Third, considering Mu‘awiyah’s exceptional talent at deceit,...

Third, considering Mu‘awiyah’s exceptional talent at deceit, it would have been very likely, if Imam al-Husayn had risen in open conflict, that he would contrive a plot to murder Imam al-Husayn through his agents then feign sympathy with the by killing the murderers.[^12] (After all, it was Mu‘awiyah who enticed Imam al-Hasan’s wife into poisoning her husband.) It was for these reasons that Imam al-Husayn abstained from action during Mu‘awiyah’s reign.

Mu‘awiyah’s last blow to Islam was transforming caliphate rule into hereditary monarchy. He announced his son, Yazid, as the successor to the throne.…