Second Fitna in the context of "Mu'awiya I"

The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (US: /uːˈmaɪæd/; Arabic: ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, romanized: al-Khilāfa al-Umawiyya) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty from 661 to 750. It succeeded the Rashidun Caliphate, of which the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, was also a member of the clan. The Umayyad family established dynastic, hereditary rule with Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, the long-time governor of Greater Syria, who became caliph after the end of the First Fitna in 661. After Mu'awiya's death in 680, conflicts over the succession resulted in the Second Fitna, and power was eventually claimed by Marwan ibn al-Hakam, from another branch of the clan. Syria remained the Umayyads' core power base thereafter, with Damascus as their capital.

The Umayyads continued the Muslim conquests, conquering Ifriqiya, Transoxiana, Sind, the Maghreb and Hispania (al-Andalus). At its greatest extent, the Umayyad Caliphate covered 11,100,000 km (4,300,000 sq mi), making it one of the largest empires in history in terms of area. The dynasty was toppled by the Abbasids in 750. Survivors of the dynasty established themselves in Córdoba which, in the form of an emirate and then a caliphate, became a world center of science, medicine, philosophy and invention during the Islamic Golden Age.

The Umayyad dynasty (Arabic: بَنُو أُمَيَّةَ, romanized: Banū Umayya, lit. 'Sons of Umayya'), or the Umayyads (Arabic: الأمويون, romanized: al-Umawiyyūn) was an Arab clan within the Quraysh tribe who were the ruling family of the Umayyad Caliphate in 661–750 and the Emirate and later Caliphate of Córdoba in 756–1031.

In the pre-Islamic period, the Umayyads were a prominent clan of the Meccan tribe of Quraysh, descended from Umayya ibn Abd Shams. Despite staunch opposition to the Islamic prophet Muhammad, the Umayyads embraced Islam before the former's death in 632. Uthman ibn Affan, an early companion of Muhammad from the Umayyad clan, was the third Rashidun caliph, ruling in 644–656, while other members held various governorships. This included Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, the long-time governor of the Levant, who opposed the fourth Rashidun caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib in the First Muslim Civil War (656–661) and afterwards founded the Umayyad Caliphate with its capital in Damascus. This marked the beginning of the Umayyad dynasty, the first hereditary dynasty in the history of Islam, and the only one to rule over the entire Islamic world of its time. Umayyad authority was challenged in the Second Muslim Civil War, during which the Sufyanid line of Mu'awiya (which includes only the three first Umayyad caliphs) was replaced in 684 by Marwan I, who founded the Marwanid line of Umayyad caliphs, which restored the dynasty's rule over the Caliphate and remained so until the fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba.

Marwan ibn al-Hakam ibn Abi al-As ibn Umayya (Arabic: مروان بن الحكم بن أبي العاص بن أمية, romanized: Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam ibn Abī al-ʿĀṣ ibn Umayya; 623 or 626 – April/May 685), commonly known as Marwan I, was the fourth Umayyad caliph, ruling for less than a year in 684–685. He founded the Marwanid ruling house of the Umayyad dynasty, which replaced the Sufyanid house after its collapse in the Second Fitna and remained in power until 750.

During the reign of his cousin, the third Rashidun caliph Uthman (r. 644–656), Marwan took part in a military campaign against the Byzantine Exarchate of Africa (in central North Africa), where he acquired significant war spoils. He also served as Uthman's governor in Fars (southwestern Iran) before becoming the caliph's katib (secretary or scribe). He was wounded fighting the rebel siege of Uthman's house, in which the caliph was slain. In the ensuing civil war between the fourth Rashidun caliph Ali (r. 656–661) and the largely Qurayshite partisans of Aisha, Marwan sided with the latter at the Battle of the Camel. Marwan later served as governor of Medina under his distant kinsman Caliph Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680), founder of the Umayyad Caliphate. During the reign of Mu'awiya's son and successor Yazid I (r. 680–683), Marwan organized the defense of the Umayyad realm in the Hejaz (western Arabia) against the local opposition which included prominent companions as well as Muhammad’s own clan, the Bani Hashim, who revolted under the banner of Muhammad’s grandson, Husayn ibn Ali. After Yazid died in November 683, the Mecca-based rebel and sahabi Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr declared himself caliph and expelled Marwan, who took refuge in Syria, the center of Umayyad rule. With the death of the last Sufyanid caliph Mu'awiya II in 684, Marwan, encouraged by the ex-governor of Iraq Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, volunteered his candidacy for the caliphate during a summit of pro-Umayyad tribes in Jabiya. The tribal nobility, led by Ibn Bahdal of the Banu Kalb, elected Marwan and together they defeated the pro-Zubayrid Qays tribes at the Battle of Marj Rahit in August of that year.

