Mu’awiya and the Establishment
Mu’awiya ibn Abi Sufyan was from the Umayyad clan — the same clan that had been the fiercest opponents of the Prophet before the conquest of Mecca. His father Abu Sufyan only converted at the conquest (630 CE). This background meant the Umayyads were always vulnerable to the charge that their Islam was political calculation rather than genuine faith — a charge that their behavior toward Ahl al-Bayt reinforced.
Mu’awiya governed Syria from 640 CE under ‘Umar and ‘Uthman. He refused to submit to Ali as caliph, citing the pretext of avenging ‘Uthman’s blood. The arbitration at Siffin and subsequent political maneuvering established him as the sole ruler after Ali’s assassination.
Karbala and Its Meaning for Umayyad Legitimacy
When Mu’awiya died (680 CE), he had broken the treaty with Hasan by designating his son Yazid as successor — establishing the hereditary principle. Yazid demanded bay’a from Husayn ibn Ali, the Prophet’s grandson and 3rd Imam. Husayn refused: “One like me cannot give bay’a to one like him.”
At Karbala (10 Muharram 61 AH), Husayn and his family were killed. For Ismaili/Shi’a theology, this was not merely a political tragedy: it was the historical revelation of the illegitimacy of caliphal authority that had supplanted the Imamate.
Territorial Expansion
Despite the theological controversies, Umayyad military achievements were extraordinary:
- West: Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed into Spain (711 CE), defeated the Visigoths; Islamic Spain (al-Andalus) lasted until 1492
- East: Muhammad ibn Qasim conquered Sindh (711 CE), opening South Asia
- Central Asia: expansion to Samarkand and Transoxiana
- The barrier: Charles Martel turned back the Islamic advance at Tours (732 CE) — stabilizing the western frontier
The Administrative Legacy
The Umayyads coined the first distinctly Islamic currency (removing Byzantine imagery, adding Quranic verses), introduced Arabic as the administrative language of the empire, developed the postal system (barid), and built architectural monuments including the Dome of the Rock (691 CE) and the Great Mosque of Damascus.
See also: Khilafa, Khilafa Rashida, Karbala, Imam Husayn, Bohra History, Seerah Al Hasan, Fatimid Caliphate