The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate ad 661-750

particularly to his Arab subjects, as fundamentally a tribal shaykh,
but we should not be misled into forgetting that his power and
resources were far greater than those available to a pre-Islamic Arab
tribal leader and, in addition, that the caliphate was not merely a
political office but a religious one at the same time.
The other image of Mu‘awiya in tradition is to some extent at
variance with this portrait of him as a successor to the authority of a
tribal shaykh. He is the man who perverted the caliphate into a
kingship, the first to make the 
khilafa
 a 
mulk
. The significance of
this contrast between caliphate and kingship and of the charge that
the Umayyads were not caliphs but merely kings has already been
discussed. In connection with Mu‘awiya the charge centres on his
decision to appoint his son Yazid as his successor 
(wali ’l-‘ahd)
while he himself was still alive and in possession of the caliphate.
The reports about how Mu‘awiya went about this—his careful
planning, his secrecy while preparing the ground, his reception of
the delegations from the provinces and his winning their support for
his plan, the pressure put on Yazid to change his way of life in order
to make him acceptable as a successor—are perhaps the best
illustration of the 
hilm
 of Mu‘awiya, and it seems that he was
successful in that the move does not appear to have called forth any
opposition from the tribesmen in the provinces. What opposition
there was came from a relatively small group of people who may
have considered that they had claims to the caliphate, and in
tradition these individuals tend to appear as spokesmen of Islam
against Mu‘awiya’s attempt to introduce dynastic rule into the
Muslim community. How important this consideration was at the
time is not easy to say, but it is clear that the opposition of tradition
to Mu‘awiya is based on religious as much as political principles. It
is not a protest of primitive tribal democracy at the growth of
Umayyad power but rather a protest of Islam at what was seen as
Umayyad disregard of Muslim norms (which cannot have existed in
any developed sense in the time of Mu‘awiya). At any rate, the
second civil war is seen as a direct consequence of Mu‘awiya’s
action.
It is indicative of the somewhat contradictory image of Mu‘awiya
that it is reported that when he died in 680 he was buried with hair
and nail clippings from the Prophet himself, thus emphasising that

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44
The Sufyanids
Mu‘awiya had been a companion of Muhammad, having acquired
these relics when he acted as the Prophet’s secretary. On the whole it
is notable that the Umayyads do not seem to have emphasised their
succession from the Prophet, unlike the ‘Abbasids who used alleged
relics of the Prophet—notably his cloak—as part of their regalia.
Mu‘awiya was succeeded, as he had planned, by his son Yazid, but
Yazid was faced with a series of movements of opposition and when
he himself died towards the end of 683 Sufyanid rule in effect
collapsed.
12
Notes
1. See genealogical tables 1, 3 and 4.
2. H.Lammens, ‘Le “Sofiani”, héros national des arabes syriens’ in his
Etudes sur le siècle des omayyades;
 P.K.Hitti, 
History of Syria,
 540–1;
F.Omar, 
The ‘Abbasid caliphate,
 268 ff.; K.Salibi, 
Syria under Islam,
 38–
42.
3. There is no general work devoted to the administration and
organisation of the Umayyad state. See, however, the articles “Amil’,
‘Amir’, “Arif’, ‘Diwan’, etc, in 
EI1
 and