Accession After Ali was killed, Mu'awiya left al-Dahhak ibn Qays in charge of Syria and led his army toward Kufa, where Ali's son
Hasan had been nominated as his successor. He successfully bribed
Ubayd Allah ibn Abbas, the commander of Hasan's vanguard, to desert his post and sent envoys to negotiate with Hasan. In return for a financial settlement,
Hasan abdicated and Mu'awiya entered Kufa in July or September 661 and was recognized as caliph. This year is considered by a number of the early Muslim sources as 'the year of unity' and is generally regarded as the start of Mu'awiya's caliphate. Before and/or after Ali's death, Mu'awiya received oaths of allegiance in one or two formal ceremonies in Jerusalem, the first in late 660 or early 661 and the second in July 661. The 10th-century Jerusalemite geographer
al-Maqdisi holds that Mu'awiya had further developed a mosque originally built by Caliph Umar on the
Temple Mount, the precursor of the
al-Aqsa congregational mosque, and received his formal oaths of allegiance there. According to the earliest extant source about Mu'awiya's accession in Jerusalem, the near-contemporary
Maronite Chronicle, composed by an anonymous
Syriac author, Mu'awiya received the pledges of the tribal chieftains and then prayed at
Golgotha and the
Tomb of the Virgin Mary in
Gethsemane, both adjacent to the Temple Mount. The
Maronite Chronicle also maintains that Mu'awiya "did not wear a crown like other kings in the world".
Domestic rule and administration in 663, the sole epigraphic attestation of Mu'awiya's rule in
Syria, the center of his caliphate There is little information in the early Muslim sources about Mu'awiya's rule in Syria, the center of his caliphate. He established his court in Damascus and moved the caliphal treasury there from Kufa. He relied on his Syrian tribal soldiery, numbering about 100,000 men, increasing their pay at the expense of the Iraqi garrisons, also about 100,000 soldiers combined. The highest stipends were paid on an inheritable basis to 2,000 nobles of the Quda'a and Kinda tribes, the core components of his support base, who were further awarded the privilege of consultation for all major decisions and the rights to veto or propose measures. The respective leaders of the Quda'a and the Kinda, the Kalbite chief
Ibn Bahdal and the Homs-based Shurahbil, formed part of his Syrian inner circle along with the Qurayshites
Abd al-Rahman ibn Khalid, the son of the famed general
Khalid ibn al-Walid, and
al-Dahhak ibn Qays, a chieftain of the
Fihr clan who served as the commander of the caliph's security forces (
shurta) and governor of Damascus. Mu'awiya is credited by the early Muslim sources for establishing (government departments) for correspondences (), chancellery () and the postal route (). According to al-Tabari, following an assassination attempt by the Kharijite al-Burak ibn Abd Allah on Mu'awiya while he was praying in the mosque of Damascus in 661, Mu'awiya established a caliphal (personal guard) and (select troops) and the (reserved area) within mosques. The caliph's treasury was largely dependent on the tax revenues of Syria and income from the crown lands that he confiscated in Iraq and Arabia. He also received the
customary fifth of the war booty acquired by his commanders during expeditions. In the Jazira, Mu'awiya coped with the tribal influx, which spanned previously established groups such as the
Sulaym, newcomers from the
Mudar and
Rabi'a confederations and civil war refugees from Kufa and Basra, by administratively detaching the military district of
Qinnasrin–Jazira from Homs, according to the 8th-century historian
Sayf ibn Umar. Al-Baladhuri attributes this change to Mu'awiya's successor
Yazid I (). Syria retained its Byzantine-era bureaucracy, which was staffed by Christians including the head of the tax administration,
Sarjun ibn Mansur. The latter had served Mu'awiya in the same capacity before his attainment of the caliphate, and Sarjun's father was the likely holder of the office under Emperor
Heraclius (). Mu'awiya was tolerant toward Syria's native Christian majority. In turn, the community was generally satisfied with his rule, under which their conditions were at least as favorable as under the Byzantines. Mu'awiya attempted to mint his own coins, but the new currency was rejected by the Syrians as it omitted the symbol of the cross. The sole epigraphic attestation to Mu'awiya's rule in Syria, a Greek inscription dated to 663 discovered at the hot springs of
Hamat Gader near the
Sea of Galilee, refers to the caliph as ''Abd Allah Mu'awiya, amir al-mu'minin'' ("God's Servant Mu'awiya, commander of the faithful"; the caliph's name is preceded by a cross) and credits him for restoring Roman-era
bath facilities for the benefit of the sick. According to the historian
Yizhar Hirschfeld, "by this deed, the new caliph sought to please" his Christian subjects. The caliph often spent his winters at his
Sinnabra palace near the Sea of Galilee. Mu'awiya was also credited with ordering the restoration of
Edessa's church after it was ruined in an earthquake in 679. He demonstrated a keen interest in Jerusalem. Although archaeological evidence is lacking, there are indications in medieval literary sources that a rudimentary mosque on the Temple Mount existed as early as Mu'awiya's time or was built by him.
