One of Muawiyah's most controversial and enduring legacies was his decision to designate his son Yazid(la) as his successor. This was a clear violation of the treaty he made with Imam Hasan ibn Ali (as) , in which Muawiyah said he would not make his son his successor. Yazid ibn Muawiyah ibn Abu Sufyan was regarded by many Muslims of the time as a moral degenerate, a sadist and a hedonist, and in many accounts his beliefs hovered between polytheism and atheism. His ruthlessness in pursuing Imam Hussain (as), and his rather weak rule has made him the most despised person in Islamic History.
A brief look into history
When Abu Sufyan saw that Abu Bakr had been installed as the Caliph, he went to Imam Ali (a.s) and said, “You have been deprived of your right by those who do not deserve the post of caliph. If only you assent, I will fill Medina with cavalry and soldiers to unseat the usurpers of the seat of caliphate.”
Imam Ali (a.s] was fully aware that Abu Sufyan, who fought the Prophet (s) all his life, was a hypocrite and that all he wanted was dissension and discord in Islam. Imam Ali (a.s) refused to be dragged into the trap. Rebuked and rebutted by Imam Ali (a.s), Abu Sufyan planned to join the opponents of Ali.
Umar, who received the news of what transpired between Abu Sufyan and Ali, realized that if left to himself, Abu Sufyan would cause great mischief. Umar thought it best to purchase Abu Sufyan’s loyalty rather than to face his mischief. Umar sent for Abu Sufyan and told him that he and Abu Bakr had decided to appoint his (Abu Sufyan) son Yazid as the governor of Syria. Abu Sufyan was immensely pleased. In the year 11 AH, Yazid bin Abu Sufyan became the governor of Syria. Very soon, he died and in his place, the caliph appointed Mu’awiya as the governor of Syria and Iraq. Though, on becoming the second caliph, Umar removed several governors on various charges, Mu’awiya was not disturbed from his post in spite that his misrule was the cause of the uprising and the ultimate assassination of Uthman.
In his letter to Mohammad bin Abu Bakr, Mu’awiya wrote, “Even during the lifetime of the messenger of Allah, we (the Umayyads) were together with your father in contesting against Ali’s right (of leadership). We were certainly aware of his superiority and supremacy over all others. But, when God chose to take away the messenger of Allah from this world, it was your father and his friend Umar who were the foremost in snatching the caliphate from Ali by opposing him at all costs. In this, both of them (Abu Bakr and Umar) were in perfect consonance with each other."
Mu’awiya’s rule of Syria, Egypt, and Palestine actually commenced from the year 11 AH, and lasted for fifty years, when he died in 60 AH. Thus, the areas under his domain were far away from Mecca and Medina, the centers of Islam, and the population there believed only what was taught to them by Mu’awiya’s henchmen. The public had no idea who were the relatives of the Prophet (s) or who were his companions. Mu’awiya made the people there believe that he alone was the heir of the Prophet (s), that Ali was a dacoit, and Husain a reactionary opposed to Islam. People were made to believe that anybody who praised Ali must himself be a dacoit or at least of low morality, and that anybody who praised Husain in fact sowed the seeds of sedition. Fifty years were more than enough to achieve this goal.
From the year 11 to 35 AH, Mu’awiya apprehended no danger from the ruling caliph. He had Syria, Iraq, and Egypt under his control. These areas were far away from Medina, the then capital of Islam. Except for the essentials, the public had no idea about the thought and philosophy of Islam. In fact, Mu’awiya wanted the people to be ignorant of Islam so that nobody might point out that Mu’awiya himself was acting against Islam in his daily life. In order to win over the public, he allowed them to lead a life without any reference to the prohibitions and recommendations made in Islam.
The public found that their rulers provided them jobs and food. Beyond that, they had no need or desire to consider any aspect of Islam or its true proponents. As a result, al-Hajjaj bin Yousuf asked people from on the pulpit, “Who provides you food and jobs?” People replied, “The Caliph.” He then asked, “Who is better, the Prophet or the Caliph?”
