiya II, led to a deep crisis
in the Umayyad regime; and Caliphate passed
to Marwanid.
Upon the death of Muawiya II, civil war broke out between two Arab factions, the Qaysites and the Kalbites, the latter of whom
supported the candidacy of Marwan b. al- Hakam. His ascendance to the caliphate in 684 established the Marwanid line of
Umayyad caliphs. As he died a year later, the
task of reunification was placed in the hands
of his son, Abd al-Malik.
During Abd al-Malik's reign (685-705), order was gradually restored to Iraq and Arabia;
Ibn al-Zubayr, who had taken advantage of
the civil war in Syria to extend control into
Iraq, was defeated in 692. Arabic was made
the official language of administration, and
Byzantine coins were replaced with a new
Islamic-style coinage.
Under his sons, Walid I (705-715) and
Sulayman (715-717), the empire expanded westward to Morocco and Spain, and
eastward to Transoxiana. Constantinople was beseiged, again unsuccessfully, for one year (717-718). This period also marks the
building of several grand palaces and the
famous Umayyad mosque in Damascus.
With the death of Sulayman, power was
transferred to his cousin Umar b. Abd al-Aziz (717-720). He enacted fiscal reforms which placed all Muslims, Arab and non-Arab (
mawali), on equal footing.
His successor, Yazid II (720-724), caused a
renewal of the hostilities between the Qaysites and the Kalbites by openly favoring the the
former. During Hisham's long reign (724-743), the Muslim empire reached the limits of its
expansion. Discontent with the Umayyad
regime manifested itself with the rebellion of
Zayd b. Ali in 740, while Berber revolts inNorth Africa that same year effectively cut off what is today Morocco and Spain from
Umayyad rule.
Under Hisham's successors, Walid II, Yazid III, and Ibrahim, a series of rebellions
paralyzed the caliphate: Kharijites seized
Kufa, and feuds between the Qaysites and
Kalbites errupted.
