Restatement of the History of Islam and Muslims [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

The Revival of the Umayyads

THE BANU UMAYYA WERE ONE OF THE CLANS OF THE QURAYSH
IN MAKKAH. As noted before, they were the traditional enemies of the Banu Hashim –
another clan of the Quraysh. When Muhammad, a member of the clan of Banu Hashim –
declared that he was the Apostle of God, and called upon the Arabs to abandon their
idolatry, and to believe in One God, the Umayyads opposed him, and they fought against him
for twenty years.

But they failed. Their long and bitter struggle
against Muhammad and Islam came to a humiliating end in A.D. 630 when he conquered Makkah.
They had to concede defeat, and they "accepted" Islam.

The victory of Islam, however, kindled new fires of
hatred in the hearts of the Banu Umayya against its guardians – Muhammad and Ali, as
noted in an earlier chapter. They were discreet enough to conceal their hatred of Muhammad
but they made no attempt to conceal their hatred of Ali. It was Ali who had destroyed not
only the visible emblems of the religion of the Umayyads but also had struck the death
blow to their privileges. But they soon showed that they might be down but they were not
out. They, therefore, marked time for thirty years - until A.D. 661 – when they were,
at last, able to capture the long-sought prize – the caliphate of the Muslims. The
Banu Umayya were the most rabid of all the enemies of Islam. Their success in capturing
the caliphate of the Muslims, therefore, has evoked much surprise among historians.
Following are the observations of some of them on this paradox in the history of the
Muslims.

Edward Gibbon

The persecutors of Mohammed usurped the inheritance
of his children; and the champions of idolatry became the supreme heads of his religion
and empire. The opposition of Abu Sophian had been fierce and obstinate; his conversion
was tardy and reluctant; his new faith was fortified by necessity and interest; he served,
he fought, perhaps he believed; and the sins of the time of ignorance were expiated by the
recent merits of the family of Ommayyah. Muawiya, the son of Abu Sophian, and of the cruel
Hinda, was dignified in his early youth with the office or title of the secretary of the
Prophet; the judgment of Omar entrusted him with the government of Syria; and he
administered that province above forty years, either in a subordinate or supreme rank. The
sacred duty of pursuing the assassins of Othman was the engine and pretense of his
ambition. (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)

E. A. Freeman

The caliphate might conceivably be allotted to the
worthiest of the faithful; it might conceivably be hereditary in the family of the
apostle; but Mohammed could never have imagined that it would become hereditary in the
family of his bitterest enemies. (History of the Saracens)

R. A. Nicholson

When the Meccan aristocrats accepted Islam, they
only yielded to the inevitable. They were now to have an opportunity to revenging
themselves. Uthman b. Affan, who succeeded Umar as Caliph, belonged to a distinguished
Meccan family, the Umayyads or descendants of Umayya, which had always taken a leading
part in the opposition to Mohammed, though Uthman himself was among the Prophet's first
disciples. He was a pious, well-meaning old man - an easy tool in the hands of his
ambitious kinsfolk. They soon climbed into all the most lucrative and important offices
and lived on the fat of the land, while too often their ungodly behavior gave point to the
question whether these converts of the eleventh hour were not still heathens at heart.
Other causes contributed to excite a general discontent. The rapid growth of luxury and
immorality in the Holy Cities as well as in the new settlements was an eyesore to the
devout Moslems. The true Islamic aristocracy, the Companions of the Prophet, headed by
Ali, Talha and Zubayr, strove to undermine the rival nobility which threatened them with
destruction. The factious soldiery were ripe for revolt against Umayyad arrogance and
greed. Rebellion broke out, and finally, the aged caliph, after enduring a siege of seven
weeks, was murdered in his own house. (A Literary History of the Arabs, p. 190, 1969)

Nicholson has erred in stating that Ali, Talha and
Zubayr strove to undermine the Umayyads who threatened them with destruction. Ali did not
strive to undermine the Umayyads though Talha and Zubayr strove to undermine Uthman, and
they were successful in their efforts. On their part, the Umayyads threatened Ali –
but they did not threaten Talha and Zubayr – with destruction. In fact, Talha, Zubayr
and Ayesha fought the battle of Basra (the battle of the Camel) against Ali, with the
support of the Umayyads.

Philip K. Hitti

Of the eight (Umayyad) caliphs in the period
(715-750) two only were worthy of the heritage generated by Muawiya and enriched by
Abd-al-Malik and al-Walid. The remaining six, three of whom were sons of slave mothers,
were incompetent, some dissolute if not degenerate. The brother-successor of al-Walid was
more interested in drinking, hunting, and listening to song and music than in conducting
state affairs. His son excelled the father. He spent more time in his pleasure houses in
the desert, where their ruins are still visible, than in the capital. He is said to have
indulged himself in swimming in a pool of wine and gulping enough of it to lower its
surface. More than an incorrigible libertine, this caliph once committed an act of unusual
sacrilege; making a target of Koran copy for the arrows of his bow. Clearly, the sudden
increase of wealth, the super-abundance of slaves and concubines, the multiplied
facilities for indulgence in luxury, and other characteristic vices of an affluent urban
civilization - against which sons of the desert had developed no measure of immunity -
were beginning to sap Arab vitality. (Capital Cities of Arab Islam, pp. 78-79, 1973)

Arnold J. Toynbee

One of the greatest ironies of all history is the
fate of the house that Mohammed built. Mohammed had a great fall. The unsuccessful prophet
succumbed to the temptation to succeed as a statesman and a strategist. Yet, in seeking
and winning worldly success in Medina, Mohammed was unwittingly working for his
adversaries in Mecca. When it came to a competition in Realpolitik, the merchant princes
of Mecca were more than a match for their queer fellow-townsman, and far more than a match
for Mohammed's gallant but incompetent cousin and son-in-law, Ali. After Mohammed had
successfully cut Mecca's trade route to Syria, the Meccans capitulated on the easy terms
that the sentimental Meccan exile offered them; but in outwardly submitting to Mohammed
and to Islam, the Beni Umayya had their tongues in their cheeks. They had no intention of
being permanently deposed from power. Now that they had failed first to suppress Islam and
then to repel it, their only alternative was to run away with it after capturing it by the
stratagem of a nominal conversion. They bided their time till in Ali they found their
victim and in Muawiya their man of destiny.

