Yazid’s Father: Who Was Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan?

Muawiya was the son of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb and Hind bint Utbah, from the Umayyad branch of the Quraysh tribe. According to historical accounts, he and his family were among the Prophet’s most determined opponents until the conquest of Mecca in 630 CE, when they converted to Islam. Muawiya later served in the Prophet’s court and is said to have worked for a time as one of his scribes.

Under Caliph Umar, Muawiya was appointed governor of Syria after his brother, Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan — the region’s earlier governor — died in a plague that swept through Muslim forces in Syria. Muawiya held the post for nearly two decades, through the reigns of both Umar and Uthman. After Uthman’s assassination and Ali’s succession, Muawiya refused to pledge allegiance, demanding justice for Uthman’s killers first. That dispute led to the Battle of Siffin in 657 CE, which ended inconclusively through arbitration. Finally, after Imam Hasan‘s peace treaty with Muawiya in 661 CE and his withdrawal from the caliphate, Muawiya became sole ruler — an event historians mark as the formal beginning of the Umayyad Caliphate, based in Damascus.

Yazid’s paternal grandfather, Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, was one of the Prophet’s fiercest opponents during the Meccan period; he commanded the Quraysh forces at the Battle of Uhud in 625 CE, where the Prophet’s uncle Hamza was killed. Abu Sufyan’s wife, Hind bint Utbah (Yazid’s grandmother), is described in well-known historical accounts as having mutilated Hamza’s body after that battle. Both eventually converted to Islam at the conquest of Mecca.

Yazid’s mother was Maysun bint Bahdal, from the powerful Banu Kalb tribe of Syria — a marriage arranged largely to strengthen Muawiya’s political alliance with that important Syrian Arab tribe rather than a conventional union. According to literary accounts, Maysun never adjusted to court life in Damascus and composed a well-known poem longing for the simplicity of desert life; she eventually separated from Muawiya and returned to her tribe, though Yazid spent part of his childhood there among the Banu Kalb.

Around 676 CE, Muawiya made a decision without precedent in Islamic history: rather than following the earlier practice of selecting a caliph through consultation or a broader pledge of allegiance (itself imperfect in practice), he formally named his own son, Yazid, as his heir. This move — which effectively turned the caliphate into a hereditary, quasi-monarchical institution — drew opposition even at the time from prominent figures including Imam Husayn, Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr, and Abdullah ibn Umar. When Muawiya died in 680 CE, Yazid became the second Umayyad caliph in his mid-thirties.

Almost immediately after Yazid took power, the governor of Medina demanded Imam Husayn’s formal pledge of allegiance. Husayn, who viewed submitting to Yazid as endorsing an illegitimate rule, refused and left Medina for Mecca, then set out for Iraq at the invitation of the people of Kufa. Yazid’s forces intercepted him at Karbala before he reached Kufa. On the Day of Ashura (10 Muharram, 680 CE), Husayn was killed there along with most of his companions and the men of his family in a grossly unequal battle. For this reason, Shia tradition holds Yazid directly responsible for the tragedy, and cursing him by name is part of Ashura mourning rituals in many Shia communities.

Contrary to a common assumption, Sunni opinion on Yazid is not uniform. Many Sunni historians and scholars have condemned the events of his reign in strong terms, regardless of the cursing question — not only Karbala, but also the Battle of al-Harra (683 CE, the bloody suppression of Medina by Yazid’s army) and the subsequent siege of Mecca, during which the Kaaba itself was damaged, are just as strongly condemned in the historical record.

There is real disagreement among Sunni scholars over whether explicitly cursing Yazid is permissible. Ibn al-Jawzi, a 12th-century Hanbali scholar, wrote a standalone treatise arguing that cursing Yazid is permitted, citing the view of scholars including Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Ibn Taymiyyah, by contrast, took a more cautious position and avoided explicit cursing — a stance that has itself drawn criticism from other Sunni scholars. In short, there is no single, unified “Sunni position” on Yazid.