Governance in the provinces Mu'awiya's primary internal challenge was overseeing a Syria-based government that could reunite the politically and socially fractured Caliphate and assert authority over the tribes which formed its armies. He applied indirect rule to the Caliphate's provinces, appointing governors with full civil and military authority. Although in principle governors were obliged to forward surplus tax revenues to the caliph, in practice most of the surplus was distributed among the provincial garrisons and Damascus received a negligible share. During Mu'awiya's caliphate, the governors relied on the (tribal chieftains), who served as intermediaries between the authorities and the tribesmen in the garrisons. Mu'awiya's statecraft was likely inspired by his father, who utilized his wealth to establish political alliances. The caliph generally preferred bribing his opponents over direct confrontation. In the summation of Kennedy, Mu'awiya ruled by "making agreements with those who held power in the provinces, by building up the power of those who were prepared to co-operate with him and by attaching as many important and influential figures to his cause as possible".
Iraq and the east Challenges to central authority in general, and to Mu'awiya's rule in particular, were most acute in Iraq, where divisions were rife between the upstarts and the nascent Muslim elite, the latter of which was further divided between Ali's partisans and the Kharijites. Mu'awiya's ascent signaled the rise of the Kufan represented by Ali's erstwhile backers al-Ash'ath ibn Qays and Jarir ibn Abd Allah, at the expense of Ali's old guard represented by
Hujr ibn Adi and
Ibrahim, the son of Ali's leading aide
Malik al-Ashtar. Mu'awiya's initial choice to govern Kufa in 661 was
al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba, who possessed considerable administrative and military experience in Iraq and was highly familiar with the region's inhabitants and issues. Under his nearly decade-long administration, al-Mughira maintained peace in the city, overlooked transgressions that did not threaten his rule, allowed the Kufans to keep possession of the lucrative Sasanian crown lands in the
Jibal district and, unlike under past administrations, consistently and timely paid the garrison's stipends. In Basra, Mu'awiya reappointed his kinsman from the
Abd Shams clan,
Abd Allah ibn Amir, who had previously held the office under Caliph
Uthman. During Mu'awiya's reign, Ibn Amir recommenced expeditions into
Sistan, reaching as far as
Kabul. He was unable to maintain order in Basra, where there was growing resentment toward the distant campaigns. Consequently, Mu'awiya replaced Ibn Amir with
Ziyad ibn Abihi in 664 or 665. The latter had been the longest of Ali's loyalists to withhold recognition of Mu'awiya's caliphate and had barricaded himself in the
Istakhr fortress in
Fars. Busr had threatened to execute three of Ziyad's young sons in Basra to force his surrender, but Ziyad was ultimately persuaded by al-Mughira, his mentor, to submit to Mu'awiya's authority in 663. In a controversial step that secured the loyalty of the fatherless Ziyad, whom the caliph viewed as the most capable candidate to govern Basra, Mu'awiya adopted him as his paternal half-brother, to the protests of his own son Yazid, Ibn Amir and his Umayyad kinsmen in the Hejaz. Following al-Mughira's death in 670, Mu'awiya attached Kufa and its dependencies to Ziyad's Basran governorship, making him the caliph's virtual viceroy over the eastern half of the Caliphate. Ziyad tackled Iraq's core economic problem of overpopulation in the garrison cities and the consequent scarcity of resources by reducing the number of troops on the payrolls and dispatching 50,000 Iraqi soldiers and their families to settle
Khurasan. This also consolidated the previously weak and unstable Arab position in the Caliphate's easternmost province and enabled conquests toward
Transoxiana. As part of his reorganization efforts in Kufa, Ziyad confiscated its garrison's crown lands, which thenceforth became the possession of the caliph. Opposition to the confiscations raised by Hujr ibn Adi, whose pro-Alid advocacy had been tolerated by al-Mughira, was violently suppressed by Ziyad. Hujr and his retinue were sent to Mu'awiya for punishment and were executed on the caliph's orders, marking the first political execution in Islamic history and serving as a harbinger for future pro-Alid uprisings in Kufa. Ziyad died in 673 and his son
Ubayd Allah was appointed gradually by Mu'awiya to all of his father's former offices. In effect, by relying on al-Mughira and Ziyad and his sons, Mu'awiya franchised the administration of Iraq and the eastern Caliphate to members of the elite
Thaqif clan, which had long-established ties to the Quraysh and were instrumental in the conquest of Iraq.
Egypt In Egypt, Amr governed more as a partner of Mu'awiya than a subordinate until his death in 664. He was permitted to retain the surplus revenues of the province. The caliph ordered the resumption of Egyptian grain and oil shipments to Medina, ending the hiatus caused by the First Fitna. After Amr's death, Mu'awiya's brother
Utba () and an early companion of Muhammad,
Uqba ibn Amir (), successively served as governors before Mu'awiya appointed
Maslama ibn Mukhallad al-Ansari in 667. Maslama remained governor for the duration of Mu'awiya's reign, significantly expanding Fustat and its mosque and boosting the city's importance in 674 by relocating Egypt's main shipyard to the nearby
Roda Island from Alexandria due to the latter's vulnerability to Byzantine naval raids. The Arab presence in Egypt was mostly limited to the central garrison at Fustat and the smaller garrison at Alexandria. The influx of Syrian troops brought by Amr in 658 and the Basran troops sent by Ziyad in 673 swelled Fustat's 15,000-strong garrison to 40,000 during Mu'awiya's reign. Utba increased the Alexandria garrison to 12,000 men and built a governor's residence in the city, whose Greek Christian population was generally hostile to Arab rule. When Utba's deputy in Alexandria complained that his troops were unable to control the city, Mu'awiya deployed a further 15,000 soldiers from Syria and Medina. The troops in Egypt were far less rebellious than their Iraqi counterparts, though elements in the Fustat garrison occasionally raised opposition to Mu'awiya's policies, culminating during Maslama's term with the widespread protest at Mu'awiya's seizure and allotment of crown lands in
Fayyum to his son Yazid, which compelled the caliph to reverse his order.
Arabia Although revenge for Uthman's assassination had been the basis upon which Mu'awiya claimed the right to the caliphate, he neither emulated Uthman's empowerment of the Umayyad clan nor used them to assert his own power. With minor exceptions, members of the clan were not appointed to the wealthy provinces nor the caliph's court, Mu'awiya largely limiting their influence to Medina, the old capital of the Caliphate where most of the Umayyads and the wider Qurayshite former aristocracy remained headquartered. The loss of political power left the Umayyads of Medina resentful toward Mu'awiya, who may have become wary of the political ambitions of the much larger Abu al-As branch of the clan—to which Uthman had belonged—under the leadership of
Marwan ibn al-Hakam. The caliph attempted to weaken the clan by provoking internal divisions. Among the measures taken was the replacement of Marwan from the governorship of Medina in 668 with another leading Umayyad,
Sa'id ibn al-As. The latter was instructed to demolish Marwan's house, but refused and when Marwan was restored in 674, he also refused Mu'awiya's order to demolish Sa'id's house. Mu'awiya dismissed Marwan once more in 678, replacing him with his own nephew,
al-Walid ibn Utba. Besides his own clan, Mu'awiya's relations with the
Banu Hashim (the clan of Muhammad and Caliph Ali), the families of Muhammad's closest companions, the once-prominent Banu Makhzum, and the Ansar were generally characterized by suspicion or outright hostility. Despite his relocation to Damascus, Mu'awiya remained fond of his original homeland and made known his longing for "the spring in
Juddah [sic], the summer in Ta'if, [and] the winter in Mecca". He purchased several large tracts throughout Arabia and invested considerable sums to develop the lands for agricultural use. According to the Muslim literary tradition, in the plain of
Arafat and the barren valley of Mecca he dug numerous wells and canals, constructed dams and dikes to protect the soil from seasonal floods, and built fountains and reservoirs. His efforts saw extensive grain fields and date palm groves spring up across Mecca's suburbs, which remained in this state until deteriorating during the
Abbasid era, which began in 750. In the
Yamama region in central Arabia, Mu'awiya confiscated from the
Banu Hanifa the lands of Hadarim, where he employed 4,000 slaves, likely to cultivate its fields. The caliph gained possession of estates in and near Ta'if which, together with the lands of his brothers Anbasa and Utba, formed a considerable cluster of properties. One of the earliest known Arabic inscriptions from Mu'awiya's reign was found at a soil-conservation dam called Sayisad east of Ta'if, which credits Mu'awiya for the dam's construction in 677 or 678 and asks God to give him victory and strength. Mu'awiya is also credited as the patron of a second dam called
al-Khanaq east of Medina, according to an inscription found at the site. This is possibly the dam between Medina and the gold mines of the Banu Sulaym tribe attributed to Mu'awiya by the historians al-Harbi (d. 898) and
al-Samhudi (d. 1533).
War with Byzantium during Mu'awiya's governorship of Syria (640–661) and Mu'awiya's
caliphate (661–680). Mu'awiya possessed more personal experience than any other caliph fighting the Byzantines, the principal external threat to the Caliphate, and pursued the war against the Empire more energetically and continuously than his successors. The First Fitna caused the Arabs to lose control over Armenia to native, pro-Byzantine princes, but in 661 Habib ibn Maslama re-invaded the region. The following year, Armenia became a tributary of the Caliphate and Mu'awiya recognized the Armenian prince
Grigor Mamikonian as its commander. Not long after the civil war, Mu'awiya broke the truce with Byzantium, and on a near-annual or bi-annual basis the caliph engaged his Syrian troops in raids across the
mountainous Anatolian frontier, the buffer zone between the Empire and the Caliphate. At least until Abd al-Rahman ibn Khalid's death in 666, Homs served as the principal marshaling point for the offensives, and afterward Antioch served this purpose as well. The bulk of the troops fighting on the Anatolian and Armenian fronts hailed from the tribal groups that arrived from Arabia during and after the conquest. During his caliphate, Mu'awiya continued his past efforts to resettle and fortify the Syrian port cities. Due to the reticence of Arab tribesmen to inhabit the coastlands, in 663 Mu'awiya moved Persian civilians and personnel that he had previously settled in the Syrian interior into Acre and Tyre, and transferred
Asawira, elite Persian soldiers, from Kufa and Basra to the garrison at Antioch. A few years later, Mu'awiya settled
Apamea with 5,000
Slavs who had defected from the Byzantines during one of his forces' Anatolian campaigns. Based on the histories of
al-Tabari (d. 923) and
Agapius of Hierapolis (d. 941), the first raid of Mu'awiya's caliphate occurred in 662 or 663, during which his forces inflicted a heavy defeat on a Byzantine army with numerous
patricians slain. In the next year a raid led by Busr reached Constantinople and in 664 or 665, Abd al-Rahman ibn Khalid raided
Koloneia in northeastern Anatolia. In the late 660s, Mu'awiya's forces attacked
Antioch of Pisidia or
Antioch of Isauria. Following the death of Constans II in July 668, Mu'awiya oversaw an increasingly aggressive policy of naval warfare against the Byzantines. According to the early Muslim sources, raids against the Byzantines peaked between 668 and 669. In each of those years there occurred six ground campaigns and a major naval campaign, the first by an Egyptian and Medinese fleet and the second by an Egyptian and Syrian fleet. The culmination of the campaigns was an assault on Constantinople, but the chronologies of the Arabic, Syriac, and Byzantine sources are contradictory. The traditional view by modern historians is of a
great series of naval-borne assaults against Constantinople in , based on the history of the Byzantine chronicler
Theophanes the Confessor (d. 818). However, the dating and the very historicity of this view has been challenged; the Oxford scholar
James Howard-Johnston considers that no siege of Constantinople took place, and that the story was inspired by the
actual siege a generation later. The historian Marek Jankowiak on the other hand, in a revisionist reconstruction of the events reliant on the Arabic and Syriac sources, asserts that the assault came earlier than what is reported by Theophanes, and that the multitude of campaigns that were reported during 668–669 represented the coordinated efforts by Mu'awiya to conquer the Byzantine capital. Al-Tabari reports that Mu'awiya's son Yazid led a campaign against Constantinople in 669 and
Ibn Abd al-Hakam reports that the Egyptian and Syrian navies joined the assault, led by Uqba ibn Amir and
Fadala ibn Ubayd respectively. According to Jankowiak, Mu'awiya likely ordered the invasion during an opportunity presented by the rebellion of the Byzantine Armenian general
Saborios, who formed a pact with the caliph, in spring 667. The caliph dispatched an army under Fadala, but before it could be joined by the Armenians, Saborios died. Mu'awiya then sent reinforcements led by Yazid who led the Arab army's invasion in the summer. An Arab fleet reached the
Sea of Marmara by autumn, while Yazid and Fadala, having raided
Chalcedon through the winter, besieged Constantinople in spring 668, but due to famine and disease, lifted the siege in late June. The Arabs continued their campaigns in Constantinople's vicinity before withdrawing to Syria most likely in late 669. In 669, Mu'awiya's navy raided as far as Sicily. The following year, the wide-scale fortification of Alexandria was completed. While the histories of al-Tabari and al-Baladhuri report that Mu'awiya's forces captured Rhodes in 672–674 and colonized the island for seven years before withdrawing during the reign of Yazid I, the modern historian
