For Mu‘awiya's immediate family and their Syrian allies to sustain their dominant position in the empire, it was critical that they establish the means to retain power after Mu‘awiya's death. Mu‘awiya's son Yazid became the focus of these efforts. Yazid was a son by the sister of a Kalbi leader and so was the only one of Mu‘awiya's three sons with the necessary tribal lineage to secure support in Syria. Yazid's appointment to command the campaign in Asia Minor in 668–9 and his leadership of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in 670 or 671 were directed at enhancing his prestige with the frontier armies and at seeking the support of the Hijazis for the succession. Mu‘awiya had many of the most powerful figures in the empire publicly pledge their allegiance to Yazid, often in return for substantial payments. While these and other efforts were effective in persuading most of the wider Umayyad clan, other groups were less pliable. Mu‘awiya was particularly concerned with the threat posed by support for ‘Ali's family in Kufa and in the Hijaz and sought to intimidate and confront them. Mu‘awiya is said to have instituted the cursing of ‘Ali at Friday prayers in Kufa and to have publicly cursed ‘Ali's name at the ḥajj in c. 670 or 671. Then, in 672, Mu‘awiya had fourteen of the most vocal Kufan partisans of ‘Ali sent to Syria and executed eight of them, including the Companion Hujr b. ‘Adi al-Kindi.

When Mu‘awiya died in the spring of 680, the scene was set for the sons of the main participants in the civil war of 656–61 to revive their respective claims to power. At Kufa, where many had backed Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law ‘Ali b. Abi Talib during the civil war, aspirations now focused on al-Husayn b. ‘Ali. Al-Husayn was both ‘Ali's son and the Prophet Muhammad's sole surviving grandson, via Fatima, a daughter of the Prophet. (Al-Husayn's full brother, al-Hasan, who had surrendered to Mu‘awiya in 661, had died in c. 670; some sources imply that Mu‘awiya had him poisoned.) During Mu‘awiya's reign, al-Husayn had remained at Medina and is said to have avoided confrontation with the Umayyads, despite various efforts by Kufans to persuade him to revolt.