Constantinople was besieged by the Arabs in 674–678, in what was the first culmination of the Umayyad Caliphate's expansionist strategy against the Byzantine Empire. Caliph Mu'awiya I, who had emerged in 661 as the ruler of the Muslim Arab empire following a civil war, renewed aggressive warfare against Byzantium after a lapse of some years and hoped to deliver a lethal blow by capturing the Byzantine capital of Constantinople.

As reported by the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes the Confessor, the Arab attack was methodical: in 672–673 Arab fleets secured bases along the coasts of Asia Minor and then installed a loose blockade around Constantinople. They used the peninsula of Cyzicus near the city as a base to spend the winter and returned every spring to launch attacks against the city's fortifications. Finally the Byzantines, under Emperor Constantine IV, destroyed the Arab navy using a new invention, the liquid incendiary substance known as Greek fire. The Byzantines also defeated the Arab land army in Asia Minor, forcing them to lift the siege. The Byzantine victory was of major importance for the survival of the Byzantine state, as the Arab threat receded for a time. A peace treaty was signed soon after, and following the outbreak of another Muslim civil war, the Byzantines even experienced a brief period of ascendancy over the Caliphate. The siege was arguably the first major Arab defeat in 50 years of expansion and temporarily stabilized the Byzantine Empire after decades of war and defeats.

The Umayyad Caliphate or the Umayyad Empire (US: /uːˈmaɪæd/; Arabic: ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, romanized: al-Khilāfa al-Umawiyya) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty from 661 to 750. It succeeded the Rashidun Caliphate, of which the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, was also a member of the Umayyad clan. The Umayyad family established a dynasty with hereditary rule under Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, the long-time governor of Greater Syria, who became caliph after the end of the First Fitna in 661. After Mu'awiya's death in 680, conflicts over the succession resulted in the Second Fitna, and power was eventually claimed by Marwan ibn al-Hakam, who came from another branch of the clan. Syria remained the Umayyads' core power base thereafter, with Damascus as their capital.

The Umayyads continued the Muslim conquests, conquering Ifriqiya, Transoxiana, Sind, the Maghreb and Hispania (al-Andalus). At its greatest extent, the Umayyad Caliphate covered an area of 11,100,000 km (4,300,000 sq mi), making it one of the largest empires in history in terms of size. The dynasty was overthrown by the Abbasids in 750. Survivors of the dynasty established an emirate and then a caliphate in Córdoba, with Cordoba becoming a major center of science, medicine, philosophy and invention during the Islamic Golden Age.

The Kharijites (Arabic: الخوارج, romanized: al-Khawārij, singular Arabic: خارجي, romanized: khārijī) were an Islamic sect which emerged during the First Fitna (656–661). The first Kharijites were supporters of Ali who rebelled against his acceptance of arbitration talks to settle the conflict with his challenger, Mu'awiya, at the Battle of Siffin in 657. They asserted that "judgment belongs to God alone", which became their motto, and that rebels such as Mu'awiya had to be fought and overcome according to Qur'anic injunctions. Ali defeated the Kharijites at the Battle of Nahrawan in 658, but their insurrection continued. Ali was assassinated in 661 by a Kharijite dissident seeking revenge for the defeat at Nahrawan.