Clifford Edmund Bosworth casts doubt on these events and holds that the island was only raided by Mu'awiya's lieutenant
Junada ibn Abi Umayya al-Azdi in 679 or 680. Under Emperor
Constantine IV (), the Byzantines began a counteroffensive against the Caliphate, first raiding Egypt in 672 or 673, while in winter 673, Mu'awiya's admiral Abd Allah ibn Qays led a large fleet that raided
Smyrna and the coasts of Cilicia and Lycia. The Byzantines landed a major victory against an Arab army and fleet led by Sufyan ibn Awf, possibly at
Sillyon, in 673 or 674. The next year, Abd Allah ibn Qays and Fadala landed in Crete and in 675 or 676, a Byzantine fleet assaulted Maraclea, killing the governor of Homs. In 677, 678 or 679, according to Theophanes, Mu'awiya sued for peace with Constantine IV, possibly as a result of the destruction of his fleet or the Byzantines' deployment of the
Mardaites in the Syrian littoral during that time. A thirty-year treaty was concluded, obliging the Caliphate to pay an annual tribute of 3,000 gold coins, 50 horses and 30 slaves, and withdraw their troops from the forward bases they had occupied on the Byzantine coast. But other Byzantine and Islamic sources make no mention of this treaty. Although the Muslims did not achieve any permanent territorial gains in Anatolia during Mu'awiya's career, the frequent raids provided Mu'awiya's Syrian troops with war spoils and tribute, which helped ensure their continued allegiance, and sharpened their combat skills. Moreover, Mu'awiya's prestige was boosted and the Byzantines were precluded from any concerted campaigns against Syria.
Conquest of central North Africa (central
North Africa; shaded in purple) The Arabs had not advanced beyond
Cyrenaica since the 640s, other than periodic raids. During Mu'awiya's reign, the expeditions against
Byzantine North Africa were renewed. In 665 or 666 Ibn Hudayj led an army which raided
Byzacena (southern district of
Byzantine Africa) and
Gabes and temporarily captured
Bizerte before withdrawing to Egypt. The following year Mu'awiya dispatched Fadala and
Ruwayfi ibn Thabit to raid the commercially valuable island of
Djerba. Meanwhile, in 662 or 667,
Uqba ibn Nafi, a Qurayshite commander who had played a key role in the Arabs' capture of Cyrenaica in 641, reasserted Muslim influence in the
Fezzan region, capturing the
Zawila oasis and the
Garamantes capital of
Germa. He may have raided as far south as
Kawar in modern-day Niger. , the Arab commander who conquered Ifriqiya and founded
Kairouan in 670, during Mu'awiya's reign. Uqba served as Mu'awiya's lieutenant governor over North Africa until the caliph dismissed him in 673. The struggle over the succession of Constantine IV drew Byzantine focus away from the African front. In 670, Mu'awiya appointed Uqba as Egypt's deputy governor over the North African lands under Arab control west of Egypt. At the head of a 10,000-strong force, Uqba commenced his expedition against the territories west of Cyrenaica. As he advanced, his army was joined by Islamized
Luwata Berbers and their combined forces conquered
Ghadamis,
Gafsa and the
Jarid. In the last region he established a permanent Arab garrison town called
Kairouan, at a relatively safe distance from
Carthage and the coastal areas, which had remained under Byzantine control, to serve as a base for further expeditions. The new Arab center also aided Muslim conversion efforts among the
Berber tribes that dominated the surrounding countryside. Mu'awiya dismissed Uqba in 673, probably out of concern that he would form an independent power base in the lucrative regions that he had conquered. The new Arab province,
Ifriqiya (modern-day Tunisia), remained subordinate to the governor of Egypt, who sent his (non-Arab, Muslim freedman)
Abu al-Muhajir Dinar to replace Uqba, who was arrested and transferred to Mu'awiya's custody in Damascus. Abu al-Muhajir continued the westward campaigns as far as
Tlemcen and defeated the Awraba Berber chief
Kasila, who subsequently embraced Islam and joined his forces. In 678, a treaty between the Arabs and the Byzantines ceded Byzacena to the Caliphate, while forcing the Arabs to withdraw from the northern parts of the province. After Mu'awiya's death, his successor Yazid reappointed Uqba, Kasila defected and a Byzantine–Berber alliance ended Arab control over Ifriqiya, which was not reestablished until the reign of Caliph
Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan ().