The foundation for the thought that the Caliph, in the least, was next only to God was strongly and truly laid by Mu’awiya. Because of this, in the year 96 AH When al-Waleed bin Abdul Melik bin Marwan became the king, he contended that the caliph was superior to past Prophets.
Ibnul Athir records that in 98 AH, al-Waleed bin Abdul Malik asked while giving a sermon in Mecca, “Who is more important for you; the Caliph or Abraham the Prophet? How I wish you realized the superiority of your caliph who provided sweet drinking water for you whereas Abraham the Prophet only provided brackish water (Zamzam). By God, al-Waleed is dearer in the eyes of God than any Prophet.” Al-Waleed was referring to the well he had dug up in Mecca, which provided sweet water for some time, but later it dried up.
Initially, Mu’awiya was engaged in consolidating his own position by lavishly bribing amenable persons and killing or at least confiscating the properties of those who were even suspected to sympathise with Ali. But, from 11 to 30 AH, we do not find any interference by Mu’awiya with the Caliph. When Uthman was killed, Mu’awiya apprehended a contender and feared that he might lose power, and therefore, he took these steps:
[i] He sent his army commander Bisr bin Artat who killed 30,000 Shia and slaughtered two young sons of Abdullah Ibn Abbas in their mother’s lap.
[ii] He sent Sufyan bin Ouf whose contingent of six thousand strong men created terror by looting and destructing the houses of the Shia in al-Mada’in.
[iii] He sent Abdullah bin Sa’dah al-Fazari with a contingent to loot and harass the people who sympathized with Imam Ali (a.s.).
[iv] He sent ad-Dhahhak bin Qais with 30000 men to loot, terrorize, and kill Ali’s adherents in Waqisa, Thalabiya, and Qatqat.
[v] He sent an-No’man bin Basheer to eliminate Ali’s adherents in Ayn at-Tamr.
[vi] He removed the names of the Shia from the citizenship registers.
[vi] He stopped the state pensions to any one suspected to be a Shia.
[vii] He ordered that the testimony of anyone suspected to be a Shia should not be admitted in evidence.
In his rule of about half a century, Mu’awiya laid a solid foundation for the extreme hatred toward Imam Ali (a.s) and anybody even remotely linked or sympathetic to him. In the course of time, the Shia along with their Imams inherited the legacy of blind persecution by their opponents.
Some other crimes of Muawiya
Mu’awiya appointed the following governors who were notorious for committing cruelty and torture:
[1] al-Mugheera bin Shu’ba
[2] Ziyad bin Sumayya (bin Abeeh)
[3] Samura bin Jundab
[4] Amr bin al-Aas
[5] Muslim bin Uqba
[6] Ubaidullah bin Ziyad who was the commander in chief of the army that fought against Imam Husain and [7] Hussayn bin Numair who guarded the banks of the Euphrates and prevented Imam Husain (a.s.) from getting any water...etc.
The following persons were friends of Imam Ali. They were killed when they refused to curse the Imam in Mu’awiya’s presence:
[1] Hujr bin Adiy
[2] Mohammad bin abi Huthaifa
[3] Shaddad bin Aws
[4] Sa’sa’a bin Souhan al-Abdi
[5] Abdullah bin Hashim bin Utba bin Abi Waqqas
[6] Jameel bin Ka’b ath-Tha’labi
[7] Jariya bin Qudama at-Tamimi
[8] Shareek bin Shaddad al-Hadhrami
[9] Saifi bin Faseel ash-Shaibani
[10] Qabeesa bin Dhubay’ah al-Absi
[11] Kiram bin Habban al-Anzi
[12] Muhriz bin Shihab at-Tamimi
[13] Abdurrahman bin Hassan al-Anzi
[14] Amr bin al-Humq al-Khuza’iy
[15] Juwairiya ibn Musshir al-Abdi… etc.
