Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, a companion of the Book of Revelation, the sixth caliph of Muslims, and the founder of the Umayyad dynasty, was born to a wealthy and sovereign family in Quraysh, and became Muslim before the conquest of Mecca and did not emigrate for fear of his father.

Abu Bakr commanded part of the Islamic army in the conquests to the Levant, and Umar used it to the south, and his power increased during Uthman's time until it included the whole of the Levant.

A dispute arose between him and the Commander of the Faithful, Ali bin Abi Talib, may God be pleased with them, after the death of the third caliph, and Hassan bin Ali abdicated to him from the caliphate, so he remained the Emir of the Faithful for nearly two decades until he died in the year 60 AH.

Birth and upbringing

Abu Abd al-Rahman Muawiyah bin Harb bin Sakhr al-Umayyad al-Quraishi was born five years before the mission, according to the most famous opinions, and his father Abu Sufyan was the leader of the Quraysh and one of its well-known secretaries, and his mother Hind bint Utbah was one of the women of the Quraysh, who are referred to as Lebanon, in beauty, richness and lineage.

Historical novels described Muawiya since his childhood intelligence and discernment, and it came in the layers of Ibn Saad that Abu Sufyan looked one day at his son Muawiya when he was young and said to his mother Hind "This son of this great head, and it is a creature to prevail his people", Hind said "bereaved if not blocked the Arabs as a whole."

Muawiyah grew up in the house of the inheritance of competition with Bani Hashim, and carried grudges against Islam and his Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, early on, as the pre-Islamic era witnessed great competition between the two Quraishi houses, the Hashemite and the Umayyad, in the arbitration incident in which religious sovereignty devolved to Hashem and his family, and Umayyah and his house were taken out of Mecca to the Levant for 10 years according to the terms of the agreement.

After Badr, in the first conflict between Islam and its Qurayshite opponents, the invasion resulted in a decisive victory for the Muslims over the Quraysh, losing its boxes and masters, including Muawiyah's grandfather Utbah bin Rabia, his grandfather's brother, Al-Walid bin Rabia, his uncle, Handala bin Abi Sufyan, his brother, and Uqba bin Abi Maait, his father's cousin.

His brother Amr ibn Abi Sufyan was captured there, which tempted the Umayyad House to the Muslims, Banu Hashim and Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and his call.

Muawiyah's heart did not soften and pour into Islam until the Umrah of the judiciary after the peace of Hudaybiyah, but he was afraid of the revolution of his parents against him, so he did not profess Islam until the day of the conquest of Mecca, where he met the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and welcomed him and was secret.

After the conquest, he migrated to Medina, and the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) wrote it, as Muawiyah was one of those who improved writing and arithmetic, so he entered the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) with a pen on his ear saying: This is a pen that I prepared for God and His Messenger, and the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said to him: "May Allaah reward you for your Prophet with good, and Allaah has not written you except by revelation, and what I do is small or large except by inspiration from Allaah."

With the three caliphs

Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Yazid bin Abi Sufyan marched with an army of Muslims to Yarmouk to fight the Romans, and his father Abu Sufyan was in his army, then his brother Muawiyah joined him, until they reached the outskirts of the Levant, so the two armies merged in a fierce battle that resulted after heavy sacrifices in a great victory achieved by the Muslims.

Abu Ubaidah bin Al-Jarrah, the commander-in-chief of the Muslim armies in Fotouh al-Sham, handed over Yazid bin Abi Sufyan the command of Damascus after reconciliation with its people, so he protected it from the angry Roman leaders and vowing to return the defeat, so he applied it to them and Khalid bin Al-Walid heading to Homs, so they killed them until they defeated them and killed their leaders.

In the meantime, Abu Bakr died, may God be pleased with him, and the caliphate was received by Omar, and he was fond of investing the energies of the youth around him, so he turned to Muawiyah and ordered him to go to Caesarea between Haifa and Jaffa to meet the Romans there.

