Mu'awiya I
Muslim view

In contrast to the four earlier caliphs, who are considered as models of piety and having governed with justice, Mu'awiya is not recognized as a rightly-guided caliph (khalifa rashid) by the Sunnis. He is seen as transforming the caliphate into a worldly and despotic kingship. His acquisition of the caliphate through the civil war and his institution of the hereditary succession by appointing his son Yazid as heir apparent are the principal charges made against him. Although Uthman and Ali had been highly controversial during the early period, religious scholars in the 8th and 9th centuries compromised in order to appease and absorb the Uthmanid and pro-Alid factions. Uthman and Ali were thus regarded along with the first two caliphs as divinely guided, whereas Mu'awiya and those who came after him were viewed as oppressive tyrants. Nevertheless, the Sunnis accord him the status of a companion of Muhammad and consider him a scribe of the Qur'anic revelation (katib al-wahi). On these accounts, he is also respected. Some Sunnis defend his war against Ali holding that although he was in error, he acted according to his best judgment and had no evil intentions.

Mu'awiya's war with Ali, whom the Shia hold as the true successor of Muhammad, has made him a reviled figure in Shia Islam. According to the Shia, based on this alone Mu'awiya qualifies as an unbeliever, if he was a believer to begin with. In addition, he is held responsible for the killing of a number of Muhammad's companions at Siffin, having ordered the cursing of Ali from the pulpit, appointing Yazid as his successor, who went on to kill Husayn at Karbala, executing the pro-Alid Kufan nobleman Hujr ibn Adi, and assassinating Hasan by poisoning. As such, he has been a particular target of Shia traditions. Some traditions hold him to have been born of an illegitimate relationship between Abu Sufyan's wife Hind and Muhammad's uncle Abbas. His conversion to Islam is held to be devoid of any conviction and to have been motivated by convenience after Muhammad conquered Mecca. On this basis he is given the title of taliq (freed slave of Muhammad). A number of hadiths are ascribed to Muhammad condemning Mu'awiya and his father Abu Sufyan in which he is called "an accursed man (la'in) son of an accursed man" and prophesying that he will die as an unbeliever. Unlike the Sunnis, the Shia deny him the status of a companion and also refute the Sunni claims that he was a scribe of the Qur'anic revelation. Like other opponents of Ali, Mu'awiya is cursed in a ritual called tabarra, which is held by many Shia to be an obligation.

Amid rising religious sectarianism among Muslims in the 10th century, while the Abbasid Caliphate was dominated by the Twelver Shia emirs of the Buyid dynasty, the figure of Mu'awiya became a propaganda tool used by the Shia and the Sunnis opposed to them. Strong pro-Mu'awiya sentiments were voiced by Sunnis in several Abbasid cities, including Baghdad, Wasit, Raqqa and Isfahan. At about the same time, the Shia were permitted by the Buyids and the Sunni Abbasid caliphs to perform the ritual cursing of Mu'awiya in mosques. In 10th–11th-century Egypt, the figure of Mu'awiya occasionally played a similar role, with the Isma'ili Shia Fatimid caliphs introducing measures opposed to Mu'awiya's memory and opponents of the government using him as a tool to berate the Shia.
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