Mu'awiya

Origins and early life

Mu'awiya's father was not a participant in the truce negotiations at Hudaybiyya between the Quraysh and Muhammad in 628. The following year, Muhammad married Mu'awiya's widowed sister Umm Habiba, who had embraced Islam fifteen years earlier. The marriage may have reduced Abu Sufyan's hostility toward Muhammad and Abu Sufyan negotiated with him in Medina in 630 after confederates of the Quraysh violated the Hudaybiyya truce. When Muhammad captured Mecca in 630, Mu'awiya, his father, and his elder brother Yazid embraced Islam. According to accounts cited by the early Muslim historians al-Baladhuri and Ibn Hajar, Mu'awiya had secretly become a Muslim from the time of the Hudaybiyya negotiations. By 632 Muslim authority extended across Arabia with Medina as the seat of the Muslim government. As part of Muhammad's efforts to reconcile with the Quraysh, Mu'awiya was made one of his kātibs (scribes), being one of seventeen literate members of the Quraysh at that time. Abu Sufyan moved to Medina to maintain his newfound influence in the nascent Muslim community.