Muawiya was one of the greatest masters, known to
history, of the artful, patient type of statesmanship. He ranks with Augustus, Philip of
Macedon, Liu Pang, and Cavour. Poor Ali was utterly outmaneuvered by him. Within
twenty-nine years of Mohammed's death, the state that Mohammed had founded, and that his
successors had swiftly expanded into a vast empire, became the undisputed spoil of Muawiya
the son of Hind: that redoubtable Meccan merchant-princess who had been Mohammed's
bitterest enemy. Unlike Mohammed, Muawiya founded a dynasty - the House of Umayyah - which
lasted for 90 years and ruled the world from Multan and Tashqand to Aden, and from Aden to
Gibralter and Narbonne.

Muawiya and his successors, being, unrepentant
pagans in all but name (save only for one sincere Muslim, the Caliph Umar II), they went
to the limits of discretion in flouting Islam by indulging in the worst abominations of
civilization. They were wine-bibbers, and they decorated their palaces with mosaics and
paintings in the Hellenistic style that had been endemic in Syria for the last 1000 years.
They reveled in breaking the Islamic taboo on the representation of living forms. They
employed Christian artists who were adepts in this line; and they were not content with
representation of animals and men. Their favorite orders were for pictures of women -
preferably naked, or at least naked down to the waist.

How did the Umayyads manage to get away with this
indecency and impiety for as long as 90 years? When Jezebel and Ahab flouted the orthodox
worship of Yahwah, retribution was swift. So, how did the Umayyads contrive to fare so
much better than the House of Omri? One may not like or admire the Umayyads, but their
adroitness does command our reluctant respect, and one cannot help being grateful for the
works of art that they have bequeathed to us. (East to West – A Journey Round the
World, 1958. pp. 214-215 – The Shocking Umayyads)

Toynbee may claim to be a great historian but the
claim does not necessarily make his opinions, which he has expressed so pontifically, in
the foregoing excerpt, either correct or even intelligent. By affecting to sneer at
Muhammad and Ali, he is only betraying his own astigmatism, so characteristic of the 19th
century British missionaries in the colonies. His opinions are more in the nature of a
diatribe or a polemic, not without the occasional touch of the ridiculous, than any
objective and critical analysis of facts.

The preliminary remarks are quite arresting. Toynbee
says "one of the greatest ironies of all history is the fate of the house that
Mohammed built. Mohammed had a great fall." The "irony" must have had
causes but Toynbee does not say what they were. He is taking into account only the
effects.

Toynbee is a product of the modern, Western,
materialistic, mechanistic culture, and Muslims may overlook his inability to grasp the
ethos of Islam. The success of Islam was very much predicated on the classical idea (the
idea of Prophet Abraham) of sacrifice. Muhammad and Ali sacrificed not only their material
wealth but also sacrificed many valuable lives to make Islam viable. When, after their
death, Islam called for fresh sacrifices, their children were ready to offer them. The
grandchildren of Muhammad and the children of Ali sacrificed their lives in Kerbala for
the ideals which both of them had striven to make immortal.

The sacrifices made by Muhammad, Ali and their
children, are the triumph and the glory of Islam but Toynbee equates them with
"irony."

Muhammad did not have a "fall" –
great or small – even though Toynbee might wish that he had one.

Toynbee called Muhammad an "unsuccessful
prophet" who "succumbed to the temptation to succeed as a statesman." How
was he "unsuccessful"? His duty was to deliver God's last message to mankind,
and he delivered it, and it was accepted in all parts of the Arabian peninsula within his
lifetime. Nor did he succumb to the temptation to become a statesman. He was a statesman.
His mission was comprehensive, and one of his duties as God's messenger was to educate the
Muslims in the principles of political organization. This he did in Medina.

Muhammad was not in "competition" with the
pagans or the crypto-pagans of Makkah. He came to this world to promulgate the laws of the
Kingdom of Heaven, and not to "compete" with anyone, least of all with the
Makkan usurers and the worshippers of idols. To insinuate that he was competing with the
Umayyads, is the most ludicrous of all the opinions of Toynbee.

The idolaters of Makkah were not "more than a
match" either for Muhammad or for Ali, and Ali was not "incompetent," and
he was not "outmaneuvered" by Muawiya. Toynbee is incapable of
"judging" them from the viewpoint of the ethos of Islam. His
"Realpolitik" could have held no interest for Muhammad and Ali. His deductions
are inevitably influenced by his culture - the opportunistic, secular culture of the
modern West. He is ignorant of the culture of Qur’an, and Qur’an spurns
"Realpolitik."

