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 and fifth Caliph of Islam, serving from 661 until his death. He became caliph less than 30 years following the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (his brother in law) 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 Muhammad 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 1,786,671 page views. His biography is available in 68 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 66 in 2019). Muawiyah I is the 198th most popular politician (up from 244th in 2019), the 11th most popular biography from Saudi Arabia (down from 9th in 2019) and the 3rd most popular Saudi Arabian Politician.

Muawiyah I was the first caliph of the Umayyad dynasty, which ruled from 661 to 750 CE. He is most famous for his military prowess and his expansion of the Muslim empire.