Re: Sunni Perspective on Shia Traditions
- One point to bear in mind is that the information we have on the lives of the companions after the death of the Prophet (pbuh) is not subject to the same standard of intellectual rigor as the Hadith are - meaning they are more like any other historical record and subject to the biases of those who wrote them. In the case of Muawiya (ra), who founded the Umayyad dynasty, records written by both supporters of the Ahl-ul-Bait and supporters of the Abbasid dynasty would both seek to undermine him as both factions sought to prove Umayyad rule was illegitimate. Supporters of both factions ended up ruling most of the muslim world and be in positions to obscure records about him.
From a secular perspective, Muawiyah instituted the civil service reforms along the Byzantine Empire model than enabled the Muslim state to effectively administer such a massive state and not fall apart instantly into petty fiefdoms, and also founded the large Muslim navy that dominated the Mediterranean for over a century. From a secular perspective, he was an extremely effective administrator, which you would expect from someone who was essentially the Prophet’s (pbuh) secretary.
As for the issue of being corrupt and getting his son into leadership - Muawiyah (ra) had seen the Ummah nearly fall into civil war over the issue of succession when Muslims did not know who should rule them next (though admittedly because he had raised an army to challenge the favoured candidate in Kufa, Imam Hassan). But I believe that this highlighted a serious issue - the Muslim state had for the first time become large enough that when its leader would die, all of its most prominent leaders would be too spread out to agree at once on who the leader should be. By then time Muawiyah had heard of Hazrat Ali’s death, Imam Hassan was being proclaimed Khalif in Kufa before Muawiya and his supporters in Syria and North Africa could declare his own candidacy.
It strikes me that he tried to solve this by having his succession decided while he was still alive - by asking the powerful to pledge that his son would succeed him. In this he certainly made a bad choice - but then again many parents do deliberately overlook the flaws of their child, in the hope that growing up / getting married / getting a job / moving out / becoming the most powerful ruler on Earth would fix them.
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Most Sunnis agree that Yazid was corrupt and a vile criminal, as were his cronies at Karbala who murdered members of the Ahl-ul-Bait.
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Shias are those who believe that Ali (ra) and his family should have directly succeeded the Prophet. It has nothing to do with who should have succeeded Ali (ra).
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Sunnis generally don’t believe that Hasan and Hussain should have been caliphs over Muawiyya. Sunnis believe that rulership over Muslims should be by consensus, not hereditary right, and Sunnis believe that the general consensus amongst the Muslims was the Muawiya, being the most powerful man in the Muslim world (he governed Syria which was the wealthiest part of the Muslim world and had the most effective military) was in a better position to rule than Hasan and Hussain who had little government experience and little support from the military.
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You still get Sunnis to this day who question various aspect of some of Abu Huraira’s Hadith, using classical Hadith sciences regarding their chains of narration and fit with other hadiths/seerah/etc. Many of Abu Huraira’s hadith are key parts of our beliefs, but they are not all accepted by all unconditionally.