It was one of Islam's eternal battles, when about 80,33 Romans were killed, when Mu'awiya was about <> years old.

Following this battle, and after the plague of Emmaus swept through the Levant, and its emirs Abu Ubaidah, Muadh bin Jabal and Yazid bin Abi Sufyan went away, Umar ibn al-Khattab handed over Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan to the Emirate of the Levant.

He was of good conduct in its people, and when Omar bin Al-Khattab visited him, he said addressing Abdul Rahman bin Auf: "For his good resources and sources, we did not find him", meaning his intelligence and good parish policy.

When Uthman became caliph, Muawiyah approved the Levant, and annexed to it what remained of its cities until they were all under his rule, and Muawiyah continued to lead the armies of Uthman north until he reached the doorstep of Constantinople.

One of the most important enactments of Muawiya in this era in terms of military achievements was what was known as the system of Al-Sa'if and Al-Shawati, which are regular military campaigns and patrols to protect the Islamic borders from their hostile neighborhood, and he was also credited with forming the naval fleet of the expanding Islamic State.

Written sources of Muawiyah's era stated that the dispute between him and Ali was not mainly over the caliphate but on retribution for Uthman (Al Jazeera)

A part of his battles

The most prominent confrontations fought by Muawiya in his mandate on the Levant was what he fought with his neighborhood Rumi, the Romans gathered in the late era of Omar and the beginning of the era of Othman large armies to invade the countries of Islam, so Muawiya sent to Omar and had been arrested before the arrival of the message, Othman received it and sent to the governors urging them to help Jund al-Sham.

The commander of his armies at that time was Habib bin Salamah al-Fihri, who had a great spiteful in the Romans, so he kept snarling the Romans until they snatched the forts from them and injured them as they hit.

Muawiya himself launched a number of battles in the country of Rome, secured the road between Antioch and Tarsus, wrested from the Byzantines the outposts located on the northern borders of the Levant, and made the city of Marash a center for soldiers to be a launching base and penetrated into the country of Rome, and invaded himself in their land until he reached the outskirts of Constantinople.

Muawiyah had written to Umar during his caliphate to invade the islands adjacent to the Levantine coast, but Umar did not allow anyone to ride the sea for fear of them, and when Uthman received the caliphate, Muawiya repeated the request, so he authorized him on condition that he choose Muslims without forcing them to invade the sea.

His first sea destination was the island of Cyprus, where he gathered a large army headed by a number of senior companions, including Abu Dhar al-Ghafari, Ubadah ibn al-Samit, and um Haram bint Milhan, whose grave is now a shrine visited by the island's people, Muslims and non-Muslims.

When they reached the island, its people barricaded themselves and refused to surrender their city, but they surrendered hours after the siege of the victorious army that imposed its conditions on them.

Dispute with Commander of the Faithful Ali

Muawiyah bin Abi Sufyan received the rule of the Levant for nearly two decades before Ali bin Abi Talib became the caliph of the Muslims, which made him aware of its entrances and exits and the nature of its people, holding the reins of power in it, linked with its elite close relations that made him increasingly able to rule and control it.

Therefore, when Ali wanted to isolate him under pressure from the army of the caliphate in Iraq and Medina, Jund al-Sham went out to his governor, Suhail bin Hanif, who Ali wanted to take over al-Sham and returned him from where he came, saying to him, "If Uthman sent you - and he was killed - then welcome you, and if he sent you someone else, go back."

The books of historians and those concerned with recording the events of this stage record that the origin of the dispute between Ali and Muawiyah was not over the position of the caliphate, as Muawiya and his companions knew to Ali his precedence, virtue and entitlement to the caliphate, but the sparks of disagreement were the principle of the fire ignited by the killing of the third caliph Othman, may God be pleased with him.

Mu'awiya, and before him Talha ibn Ubayd Allah, al-Zubayr ibn al-'Awwam and the mother of the believers 'Aisha – the last three who had pledged allegiance to Alia in the caliphate – believed that retribution should be taken quickly from Uthman's killers.