Muhammad and Ali were demonstrating to the world
that in politics no less than in religion, ends do not justify the means. In Islam, the
means themselves become the ends. The means which their enemies – the Umayyads –
employed to achieve their ends, had built-in guarantees of "success." But
Muhammad and Ali did not judge success or failure by the same standards as the Umayyads
did or as Toynbee does. To Muhammad and Ali, success was only the winning of the pleasure
of God, and failure was only the forfeiting of that pleasure. Judging by this standard,
both of them were highly successful. May God bless them and their children forever and
forever.

Toynbee further says that the Umayyads had no
intention of being permanently deposed from power.

Did the intentions of the Umayyads mean anything in
A.D.630 when Muhammad conquered Makkah? He had destroyed their polytheism and economic and
political power, and Ali had destroyed their military power. They were prostrate at his
feet, and they would have remained prostrate forever if Abu Bakr and Umar had not picked
them up, and had not restored economic and political power to them. Suddenly, what had
seemed impossible under Muhammad, looked inevitable under Abu Bakr and Umar. It were both
of them who made the empire of the Muslims "the undisputed spoil of Muawiya the son
of Hind."

The admiration, respect and gratitude which Toynbee
"cannot help" giving to the Umayyads, is perfectly understandable. He is their
philosophical ally. Both of them are linked together in their common hostility to Islam
and to its guardians, Muhammad and Ali.

Toynbee's "verdict" on Muhammad and Ali,
is a classic of the solemn nonsense that famous scholars are capable of producing.

Both Hitti and Toynbee have drawn a portrait of some
of the khalifas – the successors of the Prophet of Islam – that the Banu Umayya
produced. The fact that the Muslim umma was saddled with such khalifas, is truly "one
of the greatest ironies of all history." But does the irony have an explanation?

It has. This book is an attempt to explain that
irony.

The Banu Umayya had enjoyed some local importance in
Makkah as guardians of the pantheon of idols and as wealthy usurers. When Muhammad
conquered Makkah, he put an end to their idolatry and to their usury, and they went into
eclipse.

But the eclipse didn't last long. It lasted only
from the conquest of Makkah by Muhammad in February 630 to his death in June 632. Just as
the "sun" of Prophethood sank under the horizon, the "star" of the
Umayyads rose above it.

It will not be correct to pinpoint the revival of
the Banu Umayya from the date Uthman became khalifa nor even from the date Muawiya seized
the khilafat but from June 8, 632, the date of the death of Muhammad Mustafa, the Prophet
of Islam.

What is the correlation between the death of
Muhammad and the revival of the Banu Umayya?

As noted above, Muhammad was responsible for the
eclipse of the Banu Umayya. But as soon as he died, they bounced back from their eclipse,
though not on their own power. Abu Bakr and Umar, the new rulers of the government
Muhammad had founded, lifted the Banu Umayya from their eclipse and obscurity, and planted
them as a force on the political landscape of Islam.

The Banu Umayya rose with a grim resolution –
to seek retaliation from Muhammad and Ali and/or their children.

The acceptance of Islam by the Banu Umayya, after
their failure to destroy it, was only proof of their resiliency. They realized that their
frontal attacks on Islam had all failed, and that they had to try something
unconventional. They did. Their new strategy was to enter the ranks of the faithful,
disguised as Muslims; to watch the events from within, and then to strike at Islam when
the opportune moment presented itself, as noted in an earlier chapter.

The opportune moment came after the death of
Muhammad.

Notice has already been taken of the offer of Abu
Sufyan, the chief of the clan of Banu Umayya, to Ali, to fill the streets of Medina with
infantry and cavalry, ready and willing to die at his (Ali's) command, if he would
challenge the government of Saqifa.

Abu Sufyan had struck a deadly blow at Islam but he
missed once again. He had tried to ingratiate himself with Ali, the Guardian of Islam, but
had failed. The latter was alert as ever. But Abu Sufyan was not fazed by his failure. It
occurred to him that if he tried to ingratiate himself with the leaders of the Saqifa
government, he might find them more responsive than Ali. He did and they were!

During the caliphate of their patrons, Abu Bakr and
Umar, the Banu Umayya quietly consolidated their position. They didn't try to rock the
boat and make waves. Time was not ripe yet for them to make an attempt at storming the
stage of Islam. They, therefore, kept a low profile. But when Uthman became khalifa, they
felt that the time had come for them to cast off their caution and restraint, and they
fell upon the empire like vultures, ready to devour everything. Uthman dismissed all the
governors of the provinces who had been appointed by Abu Bakr and Umar, and filled the
vacancies with members of his own family and clan. He also gave the Umayyads the most
fertile lands and pastures as their estate, and bestowed upon them all the gold and silver
in the public treasury.

In 656 Ali took the reins of the government in his
hands. He dismissed all the governors who were plundering the country, and he ordered the
Umayyads to restore to the State all the lands, fiefs, estates and pastures which they had
appropriated illegally.

But the Umayyads had no intention of giving up
anything. They made it clear that they would hang on, as long as possible, to their former
positions, their perquisites and their privileges, and if Ali still wanted them, he would
have to take them by force of arms.

Ali knew it that he would meet massive resistance if
he tried to distribute wealth equitably. But he put his duty toward God and the Muslim
umma ahead of the wishes or the resentments of the privileged classes in the Dar-ul-Islam.
He had no choice in the matter, and he had to destroy the bastions of privilege regardless
of consequences. In this matter, there was absolutely no room for compromise.

President Jimmy Carter

This is no job for the faint-hearted. It will be met
with violent opposition from those who now enjoy a special privilege, those who prefer to
work in the dark, or those whose private fiefdoms are threatened. (Why Not the Best? p.
148, 1975)

A showdown was inevitable.