Nomination of Yazid as successor In a move unprecedented in Islamic politics, Mu'awiya nominated his own son, Yazid, as his successor. The caliph likely held ambitions for his son's succession over a considerable period. In 666, he allegedly had his governor in Homs, Abd al-Rahman ibn Khalid, poisoned to remove him as a potential rival to Yazid. The
Syrian Arabs, with whom Abd al-Rahman ibn Khalid was popular, had viewed the governor as the caliph's most suitable successor by dint of his military record and descent from Khalid ibn al-Walid. It was not until the latter half of his reign that Mu'awiya publicly declared Yazid heir apparent, though the early Muslim sources offer divergent details about the timing and location of the events relating to the decision. The accounts of
al-Mada'ini (752–843) and
Ibn al-Athir (1160–1232) agree that al-Mughira was the first to suggest that Yazid be acknowledged as Mu'awiya's successor and that Ziyad supported the nomination with the caveat that Yazid abandon impious activities which could arouse opposition from the Muslim polity. According to al-Tabari, Mu'awiya publicly announced his decision in 675 or 676 and demanded oaths of allegiance be given to Yazid. Ibn al-Athir alone relates that delegations from all the provinces were summoned to Damascus where Mu'awiya lectured them on his rights as ruler, their duties as subjects and Yazid's worthy qualities, which was followed by the calls of al-Dahhak ibn Qays and other courtiers that Yazid be recognized as the caliph's successor. The delegates lent their support, with the exception of the senior Basran nobleman
al-Ahnaf ibn Qays, who was ultimately bribed into compliance.
Al-Mas'udi (896–956) and al-Tabari do not mention provincial delegations other than a Basran embassy led by Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad in 678–679 or 679–680, respectively, which recognized Yazid. According to Hinds, in addition to Yazid's nobility, age and sound judgement, "most important of all" was his connection to the Kalb. The Kalb-led Quda'a confederation was the foundation of Sufyanid rule and Yazid's succession signaled the continuation of this alliance. In nominating Yazid, the son of the Kalbite Maysun, Mu'awiya bypassed his older son Abd Allah from his Qurayshite wife Fakhita. Although support from the Kalb and the Quda'a was guaranteed, Mu'awiya exhorted Yazid to widen his tribal support base in Syria. As the Qaysites were the predominant element in the northern frontier armies, Mu'awiya's appointment of Yazid to lead the war efforts with Byzantium may have served to foster Qaysite support for his nomination. Mu'awiya's efforts to that end were not entirely successful as reflected in a line by a Qaysite poet: "we will never pay allegiance to the son of a Kalbi woman [i.e. Yazid]". In Medina, Mu'awiya's distant kinsmen Marwan ibn al-Hakam, Sa'id ibn al-As and Ibn Amir accepted Mu'awiya's succession order, albeit disapprovingly. Most opponents of Mu'awiya's order in Iraq and among the Umayyads and Quraysh of the Hejaz were ultimately threatened or bribed into acceptance. The remaining principal opposition emanated from
Husayn ibn Ali,
Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr,
Abd Allah ibn Umar and
Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr. As these men were all prominent Medina-based sons of earlier caliphs or close companions of Muhammad, they held the strongest rival claims to the caliphate; consequently, Mu'awiya was determined to obtain their recognition. According to the historian
Awana ibn al-Hakam (d. 764), before his death, Mu'awiya ordered certain measures to be taken against them, entrusting these tasks to his loyalists al-Dahhak ibn Qays and
Muslim ibn Uqba. ==Death==