Ali and his companions saw deliberation before retribution, until the souls calmed down and the situation stabilized and the mob returned to their country, leaving the city after the crime they committed, and for this to be done by Muawiya and his companions to initiate allegiance to Ali in the caliphate.

Ibn Hazm says of the dispute, "Muawiya never denied Ali's merit and his entitlement to the caliphate, but his diligence led him to see the submission of the lead of Uthman's killers to pledge allegiance, and he saw himself more entitled to ask for Uthman's blood."

This dispute eluded until the conflict broke out between the two camps in two battles, the first was between the Talha team, Al-Zubayr, Aisha and Ali's team, in what was known as the Battle of the Camel, which took place in Basra in 36 AH, and resulted in a major rift between Muslims that had serious consequences in the following years.

Less than a year later, the second battle took place in two rows near the Syrian city of Raqqa, and ended after Muawiyah's camp raised the Koran on the tongues of spears, embarrassing Ali and his companions after the victory tilted to the Iraqis.

Muawiyah assumed the caliphate after the abdication of Hassan bin Ali and thus became the sixth Muslim caliph (Al-Jazeera)

The dispute between the two parties continued to rage and was only changed by the division caused by the Kharijites in Ali's camp, and a new series of strife ignited in another direction, which was only extinguished by the martyrdom of the fourth caliph, Ali bin Abi Talib, may God be pleased with him.

His son al-Hasan succeeded him, but his troubled camp, relentless disagreements among his followers, and the entrenched stability in his opponent's camp led him to cede the caliphate to Mu'awiya.

Muawiyah bin Abi Sufyan was the sixth caliph of the Muslims, and the 41st year was the year of the congregation thanks to the wisdom of Hassan and the intelligence of Muawiyah, and the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said as he approached Hassan bin Ali, "My son is a master, and may God reconcile him between two great categories of Muslims."

Ibn Hazm said, "Then he handed the matter over to Muawiyah, and in the remnants of the Companions who is better than them without dispute than those who spent before the conquest and fought, and all of them are the first from the last of them to pledge allegiance to Muawiyah, and saw his imamate."

His succession

Muawiyah, after he settled the order of the caliphate, was able to inhabit the rebellious souls that congested in the middle of the caliphate of Uthman, and to extinguish the revolts that ignited in the few years preceding his rule during the caliphate of Ali, and to gather everyone from the companions and followers of his pledge of allegiance, with the cunning for which he was known, and with the policy that he did well to repay and issue as described by the rightly-guided caliph Omar bin Al-Khattab.

The most prominent thing he did was to choose the governors from whom he knew their ability to control the squares they ruled, so Amr bin Al-Aas approved Egypt, and then entrusted it to his son Abdullah bin Amr after him.

Iraq was ruled by al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba, one of the shrewd Arabs, and when al-Mughira died, Iraq was entrusted to Ziyad ibn his father, then to his son Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, and to rule the city in rotation of Marwan ibn al-Hakam and Sa'id ibn al-Aas.

Mu'awiyah had a long eye on each of these governors, sending the most brutal to the most troubled squares, and he sent those who were known to be soft to areas where there was no strife or chaos that extended to the capital of his rule.

One of his most prominent works in which he occupied the conflicting tribes in the east was the conduct of conquests; the armies formed from these tribes marched to different fronts, so the western front marched towards North Africa on the southern coast of the Mediterranean and was led by Uqba bin Nafi.

The eastern front was under the command of Muhallab bin Abi Safra, penetrating into Sindh, and the northern front, with the Romans, was often led by Muawiya himself.

By rushing to al-Futuh immediately from his accession to power, Mu'awiya achieved a number of goals, including to occupy the conflicting parties, calm the revolutions, and extinguish the anger that has raged since the killing of Uthman, may God be pleased with him.