Talha and Zubayr were out of the military equation,
and Ali's new confrontation was with the old adversaries - the Umayyads - the ideological
saboteurs of Islam. This confrontation was proof of Umar's success in polarizing the Arabs
between the many enemies and the few friends of the House of Muhammad, the Messenger of
God.

The challenge of the Umayyads to Ali was a
manifestation of the reaction of paganism against Islam. For a long time, the hatred of
the Banu Umayya against Islam and the Banu Hashim had smoldered like embers but with the
accession of Ali to the throne of caliphate, it had turned into roaring flames,
threatening to burn down, in the words of Toynbee, "the house that Mohammed
built."

After the battle of Basra (the battle of the Camel),
all members of the clan of Banu Umayya had rallied behind Muawiya, the governor of Syria.
He was their leader, and he was the leader of the pagan reaction against Islam. In his war
against Ali, he was aided and abetted by Amr bin Aas. Amr was a non-Umayyad but an
identity of interests prompted his alignment with Muawiya.

Following is a brief introduction to the antecedents
of Muawiya and Amr bin Aas. It will acquaint the reader with the mainsprings of their
opposition to Ali.

Muawiya bin Abu Sufyan

Muawiya was the son of Hinda and Abu Sufyan. Abu
Sufyan was Hinda's third husband. She was one of the bitterest enemies of Islam, its
Prophet and his family. In the battle of Badr, her father, Utba, was killed by Hamza. Her
eldest son, Hanzala; her brother, Walid; and her uncle, Shaiba; were killed by Ali.
Thereupon, she vowed that she would drink their blood (M. Shibli in Sirat-un-Nabi, vol. I,
page 370, 4th printing, 1976, Azamgarh, India). In the battle of Uhud, she cut open the
abdomen of Hamza, took out his liver, and chewed it up, and ever-since became
"famous" in history as "the liver-eater."

If Muawiya was the son of Hinda, the liver-eater of
Uhud, he was also the father of Yazid, the butcher of Kerbala, who let loose terror upon
and massacred the younger grandson and great-grandchildren of Muhammad. One of the
companions of the Prophet who took the oath of allegiance to Yazid, was Abdullah bin Umar
bin al-Khattab. He was a "ringside" spectator of that massacre in Kerbala in
which the pages of the history of Islam were stained with the most sacrosanct blood in all
creation.

Yazid was perky with a long and
"distinguished" pedigree of hostility to the Banu Hashim – the Guardians of
Islam.

When the Prophet conquered Makkah in 630, Abu
Sufyan, Hinda, their sons, Yazid and Muawiya, and other members of the Banu Umayya,
accepted Islam. Jalal-ud-Din Suyuti writes on page 135 of his book, History of the
Caliphs:

"Muawiya accepted Islam with his father, Abu
Sufyan on the day Makkah was conquered. They were present in the battle of Hunayn, and
they were among the muallafatul-qulub."

Some historians say that after the conquest of
Makkah, the Prophet appointed Muawiya as one of his scribes. As a scribe, his duty,
perhaps, was to write letters of the Prophet.

Both in Makkah and in Medina, the Prophet had made
each Muslim a "brother" of another Muslim. He, therefore, gave Muawiya also a
"brother."

Muhammad ibn Ishaq

The Apostle established brotherhood between Mu'awiya
b. Abu Sufyan and al-Hutat. The Apostle did this between a number of his companions, e.g.,
between Abu Bakr and Umar; Uthman and Abdur Rahman bin Auf; Talha b. Ubaydullah and Zubayr
b. Awwam; Abu Dharr al-Ghiffari and al-Miqdad b. Amr al-Bahrani; and Muawiya b. Abu Sufyan
and al-Hutat b. Yazid al-Mujashi'i. Al-Hutat died in the presence of Muawiya during his
caliphate and by virtue of his brotherhood, Mu'awiya took what he left as his heir.
Al-Farazdaq said to Mu'awiya:

"Your father and my uncle, O Muawiya, left an
inheritance,

So that his next of kin might inherit it.

But how come you to devour the estate of al-Hutat

When the solid estate of Harb was melting in your
hand?" (The Life of the Messenger of God)

As noted before, Abu Bakr had appointed Yazid bin
Abu Sufyan, as one of his generals in the Syrian campaign. Syria was conquered after the
death of Abu Bakr – in the caliphate of Umar. He appointed Yazid the first governor
of Syria. In 639, however, plague broke out in Syria and Palestine, and killed thousands
of people, among them Yazid bin Abu Sufyan and Abu Obaida ibn al-Jarrah. In Yazid's
vacancy, Umar appointed his (Yazid's) younger brother, Muawiya, as the new governor.

Sir John Glubb

There was a disastrous famine in the Hijaz in 639.
In addition to the famine, the year 639 witnessed an outbreak of bubonic plague in Syria
and Palestine. Many Arabs died, until great numbers sought refuge in the desert from the
plague-infested cities. Before this migration to the desert could be completed, however,
the commander-in-chief, Abu Ubaida, was himself struck down and died. He was buried in the
Jordan valley. Yezeed ibn Abu Sofian, who had played a distinguished part as a column
commander throughout the Syrian campaign, was also a victim.

The indefatigable khalif decided himself to visit
Syria in order to reorganize the administration after the loss of so many leaders. Indeed
so fatal had been the plague among the Arabs, 25,000 of whom are said to have died, that
it was feared the Byzantine might seize the opportunity to attempt the re-conquest of
Syria.

