Muʿāwiya I.

Muʿāwiya I. [ muˈʕaːwija ] ( Arabic معاوية بن أبي سفيان, DMG Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān ; * 603 in Mecca ; † April 18 680 in Damascus ) was the first caliph of the Umayyad (661-680) and founder of the dynasty. He is considered one of the most important rulers in Arab history.

Early life and family

Muʿāwiya was born in Mecca in 603 as a member of the Umayyad sub-clan of the 'Abd Shams clan of the Quraish tribe . His father, Abū Sufyān ibn Harb, was the tribal head of the Quraish who controlled Mecca. His mother was Abu Sufyan's third wife, Hind bint Utbah , an influential Meccan priestess. Muawiya, his parents, and the other members of his family have long been among the greatest enemies of the Prophet Muhammad and Islam. Muʿāwiya and his father are considered to be one of the most famous members of the Tulaqa ' . This was a group of the enemies of Muhammad from the Quraish tribe who had received amnesty from the Prophet after the conquest of Mecca. After conquering Mecca, he and his family adopted Islam.

Governor of Syria (639-661)

After the conquest of Syria, Muʿāwiya continued to mint Byzantine coins, although he had the crosses replaced by balls or bars.

He took part in the conquest of Syria and was appointed governor of this province in 639 by the second caliph , Umar ibn al-Khattab . As such, he organized the construction of a Muslim fleet in the Mediterranean , with which the Byzantine fleet could be defeated for the first time in the Battle of Phoinix in 655 . In 663 he was able to advance through Anatolia to the Bosporus .

After the assassination of caliph ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān (656), his followers partially joined Muʿāwiya. This refused the newly elected caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib (656-661) recognition and instead accused him of being responsible for the murder of his predecessor. The clashes culminated in the Battle of Siffin ; but since this did not lead to a decision, Ali entered into negotiations. The subsequent split in Ali's party ( Shia ) strengthened Muʿāwiya's position.

Caliph (661-680)

After ʿAlī was murdered in January 661 by the Kharijite Ibn Muldscham, Muʿāwiya advanced with his troops against Iraq, where Hasan ibn ʿAlī had been made caliph. By means of large sums of money, the provision of tribute income to a Persian province and the recognition of his right to the succession, Muʿāwiya was able to induce Hasan to abdicate at the end of July and to swear allegiance to him. As governor over Kufa he installed al-Mughīra ibn Shuufba, as governor over Basra in the spring of 662 his relative ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿĀmir. The political center of the empire shifted to Damascus , with which Medina finally lost its political importance.

administration

Muʿāwiya later reorganized the empire with the help of ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀs in Egypt and Ziyād ibn Abī Sufyān in Iraq . Ziyād, who set up his own divan, had copies of registers made and employed secretaries to handle correspondence. Some of them were Arabs, others were Mawālī .

For a long time, Christians who were familiar with the effective late Roman administrative practice were active in the administration of the caliphate empire. They also held high-ranking posts such as the influential Sarjun ibn Mansur and his son, who later became known as John of Damascus . It was not until around 700 that Christians were largely ousted from the administration.

In financial policy, Muʿāwiya made a clear distinction between the income generated by collecting property tax ( ḫarāǧ ) and the income from the state domains ( ṣawāfī ). Most of the income generated by the property tax remained in the provinces; he and his family were only entitled to the income from the state domains. Since several of the state domains were in the hands of members of his family, he was heavily dependent on the property tax levied in Syria. In order to reduce this dependency, he ordered that each province had to transfer a share of the income from the property tax to him.

Expansion and land reclamation

Islamic expansion resumed under the rule of Muʿāwiyas . Thus began the subjugation of the Maghreb under Uqba ibn Nafi . The conquest of Eastern Iran was also continued, where some resistance had formed (→ Peroz of Persia ). The governor of Cyprus signed a treaty with the caliph that secured him peace in return for regular tribute payments. However, with the unsuccessful sieges of Constantinople from 667 and 674–678, the conquest of the Byzantine Empire failed , even if it had to pay tribute to the Muslims for a short time.

