Mu'awiya I was the founder and first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 661 until his death. He became caliph less than thirty years after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and immediately after the four Rashidun ('rightly-guided') caliphs. Unlike his predecessors, who had been close, early companions of Muhammad, Mu'awiya was a relatively late follower of the Islamic prophet.
The Kharijites, also called al-Shurat, 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.
Marwan ibn al-Hakam ibn Abi al-As ibn Umayya, 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 Muslim Civil War and remained in power until 750.
Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr ibn Abi Quhafa al-Taymi was an Arab Muslim commander in the service of the fourth Rashidun caliph Ali.
Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad was the Umayyad governor of Basra, Kufa and Khurasan during the reigns of caliphs Mu'awiya I and Yazid I, and the leading general of the Umayyad army under caliphs Marwan I and Abd al-Malik.
Abu al-Mughira Ziyad ibn Abihi, also known as Ziyad ibn Abi Sufyan, was an administrator and statesman of the successive Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates in the mid-7th century. He served as the governor of Basra in 665–670 and ultimately the first governor of Iraq and practical viceroy of the eastern Caliphate between 670 and his death.
Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam was the leader of a caliphate based in Mecca that rivaled the Umayyads from 683 until his death.
Abu Sa'id al-Muhallab ibn Abi Sufra al-Azdi was an Arab general from the Azd tribe who fought in the service of the Rashidun, Umayyad and Zubayrid caliphs between the mid-640s and his death. He served successive terms as the governor of Fars (685–686), Mosul, Arminiya and Adharbayjan (687–688) and Khurasan (698–702). Al-Muhallab's descendants, known as the Muhallabids, became a highly influential family, many of whose members held high office under various Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs, or became well-known scholars.
The Second Fitna was a period of general political and military disorder and civil war in the Islamic community during the early Umayyad Caliphate. It followed the death of the first Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I in 680, and lasted for about twelve years. The war involved the suppression of two challenges to the Umayyad dynasty, the first by Husayn ibn Ali, as well as his supporters including Sulayman ibn Surad and Mukhtar al-Thaqafi who rallied for his revenge in Iraq, and the second by Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr.
Najda ibn Amir al-Hanafi was the head of a breakaway Kharijite state in central and eastern Arabia between 685 and his death at the hands of his own partisans. His emergence formed part of the Second Muslim Civil War and the faction he led stood in opposition to the Umayyad Caliphate, which controlled Syria and Egypt, and the caliphate of Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, which controlled the Hejaz and Iraq.
The Azariqa were an extremist branch of Khawarij, who followed the leadership of Nafi ibn al-Azraq al-Hanafi. Adherents of Azraqism participated in an armed struggle against the rulers of the Umayyad Caliphate, and they declared those who avoided this duty infidels - kafirs - and allowed their murder. Nafi ibn al-Azraq even permitted the killing of women and children of his opponents. At the same time, the Azraqites did not extend the principle of killing “apostates” to Christians and Jews, since they believed that they did not betray the teachings of the prophets Jesus and Moses.
The siege of Mecca in September–November 683 was one of the early battles of the Second Fitna. The city of Mecca was a sanctuary for Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, who was among the most prominent challengers to the dynastic succession to the Caliphate by the Umayyad Yazid I. After nearby Medina, the other holy city of Islam, also rebelled against Yazid, the Umayyad ruler sent an army to subdue Arabia. The Umayyad army defeated the Medinans and took the city, but Mecca held out in a month-long siege, during which the Kaaba was damaged by fire. The siege ended when news came of Yazid's sudden death. The Umayyad commander, Husayn ibn Numayr al-Sakuni, after vainly trying to induce Ibn al-Zubayr to return with him to Syria and be recognized as Caliph, departed with his forces. Ibn al-Zubayr remained in Mecca throughout the civil war, but he was nevertheless soon acknowledged as Caliph across most of the Muslim world. It was not until 692, that the Umayyads were able to send another army which again besieged and captured Mecca, ending the civil war.
The Umayyad dynasty or Umayyads was an Arab clan within the Quraysh tribe who were the ruling family of the Caliphate between 661 and 750 and later of al-Andalus between 756 and 1031. In the pre-Islamic period, they 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 latter's death in 632. Uthman, an early companion of Muhammad from the Umayyad clan, was the third Rashidun caliph, ruling in 644–656, while other members held various governorships. One of these governors, Mu'awiya I of Syria, opposed Caliph Ali in the First Muslim Civil War (656–661) and afterward 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.
Abū Ḥarb Salm ibn Ziyād ibn Abīhi was a general and statesman of the Umayyad Caliphate, who later defected to the caliphate of Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr during the Second Muslim Civil War before returning to the Umayyads' ranks. Salm was appointed by Caliph Yazid I as the governor of Khurasan and Sijistan in 681. During the course of his governorship, he launched several expeditionary raids into the Central Asian regions of Transoxiana, including Samarkand, and Khwarazm. His successes and generous distribution of war booty among his Khurasani Arab troops gained him wide popularity with them, but after Yazid died, Salm was not able to maintain their loyalty to the Umayyads for long. After his troops and chosen successor, Abd Allah ibn Khazim al-Sulami, gave their allegiance to the rival caliphate of Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, Salm made for Basra. There, he ultimately joined Ibn al-Zubayr's camp, but was imprisoned in Mecca by the latter nonetheless. After paying a large bribe, he was released and following Ibn al-Zubayr's death at the hands of the Umayyads in late 692, he was reappointed the governor of Khurasan. However, he died before he could resume his duties.
Al-Walīd ibn ʿUtba ibn Abī Sufyān was an Umayyad ruling family member and statesman during the reigns of the Umayyad caliphs Mu'awiya I and Yazid I. He served two stints as the governor of Medina in 677/78–680 and 681–682. He was dismissed during his first term for failing to secure oaths of allegiance from Husayn ibn Ali and other senior Muslim figures who opposed Yazid's accession. After his relocation to Damascus during the Second Fitna, he was imprisoned in 684 for proclaiming his support for continued Umayyad rule and condemning the anti-Umayyad caliph Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr. He was freed shortly after by his kinsman Khalid ibn Yazid and the pro-Umayyad Banu Kalb tribe.
Amr ibn Hurayth ibn Amr ibn Uthman al-Makhzumi was a prominent member of the Quraysh in Kufa and the deputy governor of the city under the Umayyad governors of Iraq Ziyad ibn Abihi (670–673), Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad (675–683) and Bishr ibn Marwan (692–694).
Qays ibn al-Haytham al-Sulamī was an Arab commander and administrator in the service of the Rashidun, Umayyad and Zubayrid caliphates. Under the caliphs Uthman and Mu'awiya I he served at time as the sub-governor of Khurasan and the cities of Nishapur and Marw al-Rudh. He was from a prominent Arab family in Basra and was a leader among the tribal nobility of that city until his death after 684.
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān, commonly known as al-Uswār, was an Umayyad prince from the Sufyanid line of the dynasty. He was the son of Caliph Yazid I. After the death of his brother, Caliph Mu'awiya II, in 684, he and his brother, Khalid ibn Yazid, were deemed too young to succeed by the pro-Umayyad tribes of Syria and Umayyad rule was vested in the line of a distant kinsman, Marwan I. Abd Allah was a famed archer and horseman and commanded part of the army which took over Iraq from anti-Umayyad forces during the Second Fitna in 691.
Abu Bilal Mirdas ibn Udayya al-Tamimi was the leader of quietist Kharijites of Basra during the early years of the Umayyad Caliphate. He was the brother of Urwa ibn Udayya, one of the instigator of the Kharijite movement at the Battle of Siffin, in which Abu Bilal himself participated. After the defeat of the Kharijites at the Battle of Nahrawan in 658, he adopted political quietism and opposed the extremist Kharijites. In 680, in response to persecution by the Umayyad governor Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, Abu Bilal rose in rebellion and was killed in 681. His piety, military exploits, and death, which was seen by many as martyrdom, immortalized him among the later Kharijite circles. He is counted among the imams of the extinct Sufriyya sect of the Kharijites and is venerated by the Ibadiyya to this day.
Umar ibn Ubayd Allah ibn Ma'mar al-Taymi was a commander of the Zubayrid and Umayyad caliphates in their wars with the Kharijites and the chief of the Banu Taym clan of the Quraysh in the late 7th century.
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