He—may Allah have mercy on him—was exceedingly fair-skinned, with thick, curly hair, large eyes, an aquiline nose, a rounded head, a handsome, finely shaped face, and a well-proportioned body.

Abu Zurʿah al-Dimashqi said, “Muʿāwiyah, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, and Khālid were brothers and were counted among the righteous of their people.” (1)

A poet—ʿAbd Allah ibn Hammām al-Salūlī—composed:
“Yazīd received it from his father; then after Yazīd, Muʿāwiyah, take it up. (2)
Pass the cup among you, O sons of Ḥarb, and do not cast it toward some distant mark. (3)”

It is related that on one occasion Muʿāwiyah ibn Yazīd called out, “al-ṣalāh jāmiʿah!” When the people gathered, he said, among other things:
“O people! Your affairs have been entrusted to me, yet I am too weak for them. If you wish, I shall hand them to a strong man, just as the Truthful One (al-Ṣiddīq) entrusted them to ʿUmar; or, if you prefer, I shall leave them as a consultation among six of you, just as ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb did. But I see no one among you fit for that task. I therefore return your affair to you; choose for yourselves the one who will best set it right.” He then stepped down, entered his house, and did not emerge again until he died—may Allah Most High have mercy on him.

It is said that he was given a poisoned drink; others say he was stabbed.

When he was buried, Marwān attended the interment. After they had finished, he said, “Do you know whom you have just buried?” They replied, “Yes, Muʿāwiyah ibn Yazīd.” Marwān said, “He is Abū Laylā, about whom Aznam al-Fazārī recited:
‘I see a turmoil whose cauldrons are boiling, and rule after Abū Laylā will belong to whoever can seize it.’ (5)” (4)

They remarked that events unfolded exactly as he foretold, for Abū Laylā died without appointing a successor. ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Zubayr took control of the Ḥijāz, while Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam seized Damascus and its provinces. The people of Khurāsān gave their pledge to Salm ibn Ziyād until a caliph could be chosen; he governed them well and they loved him for it, but later expelled him from their midst. In Basra the reciters and Khārijites rose under Nāfiʿ ibn al-Azraq, driving out ʿUbayd Allah ibn Ziyād—whom they had previously recognized—until an imam should be appointed; he departed for Syria after a succession of events too lengthy to relate here. Afterward they pledged allegiance to ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Nawfal, known as Babba, whose mother was Hind bint Abī Sufyān, and he placed Himyān ibn ʿAdī in charge of the Basran police.