In 661 Muʿāwiya entrusted his client ʿAbdallāh ibn Darrādsch with the collection of the Charāj tax in Iraq. By building dams, he drained the swamps ( baṭā Anlageiḥ ) that had arisen during the great flood in 627/28. Formally, the area still belonged to the former Sassanid royal family and was not yet subject to the Charaj tax. Muʿāwiya commissioned Ibn Darrādsch to confiscate these lands and to make an inventory of them. Ibn Darrādsch carried out this order and in this way was able to increase Muträgeāwiya's income from the catchment area of ​​Kufa and the Iraqi irrigated land ( sawād ) to 50 million dirhams .

Designation of Yazids and loss of legitimacy

Although the followers of ʿAlī and the Kharijites continued to agitate against Muʿāwiya, his rule was otherwise generally recognized. This changed, however, when, towards the end of his life, Muʿāwiya designated his son Yazīd as heir to the throne, thereby breaking the contract he had concluded with al-Hasan ibn ʿAlī. ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān, the son of Abū Bakr , accused Muʿāwiya of wanting to establish a hereditary dynasty like the Byzantines and Sassanids. The old resentments against the Umayya clan, which had remained pagan to the last, now resurrected everywhere. When the Umayyad Marwān called on the companions of the Prophets to take the oath of allegiance to Yazīd, 'isha railed that the Messenger of God had cursed his father and that this curse was still attached to him. Many well-known companions of the Prophets, including ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAmr , turned away from Muʿāwiya at this time. Others withdrew in the Hejaz so that they would not have to take the oath of allegiance to Yazīd. In this way, Muʿāwiya lost much of his political legitimacy at the end of his reign . He died on April 18, 680 in Damascus, where he was also buried.

literature

• Ulrich Haarmann: History of the Arab World . Edited by Heinz Halm (=  Beck's historical library ). 5th revised and expanded edition. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-47486-1 .
• Martin Hinds: Art. "Muʿāwiya I". In: Encyclopaedia of Islam , Volume 7. 2nd Edition, pp. 263-268.
• Marek Jankowiak: The first Arab siege of Constantinople. In: Travaux et Mémoires du Center de Recherche d'Histoire et Civilization de Byzance , Volume 17. Paris 2013, pp. 237-320.
• Hugh Kennedy: The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates. The Islamic Near East from the sixth to the eleventh century . 2nd Edition. Longman, Harlow et al. 2004, ISBN 0-582-40525-4 .
• Gernot Rotter : The Umayyads and the Second Civil War (=  treatises for the customer of the Orient 45, 3 ). Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1982, ISBN 3-515-02913-3 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ibn Hsiham. As-Sirah an-Nabawiyyah [ Life of Muhammad ] B. 2, p. 597
2. ↑ Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (trans.Ismail K Poonawala): The last years of the Prophet . State University of New York Press, Albany 1990, ISBN 0-88706-691-7 , pp. 32 .
3. ^ Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 228.
4. ^ Gerhard Konzelmann: The great caliphs 1990, ISBN 3881997458 . Page 89 ff.
5. ↑ Umayyad Arab-Byzantine solidus (above) minted under Muʿāwiya (661–680) based on the model of a solidus of Emperor Herakleios (610–641). See also Maronite Chronicle Quote AG 971 [660] ... Mu'awiya also minted gold and silver, but it was not accepted because there was no cross on it ...
6. ↑ See Leone Caetani : Chronographia Islamica . Vol. II. Paris 1912, p. 461f.
7. ↑ See Leone Caetani: Chronographia Islamica . Vol. II. Paris 1912, pp. 462, 464.
8. ↑ See Daniel C. Dennett, Jr .: Conversion and the Poll Tax in Early Islam. Harvard Univ. Pr. U. a., Cambridge, Mass. u. a. 1950; Reprint Idarah-i Adabyat-i Delli, Delhi, 2000. pp. 30-32.
9. ^ Marek Jankowiak: The first Arab siege of Constantinople. In: Travaux et Mémoires du Center de Recherche d'Histoire et Civilization de Byzance. Vol. 17. Paris 2013, pp. 237-320.
10. ↑ See Dennett 29f.
11. ↑ Cf. az-Ziriklī : al-Aʿlām sv ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbdallāh 53/673.
12. ↑ On the words that ʿĀ'ishah is said to have used on this occasion, cf. Edward William Lane: Arabic-English Lexicon (1876), sv faḍaḍ.
13. ↑ See az-Ziriklī: al-Aʿlām sv ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAmr 65/684.

predecessor	Office	successor
ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib	Umayyad Caliph 661–680	Yazid I.