In place of Abu Ubaida and Yezeed ibn Abu Sofian,
Muawiya ibn Abu Sofian, was appointed governor of Syria. (The Great Arab Conquests,
p. 214, 1967)

Muawiya was Umar's governor in Syria during the rest
of his caliphate. When Uthman succeeded Umar as khalifa, he too confirmed him (Muawiya) as
his governor. Muawiya adopted a policy of religious tolerance vis--vis the Christians in
Syria, and he carefully and skillfully cultivated the Syrians so that he became very
popular with them.

Franceso Gabrieli

The son of Abu Sufyan had already been put by Omar
in the government of Syria, the conquest of which he had participated in under the orders
of his older brother, Yazid. Twenty years of sapient rule had won him the attachment of
the Arab element stationed there. (The Arabs, A Compact History, p. 74, 1963)

Muawiya made Syria impregnable, and he made himself
invulnerable during the caliphate of his patrons, Umar and Uthman.

E. A. Belyaev

While he was still only viceroy of Syria, Muawiya
created a strong material base for himself, his kin and his military following, becoming a
very big landlord by large-scale seizure of land. The Umayyad Caliph Muawiya rested on far
stronger economic foundations and possessed more trustworthy armed forces than his
political opponents. He had become the all-powerful permanent viceroy of the rich and
civilized Syria as early as the days of Omar, and having spent more than twenty years in
this important post, became the recognized leader of Arab tribal aristocracy in Syria.
(Arabs, Islam and the Arab Caliphate in the Early Middle Ages, 1969)

It was in this manner that Muawiya, the political
phoenix of the Arabs, rose from the ashes of a failed effort to restore a pagan past, to
become, first the arch-rival of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the successor of the Prophet, and then
to become the successor himself!

Muawiya was a man of many innovations. He changed
khilafat into monarchy, and openly boasted: "I am the first of the Arab kings."
Monarchy, of course, has to be hereditary, and it had to be hereditary in his family. He,
therefore, made Yazid, his son, his successor. Even those Muslims who either condoned or
connived at his crimes, winced when he struck this blow for his family.

The designation by Muawiya of his son, Yazid, as
khalifa, was a flagrant breach of the pledge he had given to Hasan ibn Ali not to appoint
his own successor. But Muawiya was not the man to be inhibited by any pledge or code of
ethics. Ethics in his hands became the first casualty.

Muawiya, however, was aware that Muslims would not
willingly accept Yazid as their khalifa. He, therefore, silenced opposition with gold and
silver or with bluff and threats. But if these weapons failed, then he employed a subtle,
secret and fail-safe weapon – poison. He was a "pioneer" in Muslim history
in the art of silencing his critics and opponents forever through poison. Anticipating
opposition from Hasan to Yazid's succession, he engineered his death. The historian,
Masoodi, writes:

"Muawiya sent word to Jo’dah bint Ash'ath,
the wife of Hasan, that if she would kill her husband, he would pay her 100,000 dirhems,
and would marry his son, Yazid, to her."

Muawiya awakened in Jo’dah the ambition to
become a queen, and when he sent the poison to her, as it was arranged between them, she
administered it to her husband, and he died from it. Muawiya rewarded her by paying
100,000 dirhems, but backed out of his promise to marry her to Yazid by saying: "I
love my son."

Abdur Rahman bin Khalid bin al-Walid, an ex-governor
of Hims (Emessa) was also liquidated in a similar manner. Once Muawiya paid a visit to
Hims; he went into the mosque, and addressing the congregation, said:

"I have become too old now and am not far from
death.

I, therefore, wish to appoint someone as your
ruler."

Muawiya was secretly hoping that to please him, the
people of Hims would suggest the name of Yazid as the next khalifa. But no one wanted the
depraved Yazid as khalifa. On the other hand, the people adored Abdur Rahman bin Khalid
bin al-Walid, and proposed his name to be the future khalifa of the Muslims. Muawiya
dissembled his disappointment and returned to Damascus. The popularity of Abdur Rahman
frightened him, and he began to look at him as a potential rival for the throne. He,
therefore, made up his mind to do something to make the throne "safe" for his
son, Yazid.

Sometime later, Abdur Rahman fell ill, and became
bedridden. Muawiya persuaded Abdur Rahman's physician to mix poison in his medicine and to
administer it to him. In the event of his success, he promised to pay him (the physician),
as his reward, the revenues of Hims for one full year. The physician agreed, and gave
Abdur Rahman the "medicine" he had concocted. It did its work and killed him.
(Isti'aab, vol. II, page 401) After the death of Uthman, most of the Muslims acknowledged
Ali as the new head of the empire of the Muslims. But there were many others who did not,
and Muawiya, of course, was one of them.

Ahmad ibn Daud Dinawari, the Arab historian, writes:

"The Muslim world acknowledged Ali as the
supreme ruler of Islam but Muawiya and the rest of the Banu Umayya, who had made Syria
their base, did not."

Ali sent an emissary to Muawiya demanding his
allegiance. But instead of answering him, Muawiya detained the emissary at his court, and
invited Amr bin Aas from Palestine for "consultation." He intended to enlist his
(Amr's) support.

Amr bin Aas

Amr bin Aas was living in Palestine at this time,
and was watching the political scene. He was thrilled to receive the invitation from
Muawiya, and leapt to grab the opportunity. But his support, he told Muawiya, had a price,
and it was Egypt.