Thus, he wanted to expand the Islamic lands, and to transfer a number of tribes to them away from the center of the caliphate, as happened with the Arab tribes in Basra, which were inhabited by Khorasan, occupied with agriculture and coveted by giving.

One of his actions during his caliphate was the expansion of the naval fleet that he began in the time of Uthman, reaching 1700,<> ships, thanks to which a large part of the Mediterranean Sea was transformed into an Islamic sea.

Among his works is also the organization of the diwans initiated by Omar Ibn Al-Khattab in the Persian way, so Muawiya gave the Roman character followed in the Levant, and Sargon bin Mansur the Christian put on them.

He also worked on organizing the mail by making it in stages; delivering it first to the other to reach its destination, and thus the arrival of important news from distant countries to the Levant, the center of the caliphate, became faster and closer.

Muawiyah and Hajar bin Uday

The people of hadith differed in stone, so Ibn Sa'd said in al-Tabaqat that he is one of the companions and a delegation to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) with his brother, and al-Bukhari and others mentioned him in the Taabi'een.

Hajar bin Uday was a Shiite Ali bin Abi Talib, loving him and loyal, not afraid of anyone in announcing it and declaring it, and when Ziyad bin Abih was unable to limit his encouragement on him, he wrote to Muawiyah and more than vilified and intimidated him, so Muawiya wrote to Ziyad to send him an iron handcuff for fear of the sedition that Muawiya sensed that Udaya was able to ignite in Kufa, which continues to be troubled from time to time.

When Mrs. Aisha learned the news, she sent to Muawiyah to stop a stone and release him, but Muawiyah had executed his sentence in it, so when Muawiya came to Umrah he wanted to enter on Aisha, but she did not give him permission, so he kept being kind to her until he entered her apologizing for what he did with a stone and asking her to pardon him.

Mu'awiyah said to the death of the deceased: My day from you, O stone, is a long day.

His entrustment of succession to his son

Muawiyah had entrusted Hassan bin Ali with the succession after him, but Hassan soon died in 49 AH.

When Muawiyah felt that the term was near, and some of the people of the Levant had responded to him urging him to succeed his son Yazid after him, the passion of fatherhood moved in himself and he saw Yazid worthy of trust, an experienced expert who grew up in a house of government and politics, an experimenter of war, an invader and a leader;

Ibn Kathir says at the beginning and the end: "When Hassan died strong, he ordered Yazid in the caliphate, and he saw that he therefore qualified, as his father saw it, and that from the intensity of the father's love for his son, and because he was marked by worldly success, especially the children of kings and their knowledge of wars and the arrangement of the king and doing his pomp, and he thought that none of the sons of the Companions in this sense, and for this he said to Abdullah bin Omar: I was afraid that the flock would come after me like a rain sheep that had no shepherd."

In the year 56 AH, Muawiyah called the people of the Levant to pledge allegiance to Yazid, so he pledged allegiance to him, and people in other regions pledged allegiance to him, and he did not find opposition to this matter except from 5 are: Al-Hussein bin Ali, Abdul Rahman bin Abi Bakr, Ibn Omar, Ibn Abbas, and Ibn Al-Zubayr, may God be pleased with them.

Muawiyah rode to Mecca Umrah and met them one by one, he promised them and threatened them, then he preached to the people calling for the pledge of allegiance to Yazid and the five opponents attended, so they did not show disagreement or approval of that, and thus the pledge of allegiance was consistent to increase in other regions.

Death

Muawiyah died in Rajab in the year 60 AH has been about 80, and the duration of his caliphate was 19 years and 3 months, and he was the Emir of the Levant 20 years before that, and he prayed to Dahhak bin Qais, and was buried in Damascus.

However, the Abbasid revolt against the Umayyads removed any lasting trace of the burials of the Umayyads, who ruled the Islamic world for nearly a century.

Therefore, there is disagreement and reluctance to identify Muawiyah's tomb, and the mausoleum in the Bab al-Saghir cemetery is no more than that it was built during the Mamluk era, and then renovated in the time of the Ottomans.