Sumara bin Jundab killed eight thousand innocent persons.Ziyad bin Sumayya (bin Abeeh) was a bastard appointed by Mu’awiya as governor of Basra. Ziyad knew every Shia and every one from Imam Ali’s progeny in Basra. He killed over a hundred thousand of them.
Al-Mughira bin Shu’ba cunningly told Shareek bin al-A’war al-Harithi to collect people in order to fight against the Kharijites. Shareek collected about three thousand Shia from the tribe of Rabi’a. When they gathered outside Basra, al-Mughira surrounded and killed them all.
Ibn Ziyad, as the governor of Basra first and later as the governor of Basra and Kufa, killed hundreds of thousands of Shia from the two cities.
The cunning Mu’awiya made use of the murder of Uthman into a political weapon to oppose Imam Ali (a.s).
He enlisted the help of Talha and az-Zobair and convinced Aa’isha to join him in the battle of al-Jamal against Imam Ali (a.s). The circumstances that led to Uthman’s murder were as the following:Muslims, particularly of Syria, Egypt, and Iraq were vexed with the tyranny and misrule of Mu’awiya. In Medina, Muslims found that Uthman had filled the entire government with his kin and clansmen who were inefficient, impious, and avaricious.
The well known case of al-Walid bin Uqba, who fully drunk led the Morning Prayer and instead of the mandatory two rak’as, he performed four rak’as, and turning to the congregation, he said, “If you like, I would add more.” Muslims gave a memorandum to Uthman complaining that he had deviated from the Prophet’s Sunna and the precedents set up by his predecessor Caliphs.
According to Shahr Ashub, there were twenty thousand men in Imam Ali’s army, out of whom eighty were companions who had fought in the battle of Badr, fifteen hundred companions of the Prophet (s), and two hundred and fifty were participants in the Homage of the Tree (Bay’at ash-Shajara)
The total number of martyrs on Imam Ali’s side was one thousand and seventy.
Notable martyrs among the companions of Imam Ali (a.s) were Zaid bin Souhan, Hind al-Jamali, Abu Abdullah al-Abdi, Abdullah bin Ruqayya, Thumama, Hind ibn Amr, Ghaniyya bin Haytham, and Makhdooj.
A brief look into history
When Abu Sufyan saw that Abu Bakr had been installed as the Caliph, he went to Imam Ali (a.s) and said, “You have been deprived of your right by those who do not deserve the post of caliph. If only you assent, I will fill Medina with cavalry and soldiers to unseat the usurpers of the seat of caliphate.”
Imam Ali (a.s] was fully aware that Abu Sufyan, who fought the Prophet (s) all his life, was a hypocrite and that all he wanted was dissension and discord in Islam. Imam Ali (a.s) refused to be dragged into the trap. Rebuked and rebutted by Imam Ali (a.s), Abu Sufyan planned to join the opponents of Ali.
Umar, who received the news of what transpired between Abu Sufyan and Ali, realized that if left to himself, Abu Sufyan would cause great mischief. Umar thought it best to purchase Abu Sufyan’s loyalty rather than to face his mischief. Umar sent for Abu Sufyan and told him that he and Abu Bakr had decided to appoint his (Abu Sufyan) son Yazid as the governor of Syria. Abu Sufyan was immensely pleased. In the year 11 AH, Yazid bin Abu Sufyan became the governor of Syria. Very soon, he died and in his place, the caliph appointed Mu’awiya as the governor of Syria and Iraq. Though, on becoming the second caliph, Umar removed several governors on various charges, Mu’awiya was not disturbed from his post in spite that his misrule was the cause of the uprising and the ultimate assassination of Uthman.
In his letter to Mohammad bin Abu Bakr, Mu’awiya wrote, “Even during the lifetime of the messenger of Allah, we (the Umayyads) were together with your father in contesting against Ali’s right (of leadership). We were certainly aware of his superiority and supremacy over all others. But, when God chose to take away the messenger of Allah from this world, it was your father and his friend Umar who were the foremost in snatching the caliphate from Ali by opposing him at all costs. In this, both of them (Abu Bakr and Umar) were in perfect consonance with each other."
