Ascension
The third caliph Uthman drew the ire of the Muslim settlers of the conquered lands as a consequence of his controversial policies, which were seen by many as nepotistic and interfering in provincial affairs. In 656 he was killed by the provincial rebels in Medina, then capital of the Caliphate, after which Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, was recognized as caliph by the rebels and the inhabitants of Medina. In the consequent first Islamic civil war (656–661), Mu'awiya opposed Ali from his stronghold in Syria, fighting him to a stalemate at the Battle of Siffin in 657. In January 661 Ali was assassinated by a Kharijite (a faction opposed to Ali and Mu'awiya), after which his son Hasan was recognized as his successor. In August, Mu'awiya, who had already been recognized as caliph by his partisans in Syria, led his army toward Kufa, the capital of Hasan and Ali in Iraq, and gained control over the rest of the Caliphate by securing a peace treaty with Hasan. The terms of the treaty stipulated that Mu'awiya would not nominate a successor. Although the treaty brought a temporary peace, no framework of succession was established.
Mu'awiya was determined to install Yazid as his successor. The idea was scandalous to Muslims, as hereditary succession had no precedent in Islamic history—earlier caliphs had been elected either by popular support in Medina or by the consultation of the senior companions of Muhammad—and according to Islamic principles, the position of ruler was not the private property of a ruler to award to his descendants. It was also unacceptable by Arab custom, according to which the rulership should not pass from father to son but within the wider clan. According to the orientalist Bernard Lewis, the "only precedents available to Mu'āwiya from Islamic history were election and civil war. The former was unworkable; the latter had obvious drawbacks." Mu'awiya passed over his eldest son Abd Allah, who was from his Qurayshite wife, perhaps due to the stronger support Yazid had in Syria because of his Kalbite parentage. The Banu Kalb was dominant in southern Syria and led the larger tribal confederation of Quda'a. The Quda'a were established in Syria long before Islam and had acquired significant military experience and familiarity with hierarchical order under the Byzantines, as opposed to the more free-spirited tribesmen of Arabia and Iraq. Northern Syria, on the other hand, was dominated by the tribal confederation of Qays, which had immigrated there during Mu'awiya's reign, and resented the privileged position of the Kalb in the Umayyad court. By appointing Yazid to lead campaigns against the Byzantines, Mu'awiya may have sought to foster support for Yazid from the northern tribesmen. The policy had limited success as the Qays opposed the nomination of Yazid, at least in the beginning, for he was "the son of a Kalbi woman". In the Hejaz (western Arabia, where Medina and Mecca are located and where the old Muslim elite resided), Yazid had support among his Umayyad kinsmen, but there were other members of the Hejazi nobility whose approval was important. By appointing Yazid to lead the hajj rituals there, Mu'awiya may have hoped to enlist support for Yazid's succession and elevate his status as a Muslim leader. According to Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani (d. 967), Mu'awiya had also employed poets to influence public opinion in favour of Yazid's succession.
According to the account of Ibn Athir (d. 1233), Mu'awiya summoned a shura (consultative assembly) of influential men from all of the provinces to his capital, Damascus, in 676 and won their support through flattery, bribes, and threats. He then ordered his Umayyad kinsman Marwan ibn al-Hakam, the governor of Medina, to inform its people of his decision. Marwan faced resistance, especially from Ali's son and Muhammad's grandson Husayn, and Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, Abd Allah ibn Umar, and Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr, all sons of prominent companions of Muhammad, who, by virtue of their descent, could also lay claim to the caliphal office. Mu'awiya went to Medina and pressed the four dissenters to accede, but they fled to Mecca. He followed and threatened some of them with death, but to no avail. Nonetheless, he was successful in convincing the people of Mecca that the four had pledged their allegiance, and received the Meccans' allegiance for Yazid. On his way back to Damascus, he secured allegiance from the people of Medina. General recognition of the nomination thus forced Yazid's opponents into silence. The orientalist Julius Wellhausen doubted the story, holding that the reports of the nomination's rejection by prominent Medinese were a back-projection of the events that followed Mu'awiya's death. A similar opinion is held by the historian Andrew Marsham. According to the account of al-Tabari (d. 923), Mu'awiya announced the nomination in 676 and only received delegations from the Iraqi garrison town of Basra, which pledged allegiance to Yazid in Damascus in 679 or 680. According to al-Ya'qubi (d. 898), Mu'awiya demanded allegiance for Yazid on the occasion of the Hajj. All, except the four prominent Muslims mentioned above, complied. No force was used against them. In any case, Mu'awiya arranged a general recognition for Yazid's succession before his death.
