After Ali's assassination by a Kharijite, Mu'awiya takes the caliphate and moves its capital to Damascus; rule passes into a hereditary dynasty, the Umayyads, who govern the empire for ninety years.
Tagged: Muslim Sunni Islam
The Event
- Date
- 661 (exact)
- Era
- Umayyad; Standard periodization of Islamic history
- Location
- Damascus; today Damascus, Syria
- Traditions
- Islam
- Streams
- Sunni Islam
- Key figures
- Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, Hasan ibn Ali
Connections
Primary Sources
- Al-Tabari, History
Secondary Sources
- Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates (Routledge, 3rd ed. 2016)
- Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Faber, 1991)
Provenance: HIST-0213; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-27.
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