To Muawiya the price appeared to be too high but
after some hesitation he agreed to pay it in exchange for Amr's advice and services in the
war which he was going to wage against Ali, the successor of the Apostle of God, and the
Sovereign of all Muslims. Muawiya was going to appoint Amr bin Aas his governor in Egypt
in the event of the latter's success in taking it from Ali. Amr bin Aas was destined to
play an important, if sinister, part in the history of Islam. He was a man of
extraordinary ability. His ability is attested by the high positions he held in the
caliphates of Abu Bakr and Umar. There was a slur on his birth; he was born in the house
of a "woman of the flags" in Makkah.

Edward Gibbon

The birth of Amrou was at once base and illustrious;
his mother, a notorious prostitute, was unable to decide among the five of the Koreish;
but the proof of resemblance adjudged the child to Aasi, the oldest of her lovers.
(The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)

Washington Irving

One of the most redoubtable assailants of Mohammed
was a youth named Amr; he was the son of a courtesan of Mecca, who seems to have rivaled
in fascination the Phrynes and Aspasias of Greece, and have numbered some of the noblest
of the land among her lovers. When she gave birth to this child, she mentioned several of
the tribe of Koreish who had equal claim to the paternity. The infant was declared to have
most resemblance to Aas, the oldest of her admirers, whence in addition to his name of
Amr, he received the designation of Ibn al-Aas, the son of Aas.

Nature had lavished her choicest gifts upon this
natural child, as if to atone for the blemish of his birth. Though young, he was already
one of the most popular poets of Arabia. He assailed Mohammed with lampoon and humorous
madrigals. (The Life of Mohammed)

R.V.C. Bodley

There was Amr ibn al Aas, the son of a beautiful
Meccan prostitute. All the better Meccans were her friends, so that anyone, from Abu
Sufyan down, might have been Amr's father. As far as anyone could be sure, he might have
called himself Amr ibn Abi Lahab or ibn al Abbas or ibn anyone else among the Koreishite
upper ten. (The Messenger, New York, p. 73, 1946)

Quraysh had once sent Amr as its ambassador to the
court of Abyssinia to demand the extradition of the Muslim refugees from Makkah who had
found sanctuary there. His mission, incidentally, was a failure.

In 629 Amr accepted Islam. After his conversion, the
Apostle also sent him, on a few occasions, as the captain of the expeditions which raided
the pagan tribes. The most important expedition that he led in the times of the Apostle,
was the raid of Dhat el-Salasil in which he commanded a body of 500 men, among them Abu
Bakr, Umar bin al-Khattab and Abu Obaida ibn al-Jarrah. This mission, incidentally, was
successful.

Amr was Umar's governor in Egypt. But when Uthman
became khalifa, he dismissed him, and he returned to Medina smarting with resentment. He
was a consummate "specialist" in hatching conspiracies, in sowing dissension and
in spreading disaffection. He applied these talents against Uthman, and mounted an attack
of smear and innuendo against him. He openly boasted that he roused even the shepherds in
the mountains to kill him (Uthman), and his boast was no empty twaddle. Uthman had driven
him into political purgatory but he had no intention of languishing in silence forever
while he could fancy him (Uthman) mocking at him in Medina, and he could envision his
(Uthman's) favorites roistering in Egypt – a province which he (Amr) had added to the
empire. He was resolved to act for himself.

The loss of power is one of the most painful
experiences that can ever afflict a man. Not only is he deprived of the capacity to shape
events but also of the outward symbols and trappings of office.

Talha and Zubayr had never shaped events. They made
an attempt to seize the khilafat by force but they failed. The attempt cost them not only
their lives but also their reputation. Amr bin Aas, on the other hand, had actually shaped
events, and important ones too. But suddenly, Uthman made him a nonentity. From that
moment, he seethed with vindictiveness, and "worked" diligently and
indefatigably, to destroy the author of his frustrations – Uthman - the incumbent
khalifa.

Soon Medina was ready to explode. Amr had built for
himself, in earlier times, a palace in Palestine. Just before the explosion, he slipped
out of Medina, and went to live in his palace. He then sat watching how his efforts would
bear fruit. When he heard that Uthman was killed, he was thrilled, and he openly gloated
over his "success."

Amr's ability and foresight were beyond any
question. By leaving Medina at the right moment, and by "rusticating" in
Palestine, he saved himself not only from the charge, in his own time, of engineering the
assassination of Uthman, but also from the indictment of history.

One thing that Amr knew was that he could not
ingratiate himself with Ali. They represented two irreconcilable styles and philosophies.
But he knew that an alliance with Muawiya was possible. Both were brilliant opportunists.
Both had contributed to the murder of Uthman, one by goading the crowds to kill him, and
the other by willfully withholding all succor from him. Now both were eager to reap the
fruits of their success.

Therefore, Amr bin Aas and Muawiya bin Abu Sufyan
– the two masters of plot, of intrigue, of ambiguity and paradox, of deceit and
deception, of double-talk and single-purpose – forged an alliance, to prop and to
buttress each other against Ali ibn Abi Talib. Their alliance rested, not on ideology but
on the assessment of mutual interest. When Muawiya offered Amr the key position in his
campaign hierarchy as the top political strategist, he (Amr) did not accept it until a
more tangible quid pro quo was immediately perceptible to him. The quid pro quo was Egypt.

Taking the cue from the "triumvirate" of
Basra, Amr advised Muawiya to launch a campaign of propaganda against Ali charging him
with the murder of Uthman. Muawiya forthwith acted upon the advice, and opened the cold
war against Ali.