Mu’awiya’s rule of Syria, Egypt, and Palestine actually commenced from the year 11 AH, and lasted for fifty years, when he died in 60 AH. Thus, the areas under his domain were far away from Mecca and Medina, the centers of Islam, and the population there believed only what was taught to them by Mu’awiya’s henchmen. The public had no idea who were the relatives of the Prophet (s) or who were his companions. Mu’awiya made the people there believe that he alone was the heir of the Prophet (s), that Ali was a dacoit, and Husain a reactionary opposed to Islam. People were made to believe that anybody who praised Ali must himself be a dacoit or at least of low morality, and that anybody who praised Husain in fact sowed the seeds of sedition. Fifty years were more than enough to achieve this goal.
From the year 11 to 35 AH, Mu’awiya apprehended no danger from the ruling caliph. He had Syria, Iraq, and Egypt under his control. These areas were far away from Medina, the then capital of Islam. Except for the essentials, the public had no idea about the thought and philosophy of Islam. In fact, Mu’awiya wanted the people to be ignorant of Islam so that nobody might point out that Mu’awiya himself was acting against Islam in his daily life. In order to win over the public, he allowed them to lead a life without any reference to the prohibitions and recommendations made in Islam.
The public found that their rulers provided them jobs and food. Beyond that, they had no need or desire to consider any aspect of Islam or its true proponents. As a result, al-Hajjaj bin Yousuf asked people from on the pulpit, “Who provides you food and jobs?” People replied, “The Caliph.” He then asked, “Who is better, the Prophet or the Caliph?”
The foundation for the thought that the Caliph, in the least, was next only to God was strongly and truly laid by Mu’awiya. Because of this, in the year 96 AH When al-Waleed bin Abdul Melik bin Marwan became the king, he contended that the caliph was superior to past Prophets.
Ibnul Athir records that in 98 AH, al-Waleed bin Abdul Malik asked while giving a sermon in Mecca, “Who is more important for you; the Caliph or Abraham the Prophet? How I wish you realized the superiority of your caliph who provided sweet drinking water for you whereas Abraham the Prophet only provided brackish water (Zamzam). By God, al-Waleed is dearer in the eyes of God than any Prophet.” Al-Waleed was referring to the well he had dug up in Mecca, which provided sweet water for some time, but later it dried up.
Initially, Mu’awiya was engaged in consolidating his own position by lavishly bribing amenable persons and killing or at least confiscating the properties of those who were even suspected to sympathise with Ali. But, from 11 to 30 AH, we do not find any interference by Mu’awiya with the Caliph. When Uthman was killed, Mu’awiya apprehended a contender and feared that he might lose power, and therefore, he took these steps:
[i] He sent his army commander Bisr bin Artat who killed 30,000 Shia and slaughtered two young sons of Abdullah Ibn Abbas in their mother’s lap.
[ii] He sent Sufyan bin Ouf whose contingent of six thousand strong men created terror by looting and destructing the houses of the Shia in al-Mada’in.
[iii] He sent Abdullah bin Sa’dah al-Fazari with a contingent to loot and harass the people who sympathized with Imam Ali (a.s.).
[iv] He sent ad-Dhahhak bin Qais with 30000 men to loot, terrorize, and kill Ali’s adherents in Waqisa, Thalabiya, and Qatqat.
[v] He sent an-No’man bin Basheer to eliminate Ali’s adherents in Ayn at-Tamr.
[vi] He removed the names of the Shia from the citizenship registers.
[vi] He stopped the state pensions to any one suspected to be a Shia.
[vii] He ordered that the testimony of anyone suspected to be a Shia should not be admitted in evidence.
In his rule of about half a century, Mu’awiya laid a solid foundation for the extreme hatred toward Imam Ali (a.s) and anybody even remotely linked or sympathetic to him. In the course of time, the Shia along with their Imams inherited the legacy of blind persecution by their opponents.
