caliphate? Wasn’t its claim based on the same principle
of blood inheritance, as though matters of the spirit
could be passed on by birth along with facial features
and the family name? Wasn’t the son of the ɹfth Caliph
as entitled to the throne as the son of the fourth? More
so, in fact, if the stability Muawiya had achieved was to
be maintained?
Besides, it was not as though he would be taking the
caliphate away from the family of Muhammad. From the
Ahl al-Bayt, yes, but wasn’t family a larger thing than
that? Wasn’t he himself the Prophet’s brother-in-law?
And weren’t the Umayyads also the family of the
Prophet? Muawiya’s grandfather Umayya had been a
ɹrst cousin of Muhammad’s grandfather, making both
Muawiya and Yazid distant cousins of the Prophet. They
were in a diʃerent line of the family, true, but family all
the same.
As it happened, Muawiya had no need to make his
case. It could simply be considered a matter of perfect
timing for him when Hasan died at the age of forty-six,
just nine years after returning to Medina. He died of
natural causes, Sunnis would say, but the Shia would tell
a diʃerent story. Muawiya, they charged, had ensured
Hasan’s early demise by means of his favorite weapon—
a honeyed drink laced with poison.
Muawiya had found the vulnerable link, they said.
The hand that slipped the fatal powder into the cup was