In the main mosque of Damascus, the banner of the
Banu Umayya was unfurled everyday after the midday prayer. Suspended to the banner were
two other objects. One was a blood-stained shirt which Uthman was alleged to have been
wearing when he was killed, and the other was the dissevered fingers of Naila, his wife.
The Syrians walked around this banner, weeping, wailing and cursing Ali, the members of
his family, and the Banu Hashim, and swearing that they would wreak vengeance upon the
killers of Uthman. Professors Sayed Abdul Qadir and Muhammad Shuja-ud-Din write in their
History of Islam that this was the beginning of the practice called "tabarree."

Muawiya and Amr bin Aas whipped up Syria into
hysteria, so that every Syrian was raving mad against Ali, and was thirsting for his
blood. After three months, Ali's emissary returned to Kufa to report to him the failure of
his mission in Damascus.

Muawiya had opted for war against Ali. But Ali did
not want war. He was most anxious to eschew war. Nothing was more repugnant to him than to
see Muslims killing each other.

Hoping against hope, but not wishing to spare any
effort, Ali addressed a letter to Muawiya. In his letter, he didn't try to remind Muawiya
that the Apostle of God himself had designated him (Ali) as the sovereign of all Muslims.
For Muawiya, he knew, this argument would not be very cogent. Instead, he took up another
line of argument which was more likely to "appeal" to him. The purport of his
letter was as follows:

"I call upon you to obey God and His Apostle,
and to refrain from doing anything against the interests of the Muslims. You know that the
same people who gave their pledge of loyalty to Abu Bakr and Umar, have now given me their
pledge of loyalty. There is no room for argument in this matter. You know that the
Muhajireen and the Ansar have elected the caliphs of the past, and now they have elected
me. Other Muslims have also given me their pledge of loyalty. You too, therefore, should
give me your pledge of loyalty. You have spread much mischief and falsehood in the name of
vengeance for the blood of Uthman while you know only too well who spilled it. After
taking the oath of allegiance to me, you present the case of the murder of Uthman, and I
shall judge it in the light of the Book of God and the precedents of His Apostle, so that
truth and falsehood would be separated."

But Muawiya had no desire to relinquish his
ambitions. He believed that the one thing that could checkmate him in the realization of
his ambitions, was peace. He, therefore, showed himself just as "allergic" to
peace as the "triumvirs" of Basra had done before him. He had only one answer to
Ali's appeals for peace, and that was war.

From Muawiya's point of view, the cry of vengeance
for the murder of Uthman, was an excellent ploy to fight against Ali. He shed many a
crocodile tear for the blood of Uthman but by his own conduct, both before and after his
(Uthman's) murder, he proved that he did not give him (Uthman) a hoot. He raised an army
of 80,000 warriors to fight against Ali but did not send a handful of men to Medina to
break the blockade of Uthman's palace, and to save his life!

Uthman might have found it very comforting to know
that a day would come when his critics would become his admirers, and his enemies would
become his defenders – after his death. He had many critics in Medina, among them
Ayesha, Talha and Zubayr but the most vehement of them all, as noted before, was Amr bin
Aas. He might, in fact, have even been the real author of the crime of Uthman's murder.
But by a queer twist of fate, he – Amr bin Aas - the confederate of Muawiya –
now marched, at the head of the Syrian army, to demand "justice" for Uthman's
murder, of all people – from Ali!

Like Talha and Zubayr – his distinguished
forerunners in the business of vengeance-seeking – Amr bin Aas is also a fascinating
study in character inversion and ironic role reversal. He was a complex, enigmatic and
protean figure defying attempts at analysis, classification and character identification.

One of the aims of Muawiya in waging a war of nerves
against Ali was to compel him to adopt a policy of brutal repression of all those people
who came to Medina from the provinces to see Uthman. Such a policy would have embroiled
Ali in endless fighting. But Ali didn't adopt a policy of repression. He adopted a policy
of persuasion, to the great disappointment of Muawiya. Muawiya's ploy did not work.

Muawiya demanded from Ali, as the
"triumvirs" of Basra had done, the surrender to him of countless men who, he
claimed, had taken part, directly or indirectly, in the murder of Uthman. This demand
raises some fundamental questions such as:

1. Does the governor of a province of state have the
right to demand from the lawfully constituted central government that it should surrender
to him, the suspects in a murder case, even though the murder did not occur in his
particular province? And does he have the right to threaten the central government that if
it did not comply with his demand, he would wage war against it?

2. Muawiya was neither the heir nor the next-of-kin
of Uthman; he was only a distant relative. Is there any example in the history of the
judiciary of any country in which, not the next-of-kin, but a distant relative demands
from the central government that it should surrender to him hundreds or thousands of those
men whom he suspects to be accomplices in a murder? Can he take law into his own hands?
Can the central government of a country allow its citizens to take law into their own
hands? If it does, will anything be left of its authority, and will anything be left of
law and order?

3. Muawiya had exchanged many letters with Ali. In
one he wrote: "We shall hunt the killers of Uthman in every corner of the world, and
we shall kill everyone of them. We shall not rest from this labor until, either we kill
them all or we perish ourselves." An admirable resolution indeed! But when Muawiya
became khalifa, did he implement his own resolution?

After the abdication from caliphate of Hasan ibn Ali
in A.D. 661, Muawiya became the head of the empire of the Muslims. All the real or
suspected murderers of Uthman were living in his empire. Did he arrest any of them, not to
speak of executing any of them? Did he do so much as institute a formal investigation into
the murder of Uthman? He did not. His ambition was to seize the caliphate. Once he
realized it, he forgot Uthman!

