Muawiyah I

Muawiyah I

Muawiyah I (Arabic: معاوية بن أبي سفيان‎, romanized: Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān; c. 597, 603 or 605–April 680) was the founder and first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, serving from 661 until his death. He became caliph less than 30 years following the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and very shortly after the reign of the four "rightly guided" (Rashidun) caliphs. Although considered to be lacking in the justice and piety of the Rashidun, Muawiyah was also the first caliph whose name appeared on coins, inscriptions, or documents of the nascent Islamic empire.Muawiyah and his father Abu Sufyan had opposed Muhammad, their distant Qurayshite kinsman, until the latter captured Mecca in 630, after which Muawiyah became one of Muhammad's scribes. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Muawiyah I has received more than 1,536,509 page views. His biography is available in 66 different languages on Wikipedia making him the 247th most popular politician.