the Christian holy places. Many of his most senior
oɽcials were Christians, including Ibn Uthal, his
physician, and Al-Mansur ibn Sarjun, the grandfather of
Saint John of Damascus. The Byzantine inɻuence was
all too clear. The caliphate was to become a hereditary
monarchy in what would be seen as the degenerate
Persian and Byzantine mold, and Yazid seemed to ɹt
that mold perfectly.
He was the image of a spoiled scion given to drink and
dissipation, the antithesis of the Islamic ideal. “A silk-
wearing drunkard,” Hasan once called him. Even Ziyad,
angling perhaps for his own selection as Muawiya’s
successor, warned that Yazid was “easy-going and
neglectful, devoted only to hunting.” Muawiya’s son
seemed to be a kind of seventh-century version of a good
old boy from Texas, succeeding his father to the highest
office in the land.
But that was to underestimate him, let alone his
father. Muawiya would never have appointed a
dissipated roué to carry on his legacy. Yazid may have
liked his drink, but he had also proved himself an
eʃective administrator and a capable commander in the
ɹeld. If he was not the Islamic ideal, that was no matter.
Muawiya had no intention of making his son heir to the
pulpit; he wanted him heir to the throne.
And, Muawiya might have argued, why not? What
was so diʃerent about the claim of the Ahl al-Bayt to the