Mu'awiya Ibn Abi Sufyan: From Arabia To Empire

MAKERS of the MUSLIM WO R L D Mu‘awiya ibn Abi Sufyan 00mupre.indd i 26/05/2006 13:55:05 Series editor: Patricia Crone, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton SELECTION OF TITLES IN THE MAKERS OF THE MUSLIM WORLD SERIES ‘Abd al-Malik, Chase F. Robinson Abd al-Rahman III, Maribel Fierro Abu Nuwas, Philip Kennedy Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Christopher Melchert Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi, Usha Sanyal Al-Ma’mun, Michael Cooperson Amir Khusraw, Sunil Sharma Beshir Agha, Jane Hathaway Fazlallah Astarabadi and the Hurufis, Shahzad Bashir Ibn ‘Arabi, William C. Chittick Ikhwan al-Safa’, Godefroid de Callataÿ Karim Khan Zand, John R. Perry Nasser, Joel Gordon Shaykh Mufid, Tamima Bayhom-Daou Usama ibn Munqidh, Paul M. Cobb For current information and details of other books in the series, please visit www.oneworld-publications.com/ subjects/makers-of-muslim-world.htm 00mupre.indd ii 26/05/2006 13:55:06 MAKERS of the MUSLIM WO R L D Mu‘awiya ibn Abi Sufyan From Arabia to Empire R. STEPHEN HUMPHREYS 00mupre.indd iii 26/05/2006 13:55:06 MU‘AWIYA IBN ABI SUFYAN Oneworld Publications 185 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7AR England www.oneworld-publications.com © 2006 R. Stephen Humphreys All rights reserved Copyright under Berne Convention A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library ISBN 1–85168–402–6 978–1–85168–402–1 Typeset by Sparks, Oxford, UK Cover and text design by Design Deluxe Printed and bound in India by Thomson Press Ltd on acid-free paper NL08 00mupre.indd iv 26/05/2006 13:55:06 For Cymbre, Michael and Brian 00mupre.indd v 26/05/2006 13:55:06 00mupre.indd vi 26/05/2006 13:55:06 CONTENTS Preface and Acknowledgments ix 1 THE PROBLEM OF MU‘AWIYA 1 Mu‘awiya in the eyes of later Muslims 3 How do we know what we claim to know: the sources for Mu‘awiya’s life 10 Mu‘awiya’s career: a chronological sketch 19 2 THE FIRST THREE DECADES (600–632) 23 The Meccan milieu 23 The politics of genealogy: why Mu‘awiya’s ancestry is important 28 The lineage of Mu‘awiya 30 The Banu Umayya 31 The descendants of ‘Abd Manaf: the clans of ‘Abd Shams and Hashim 33 3 LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS OF POWER: MU‘AWIYA AS MASTER OF SYRIA (632–656) 43 Mu‘awiya and the conquest of Syria 43 Mu‘awiya becomes Governor 45 The war against Byzantium 50 The war at sea: creating the Muslim navy 53 The war in Anatolia and Armenia 58 Mu‘awiya and the Arab tribes in Syria 60 00mupre.indd vii 26/05/2006 13:55:06 4 THE FIRST CIVIL WAR AND MU‘AWIYA’S RISE TO POWER (656–661) 65 The revolt against ‘Uthman 65 The aftermath: who can claim the right to rule? 71 The confrontation between ‘Ali and Mu‘awiya 77 5 COMMANDER OF THE FAITHFUL (661–680) 85 The war against Byzantium renewed 104 6 THE PRINCE OF OUR DISORDER: MU‘AWIYA AS A SYMBOL OF CULTURAL TENSION 115 Bibliography 137 Index 143 00mupre.indd viii 26/05/2006 13:55:06 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Mu‘awiya ibn Abi Sufyan is a figure of critical importance in the formative period of the caliphate and the Arab-Muslim Empire but even in the flood of scho