After Mu'awiya established the Umayyad Caliphate in 661, his governors kept the Kharijites in check. The power vacuum caused by the Second Fitna (680–692) allowed for the resumption of the Kharijites' anti-government rebellion, and the Kharijite factions of the Azariqa and Najdat came to control large areas in Persia and Arabia. Internal disputes and fragmentation weakened them considerably before their defeat by the Umayyads in 696–699. In the 740s, large-scale Kharijite rebellions broke out across the caliphate, but all were eventually suppressed. Although the Kharijite revolts continued into the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258), the most militant Kharijite groups were gradually eliminated. They were replaced by the non-activist Ibadiyya, who survive to this day in Oman and some parts of North Africa. They, however, deny any links with the Kharijites of the Second Muslim Civil War and beyond, condemning them as extremists.

The Battle of Karbala (Arabic: مَعْرَكَة كَرْبَلَاء, romanized: Maʿrakat Karbalāʾ) was fought on 10 October 680 (10 Muharram in the year 61 AH of the Islamic calendar) between the army of the second Umayyad caliph Yazid I (r. 680–683) and a small army led by Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, at Karbala, Sawad (modern-day southern Iraq).

Prior to his death, the Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680) had nominated his son Yazid as his successor. Yazid's nomination was contested by the sons of a few prominent companions of Muhammad, including Husayn, son of the fourth caliph Ali, and Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, son of Zubayr ibn al-Awwam. Upon Mu'awiya's death in 680, Yazid demanded allegiance from Husayn and other dissidents. Husayn did not give allegiance and traveled to Mecca. The people of Kufa, an Iraqi garrison town and the center of Ali's caliphate, were averse to the Syria-based Umayyad caliphs and had a long-standing attachment to the house of Ali. They proposed Husayn overthrow the Umayyads. On Husayn's way to Kufa with a retinue of about 70 men, his caravan was intercepted by a 1,000-strong army of the caliph at some distance from Kufa. He was forced to head north and encamp in the plain of Karbala on 2 October, where a larger Umayyad army of 4,000 arrived soon afterwards. Negotiations failed after the Umayyad governor Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad refused Husayn safe passage without submitting to his authority, a condition declined by Husayn. Battle ensued on 10 October during which Husayn was killed along with most of his relatives and companions, while his surviving family members were taken prisoner. The battle was the start of the Second Fitna, during which the Iraqis organized two separate campaigns to avenge the death of Husayn; the first one by the Tawwabin and the other one by Mukhtar al-Thaqafi and his supporters.

Yazid ibn Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan (c. 646 – 11 November 683), commonly known as Yazid I, was the second caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from April 680 until his death in November 683. His appointment by his father Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680) was the first hereditary succession to the caliphate in Islamic history. His caliphate was marked by the death of Muhammad's grandson Husayn ibn Ali and the start of the crisis known as the Second Fitna.

During his father's caliphate, Yazid led several campaigns against the Byzantine Empire including an attack on the Byzantine capital, Constantinople. Yazid's nomination as heir apparent in 676 CE (56 AH) by Mu'awiya was opposed by several Muslim grandees from the Hejaz region, including Husayn and Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr. The two men refused to recognize Yazid following his accession and took sanctuary in Mecca. When Husayn left for Kufa in Iraq to lead a revolt against Yazid, he was killed with his small band of supporters by Yazid's forces in the Battle of Karbala. Husayn's death caused resentment in the Hejaz, where Ibn al-Zubayr called for a consultative assembly to elect a new caliph. The people of Medina, who supported Ibn al-Zubayr, held other grievances toward the Umayyads. After failing to gain the allegiance of Ibn al-Zubayr and the people of the Hejaz through diplomacy, Yazid sent an army to suppress their rebellion. The army defeated the Medinans in the Battle of al-Harra in August 683 and the city was plundered. Afterward, Mecca was besieged for several weeks until the army withdrew as a result of Yazid's death in November 683. The Caliphate fell into a nearly decade-long civil war, ending with the establishment of the Marwanid dynasty (the Umayyad caliph Marwan I and his descendants).