What do you know about MU‘AWIYAH ibn Abi Sufyan?

- A distant relative and brother in law of the Prophet. Mu'awiyah's sister, Umm Habibah, was
married to the Prophet.

- One of the Companions of the Prophet and one of the scribes of the Qur’an, being one of
only eighteen (seventeen men and one woman) literate members of the Quraysh tribe at that
time.

- A triumphant military general, political genius and brilliant statesman.

- For 20 years he served as governor of Syria under the caliphs ‘Umar (from 634 to 644 CE)
and ‘Uthman (from 644 to 656 CE) during which he demonstrated his formidable military,
political, and administrative talents.

- Subsequently, when he became caliph for almost 20 years (from 660 to 680 CE) he was
able to restore peace and stability to the Muslim community that had been tormented by five
years of civil war (during the caliphate of ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib).

- In 640 CE he led the Muslim army in the conquest of Caesarea, the last Byzantine
stronghold on the Syro-Palestinian coast and the long-time capital of the province of
Palaestina Prima, after a long siege by forces under his own command.

- He was the first Muslim ruler to build a navy (around 648 CE) and used it to invade Cyprus
and impose tribute on the island.

- He sent at least one major military expedition every year into Byzantine provinces in
Anatolia or along the Aegean coast.

- In 655 in the decisive Battle of the Masts or Phoenix, off the south-western coast of modern
Turkey, the Muslim fleet under his command decimated its Byzantine counterpart, thereby
establishing Muslim naval supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean.

- Between 674–678 CE he launched several campaigns against Byzantium culminating in a

naval blockade of Constantinople although it dissolved without having achieved any major
objectives.

- Mu‘awiya himself did everything in his power to mask his own thoughts, motives and
emotions. He was famed for his political acumen, embodied in the quality of hilm, a word
best understood as “forbearance in the face of provocation.” He consulted widely and
listened closely but did not show his hand. He could be eloquent but relied on wit and irony
rather than the moving rhetoric ascribed to his rival ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib. Neither his friends nor
his enemies ever quite knew what he was thinking until it was too late to do anything about
it.
From: R. Stephen Humphreys, Mu‘awiya ibn Abi Sufyan (Oxford: Oneworld Publications,
2006)