The successive promotions of Abu Sufyan's sons contradicted Umar's
efforts to curtail the influence of the Qurayshite aristocracy in the
Muslim state in favor of the early Muslim converts.[13] According to the historian Leone Caetani, this exceptional treatment stemmed from Umar's personal respect of the Umayyads, the branch of the Banu Abd Shams to which Mu'awiya belonged.[14] This is doubted by the historian Wilferd Madelung,
who surmises that Umar had little choice, due to the lack of a suitable
alternative to Mu'awiya in Syria and the ongoing plague in the region,
which precluded the deployment of commanders more preferable to Umar
from Medina.[14]
There were recurrences of the plague in Syria–Palestine about every decade between 688/89 and 744/45. [35] "The Umaiyad [sic] dynasty was literally plagued by this disease ", in the words of Dols. [36] The deaths of the Umayyad caliphs Mu'awiya II ( r . 683–684 ), Marwan I ( r . 684–685 ), Abd al-Malik ( r . 685–705 ), Sulayman ( r . 715–717 ) and the Umayyad governors in Iraq al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba ( r . 661–671 ) and Ziyad ibn Abihi ( r . 685–673 ) may all possibly have been caused by the plague epidemics in Syria and Iraq. [37] [21] The caliphs routinely withdrew from the cities to their desert palaces when the plague emerged during the summer months. [36] Notable among them was Caliph Hisham ( r . 724–743 ), who preferred his palace at Rusafa over Damascus because he viewed the latter to be unhealthy. [38]
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