Editing Marwan I (section)

==Governor of Medina==

[[File:Medina 1916.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|alt=Black-and-white photograph of a city in the desert showing a basaltic ridge on the right and a skyline with numerous buildings among which is a domed mosque with two minarets|A general view of [[Medina]] (''pictured in 1913''), where Marwan spent much of his career, first as a top aide of Caliph Uthman and later as governor for Caliph [[Mu'awiya&nbsp;I]] and leader of the Umayyad clan]]

Ali was assassinated by a member of the [[Kharijite]]s, a sect opposed to both Ali and Mu'awiya, in January 661.{{sfn|Hinds|1993|p=265}} His son and successor [[Hasan ibn Ali]] abdicated in a [[Hasan–Muawiya treaty|peace treaty with Mu'awiya]], who entered Hasan's and formerly Ali's capital at Kufa and gained recognition as caliph there in July or September, marking the establishment of the [[Umayyad Caliphate]].{{sfn|Hinds|1993|p=265}}{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|pp=104, 111}} Marwan served as Mu'awiya's governor in [[Eastern Arabia|Bahrayn]] (eastern Arabia) before serving two stints as governor of Medina in 661–668 and 674–677.{{sfn|Bosworth|1991|p=621}} In between those two terms, Marwan's Umayyad kinsmen [[Sa'id ibn al-As]] and [[al-Walid ibn Utba ibn Abi Sufyan]] held the post.{{sfn|Bosworth|1991|p=621}} Medina had lost its status as the political center of the Caliphate in the aftermath of Uthman's assassination. Under Mu'awiya the capital shifted to Damascus.{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|pp=59–60, 161}} Although it was reduced to a provincial governorship, Medina remained a hub of Arab culture and Islamic scholarship and home of the traditional Islamic aristocracy.{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|pp=136, 161}} The old elites in Medina, including most of the Umayyad family, resented their loss of power to Mu'awiya; in the summation of the historian [[Julius Wellhausen]], "of what consequence was Marwan, formerly the all-powerful imperial chancellor of Uthman, now as Emir of Medina! No wonder he cast envious looks at his cousin of Damascus who had so far outstripped him."{{sfn|Wellhausen|1927|p=136}}

During his first term, Marwan acquired from Mu'awiya a large estate in the [[Fadak]] oasis in northwestern Arabia, which he then bestowed on his sons Abd al-Malik and Abd al-Aziz.{{sfn|Bosworth|1991|p=621}} Marwan's first dismissal from the governorship caused him to travel to Mu'awiya's court for an explanation from the caliph, who listed three reasons: Marwan's refusal to confiscate for Mu'awiya the properties of their relative [[Abd Allah ibn Amir]] after the latter's dismissal from the governorship of Basra; Marwan's criticism of the caliph's adoption of the fatherless [[Ziyad ibn Abihi]], Ibn Amir's successor in Basra, as the son of his father [[Abu Sufyan]], which the Umayyad family disputed; and Marwan's refusal to assist the caliph's daughter Ramla in a domestic dispute with her husband, [[Amr ibn Uthman|Amr ibn Uthman ibn Affan]].{{sfn|Madelung|1997|pp=343–345}} In 670, Marwan led Umayyad opposition to the attempted burial of Hasan ibn Ali beside the [[Masjid an-Nabawi|grave of Muhammad]], compelling Hasan's brother, [[Husayn ibn Ali|Husayn]], and his clan, the [[Banu Hashim]], to abandon their original funeral arrangement and bury Hasan in the [[Al-Baqi Cemetery|al-Baqi cemetery]] instead.{{sfn|Madelung|1997|p=332}} Afterward, Marwan participated in the funeral and eulogized Hasan as one "whose forbearance weighed mountains".{{sfn|Madelung|1997|p=333}}

According to Bosworth, Mu'awiya may have been suspicious of the ambitions of Marwan and the [[Abu al-As ibn Umayya|Abu al-As]] line of the Banu Umayya in general, which was significantly more numerous than the Abu Sufyan (Sufyanid) line to which Mu'awiya belonged.{{sfn|Bosworth|1991|p=622}} Marwan was among the eldest and most prestigious Umayyads at a time when there were few experienced Sufyanids of mature age.{{sfn|Bosworth|1991|p=622}} Bosworth speculates that it "may have been fears of the family of Abu'l-ʿĀs that impelled Muʿāwiya to his adoption of his putative half-brother Ziyād b. Sumayya [Ziyad ibn Abihi] and to the unusual step of naming his own son [[Yazid I|Yazīd]] as heir to the caliphate during his own lifetime".{{sfn|Bosworth|1991|p=622}}{{efn|Caliph [[Mu'awiya I]]'s nomination of his own son [[Yazid&nbsp;I]] as his successor had been an unprecedented act in Islamic politics, marking a shift to hereditary rule from the earlier caliphs' elective or consultative form of succession. The move elicited charges in later Islamic tradition that the Umayyads transformed the office of the caliphate into a monarchy.{{sfn|Kennedy|2004|p=88}}{{sfn|Hawting|2000|pp=13–14, 43}}}} Marwan had earlier pressed Uthman's son Amr to claim the caliphate based on the legitimacy of his father, a member of the Abu al-As branch, but Amr was uninterested.{{sfn|Madelung|1997|pp=341–342}} Marwan reluctantly accepted Mu'awiya's nomination of Yazid in 676, but quietly encouraged another son of Uthman, [[Sa'id ibn Uthman|Sa'id]], to contest the succession.{{sfn|Madelung|1997|pp=342–343}} Sa'id's ambitions were neutralized when the caliph gave him military command in [[Greater Khorasan|Khurasan]], the easternmost region of the Caliphate.{{sfn|Madelung|1997|p=343}}