the Umayyad from Damascus.

Ibn ʿAsākir has recorded his biography, and I have included him in my al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr (1).

In spite of his many blemishes, he does have one praiseworthy deed: the campaign against Constantinople, which he himself commanded, and in whose ranks stood Companions such as Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī.

His father appointed him heir to the caliphate, and when Muʿāwiyah died in the month of Rajab, 60 AH, Yazid—then thirty-three years old—assumed rule.

His reign lasted a little less than four years; Allah did not grant him respite after what he did to the people of Medina (2) when they deposed him.

After him his son, Abū Laylā Muʿāwiyah, held power for about forty days before he died. He lived twenty years (3), was better than his father, and Ibn al-Zubayr received the pledge of allegiance in the Hijaz, Iraq, and the eastern provinces.

Yazid is someone we neither revile nor love. He has counterparts among the caliphs of both dynasties, as well as among the regional kings—indeed, some of them were worse than he (4).

The gravity of the matter stems from the fact that he assumed authority forty-nine years after the Prophet’s death ﷺ, when the time was still near and many Companions were alive, such as Ibn ʿUmar, who was more entitled to the office than Yazid, his father, or his grandfather.

It is said that Muʿāwiyah married Maysūn bint Baḥdal al-Kalbiyyah, then divorced her while she was pregnant with Yazid. She dreamed that a moon emerged from her, and someone said, “You will bear a caliph.”

When his father died, Yazid was in the vicinity of Ḥimṣ. The people came out to meet him at al-Thaniyyah (5) while he was among his maternal uncles, riding a Bactrian camel (6), without turban or sword.

He was a large man, thick-