Muawiyah I: Encyclopedia II - Muawiyah I - Rule

Muawiyah I - Rule

After his accession to the position of Caliph, Mu'awiya governed the geographically and politically disparate Caliphate, which spread from Egypt in the West to Iran in the East, by strengthening the power of his allies in the newly conquered Arab territories. Prominent positions within the emerging governmental structures were held by Christians, some of whom belonged to families that had served in Byzantine governments. The employment of Christians was part of a broader policy of religious tolerance that was necessitated by the presence of large Christian populations in the conquered provinces, especially in Syria itself. This policy also boosted his popularity and solidified Syria as his power base. Mu'awiyah instituted several Byzantine-style bureaucracies, called diwans, to aid him in the governance and the centralization of the Caliphate and the empire. Early Arabic sources credit two diwans in particular to Mu'awiyah: the diwan al-khatam, or chancellery, and the bareed, or postal service, both of which greatly improved communications within the empire.

Mu'awiyah died May 6, 680. He was succeeded by his son Yazid I. Yazid did not hold power long. Mu'awiyah had held the expanding empire together by force of his personality, through personal allegiances, in the style of a traditional Arab sheikh. Yazid did not have his father's charisma and was soon deposed by a kinsman.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Rule", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki