Yazid ibn Mu'awiya
Yazid ibn Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, second Umayyad caliph, reigned 60 to 64 AH, 680 to 683 CE, after his father Mu'awiya named him successor. His mother Maysun was a sister of the Kalbi leader Ibn Bahdal. His reign opened the crisis called the fitna: al-Husayn ibn Ali was killed at Karbala, the people of Medina withdrew their allegiance and a Syrian army fought at al-Harra, and Ibn al-Zubayr was then besieged in Mecca, where the Ka'ba was damaged by fire. The Encyclopaedia of Islam says the traditional narrative is generally hostile to him, that modern scholars read it differently, and that the evidence may not allow a judgement of his ability or character.
Reign · Umayyad Caliphate · no. 2 in the chain · 680–683 CE
Ruled the caliphate
Events of the reign
-
Battle of Tahudha and the death of Uqba ibn Nafi
Kusayla ibn Lamzam, with a host of Rum and Berbers, killed Uqba ibn Nafi, Abu al-Muhajir and those with them at Tahudha on their way back from al-Sus, in the year 63 according to al-Layth, and then occupied Uqba's camp.
-
Battle of Vescera
Draft card for the Battle of Vescera in 682, where Uqba ibn Nafi' was defeated and killed on his return from the far Maghreb; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
-
Death of Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan
Mu'awiya died in Rajab of year 60 and was buried between Bab al-Jabiya and Bab al-Saghir at Damascus; he is said to have lived seventy-seven years. Keeping hairs and nail-parings of the Prophet, he willed they be placed in his mouth and eyes — 'do that, and leave me with the Most Merciful of the merciful'. He had been governor of Syria twenty years and caliph twenty more.
-
Ubaydallah ibn Ziyad's flight from Basra after Yazid's death
Al-Dinawari reports that after Yazid's death Ubaydallah ibn Ziyad sought the protection of the Azd, that Basra was left nine days without a governor, and that he then went to Syria and urged Marwan to claim the caliphate.
-
The Second Fitna
Draft card for the Second Fitna, the civil wars of the late Umayyad house after Yazid's death, from Ibn al-Zubayr's rising to the Marwanid restoration under Abd al-Malik; its sources are not yet checked on the page.