The truth is that Muawiya actually wanted Uthman to
be killed. It was his hope that there would be chaos after the murder of Uthman, and he
would maneuver in it in his drive to capture power. When he demanded from Ali the
surrender to him of the "murderers" of Uthman, he knew that they were scattered
in Hijaz, Iraq and Egypt, and that it was impossible to round them up. But assuming that
it was possible to apprehend them, it was still not possible to kill them all. But if it
were possible to kill them all, it would still not be right to kill all of them for the
murder of one individual.

Seeking and getting vengeance for a murder, is the
right of the heir(s) of the victim, and it is the duty of the government to administer
justice. Muawiya was neither the heir of Uthman nor he was the head of the government of
the Muslims. He was no more an heir of Uthman than Ayesha, Talha and Zubayr had been. His
and their only interest was in seizing the khilafat.

If Muawiya could not act in time to save the life of
Uthman, he still had an opportunity to prove that he was a sincere vengeance-seeker for
his murder. When three other vengeance-seekers, viz., Ayesha, Talha and Zubayr, challenged
Ali, Muawiya should have gone to their aid. After all, all four of them were inspired by
the same aim. The murder of Uthman had aroused the lust for blood in all of them. The
identity of purpose ought to have forged strong links between them. But whatever reasons
prevented Muawiya from going to Medina to save the life of Uthman, also prevented him from
going to Basra to reinforce his "spiritual" allies.

The claim that Muawiya had no interest in Uthman,
living or dead, is further strengthened by his answer to a question posed to him by a
daughter of Uthman. When he became khalifa, he paid a visit to Medina. In Medina, he
called on the family of Uthman whose daughter, Ayesha, asked him, rather pointedly, if he
still remembered anything of his oft-repeated declaration that he was seeking vengeance
for the murder of her father.

Muawiya answered her as follows:

"I have succeeded in restoring peace to the
country after a great deal of trouble, and you should now be happy that you are called the
daughter of one and the niece of another khalifa. But if for your sake, I were to start
arresting and killing the murderers of your father, then that peace would vanish once
again. If it does, then I may lose the power that I have won after such a hard struggle;
and if that happens, then you would be reduced to the status of an ordinary woman."
(Iqd-ul-Farid)

Muawiya, the pragmatist, had an infinite and an
amazing capacity to equivocate!

For Muawiya, to achieve his ends, all means were
fair. There was nothing that he could not do to become the khalifa of the Muslims. He
could, in fact, go so far as to become the vassal of a non-Muslim power to fight against
the lawful successor of the Apostle of God and the sovereign of all Muslims. In doing so,
he was espousing a policy that struck at the very roots of Islam.

Sir John Glubb

In order to be free to confront his rival (Ali),
Muawiya had concluded a truce with Byzantium under which he agreed to pay an annual
tribute to the Emperor. (The Great Arab Conquests, p. 338, 1967)

D. M. Dunlop

Before Muawiya succeeded to the Caliphate, when
after Siffin he remained in confrontation with Ali, he secured himself on his northern
border by a truce with Byzantium, by the terms of which he agreed to pay what was in
effect tribute to the Emperor Constans II, and in 678 towards the end of his Caliphate,
after the failure of the great Arab assault on Constantinople in the so-called Seven
Years' War and an attack by the Mardaites on his northern frontier, Muawiya again paid
tribute to the Emperor, now Constantine IV. At a later date Byzantine armies invaded Syria
and retook Antioch and Aleppo. (Arab Civilization to A.D. 1500, 1971)

The new "status" that Muawiya won as the
vassal of the Byzantine emperor, set him free to wage war against Ali ibn Abi Talib, the
successor of Muhammad, the Messenger of God. He fought against the Commander of the
Faithful, against the veterans of Badr, against the Companions of the Tree of Fealty, and
against the Muhajireen and the Ansar while he was protected by the Christians of the
Eastern Roman Empire!

But for Muawiya, to be "flexible," the
stakes did not have to be as high as a crown and a throne. He could be flexible in matters
of lesser importance also. He had, for example, a sentimental attachment to money, and he
believed that in making it, too much "old-fashioned" rigidity in the application
of Islamic principles was not quite necessary. The important thing for him was to make
money. Ibn Ishaq, the biographer of the Prophet, has already been quoted on the subject of
the seizure by Muawiya of the property of al-Hutat b. Yazid al-Mujashi'i, his
"brother," at his death. This "brotherhood" worked entirely to his
(Muawiya's) advantage. To fill his pockets, he could even sell idols. Muawiya, the
successor of Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman, and the khalifa of the Muslims, could become a
merchant of idols if he hoped that he would make some profit in the transaction.

Sir John Glubb

Sicily was raided more than once by the Arab fleet
during the reign of Muawiya. A curious tradition relates that on one occasion the raiders
carried off ‘idols' of gold and silver, studded with pearls. It is perhaps
significant of the change of Arab mentality that the khalif instead of utterly destroying
such abominations, sent them on to India, where he thought that their sale would fetch a
higher price. (The Great Arab Conquests, p. 355, 1967)

The sale of idols by Muawiya bin Abu Sufyan was
clearly an atavistic relapse of the Umayyads. His actions were prompted on the basis, not
of revealed (Islamic), but of nostalgic (pagan), values which were characteristic of the
name and the bloodline of the Umayyads. He was, it appears, in search, perhaps
subconsciously, of the "Lost Ignorance" of his dynasty. He reflected and shaped
the post-Islamic Jahiliyya. His challenge to Ali, therefore, was not only or even
primarily a physical one; it was a metaphysical one. Islam as a moral force, met the
ultimate threat in Muawiya and in the Umayyads.