Muawiya II or Muawiya ibn Yazid succeeded his father Yazid I as the third Umayyad caliph and last caliph of the Sufyanidline. He ruled briefly in 683-684 before he died.
Muawiya was the son of Yazid I and an unknown mother from the Kalb tribe. She is often confused with Umm Hashim Fakhita bint Abi Hashim, mother of Muawiya's half-brother Khalid ibn Yazid.
Reign
Before Yazid I died, he had the bay'ah made to his son Muawiya. Muawiya succeeded his father in Damascus in 64 AH, at an age of somewhere between 17 and 23. He was supported by the Kalb tribe, but his authority was likely only recognised in Damascus and southern Syria, with Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr claiming the caliphate from his base in the Hejaz. Muawiya's reign would have lasted for about 20 days to 4 months, but likely no more than 2 months. Given the short span of time, few events were possible, and some of those transmitted may be unreliable political and sectarian fabrications. These include:
Being a member of the Qadariyya, resulting from the belief that Muawiya abdicated before his death.
Denouncing his predecessors' tyranny and injustice towards the Alids.
Having the kunyaAbu Layla, a name often applied to weak persons. This was suspicious because he had no children.
Abdication before his death, originating from later Marwanid propaganda.
What does seem certain, is that Muawiya continued his father's policy and remitted a third of the taxes. During his reign, Muawiya suffered from ill health and so had to stay in the Umayyad palace in Damascus. His adviser Al-Dahhak ibn Qays al-Fihri took care of practical affairs.
It is unclear how Muawiya died, although jaundice and a plague have been named as causes. Since he had no children and either refused or was not given the opportunity to appoint a successor, the campaigns against Ibn al-Zubayr's revolt came to a complete stop. Umayyad power temporarily collapsed until Marwan I took back control. In his al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, Ibn Arabi claimed that Muawiyya II was a spiritual Pole of his time and one of the few in history having such a spiritual degree combined with a temporal power, like the Rashidun Caliphs and Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz.