Some other crimes of Muawiya
Mu’awiya appointed the following governors who were notorious for committing cruelty and torture:
[1] al-Mugheera bin Shu’ba
[2] Ziyad bin Sumayya (bin Abeeh)
[3] Samura bin Jundab
[4] Amr bin al-Aas
[5] Muslim bin Uqba
[6] Ubaidullah bin Ziyad who was the commander in chief of the army that fought against Imam Husain and [7] Hussayn bin Numair who guarded the banks of the Euphrates and prevented Imam Husain (a.s.) from getting any water...etc.
The following persons were friends of Imam Ali. They were killed when they refused to curse the Imam in Mu’awiya’s presence:
[1] Hujr bin Adiy
[2] Mohammad bin abi Huthaifa
[3] Shaddad bin Aws
[4] Sa’sa’a bin Souhan al-Abdi
[5] Abdullah bin Hashim bin Utba bin Abi Waqqas
[6] Jameel bin Ka’b ath-Tha’labi
[7] Jariya bin Qudama at-Tamimi
[8] Shareek bin Shaddad al-Hadhrami
[9] Saifi bin Faseel ash-Shaibani
[10] Qabeesa bin Dhubay’ah al-Absi
[11] Kiram bin Habban al-Anzi
[12] Muhriz bin Shihab at-Tamimi
[13] Abdurrahman bin Hassan al-Anzi
[14] Amr bin al-Humq al-Khuza’iy
[15] Juwairiya ibn Musshir al-Abdi… etc.
Sumara bin Jundab killed eight thousand innocent persons.Ziyad bin Sumayya (bin Abeeh) was a bastard appointed by Mu’awiya as governor of Basra. Ziyad knew every Shia and every one from Imam Ali’s progeny in Basra. He killed over a hundred thousand of them.
Al-Mughira bin Shu’ba cunningly told Shareek bin al-A’war al-Harithi to collect people in order to fight against the Kharijites. Shareek collected about three thousand Shia from the tribe of Rabi’a. When they gathered outside Basra, al-Mughira surrounded and killed them all.
Ibn Ziyad, as the governor of Basra first and later as the governor of Basra and Kufa, killed hundreds of thousands of Shia from the two cities.
The cunning Mu’awiya made use of the murder of Uthman into a political weapon to oppose Imam Ali (a.s).
He enlisted the help of Talha and az-Zobair and convinced Aa’isha to join him in the battle of al-Jamal against Imam Ali (a.s). The circumstances that led to Uthman’s murder were as the following:Muslims, particularly of Syria, Egypt, and Iraq were vexed with the tyranny and misrule of Mu’awiya. In Medina, Muslims found that Uthman had filled the entire government with his kin and clansmen who were inefficient, impious, and avaricious.
The well known case of al-Walid bin Uqba, who fully drunk led the Morning Prayer and instead of the mandatory two rak’as, he performed four rak’as, and turning to the congregation, he said, “If you like, I would add more.” Muslims gave a memorandum to Uthman complaining that he had deviated from the Prophet’s Sunna and the precedents set up by his predecessor Caliphs.
According to Shahr Ashub, there were twenty thousand men in Imam Ali’s army, out of whom eighty were companions who had fought in the battle of Badr, fifteen hundred companions of the Prophet (s), and two hundred and fifty were participants in the Homage of the Tree (Bay’at ash-Shajara)
The total number of martyrs on Imam Ali’s side was one thousand and seventy.
Notable martyrs among the companions of Imam Ali (a.s) were Zaid bin Souhan, Hind al-Jamali, Abu Abdullah al-Abdi, Abdullah bin Ruqayya, Thumama, Hind ibn Amr, Ghaniyya bin Haytham, and Makhdooj.
Thus the person responsible for all these tragic events in the history of Islam is Umar ibn Khattab, who knowing appointed Muawiya son of Abu Sufyan, the governor of Syria
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