THE UMAYYAD CALPHATE THE SUFYANID CALPHS 1 MUAWIYA

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 Islamicstyle coinage.

�Under his sons, Walid I (705 -715) and Sulayman (715717), the empire expanded westward to Morocco and Spain, and eastward to Transoxiana. Constantinople was beseiged, again unsuccessfully, for one year (717718). 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 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 in North 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.

�The last Umayyad caliph of Syria, Marwan II (744750), attempted to restore order, but by this time the Abbasid revolutionary movement had gained momentum in the eastern provinces of the empire. In 749 Abu al-Abbas al-Saffah was proclaimed the first Abbasid caliph; the Umayyads were massacred in 750. Only one Umayyad, Abd al-Rahman, escaped: he fled to Spain where he established the dynasty of the Umayyads of Cordoba