Who appointed Yaz?d I as Caliph? Yaz?d b. Mu??wiya (r. 680-683) is one of the most if not the most controversial figures in early Islamic history. His name has become synonymous with impiety, authoritarianism, illegitimacy, and as the touchstone of the devolvement of the Caliphate into ‘Kingship.’ Yaz?d’s father, Mu??wiya b. Ab? Sufy?n (r. 657-680), is seen as being the architect of the above devolvement. Much of our information about both comes to us from later more hostile times to both these characters and the Umayyads; here we are of course talking about the extant literary sources that were written more than a century after the above incidents, albeit the purport to be using contemporary source to these incidents. Many scholars have used these sources in order to try get at the reasons behind Mu??wiya’s appointment of his own son rather than explain why there is a problem in the first place; meaning, and this what this paper will address, did Mu??wiya really appoint his son? Was there a problem with the legitimacy of Yaz?d or with his authority? If we approach these sources differently by asking the above questions would they start to make more sense? The paper will show that the sources were trying to explain the second fitnah using language and terminology that was more comprehensible to their contemporaries which creates the usual confusion that is endemic to these sources. To do this the paper will address two issues: The first is the notion that Mu??wiya was setting a precedent, and the second, and most important, that the nature and the reason of the opposition to Yaz?d. The paper will show that Mu??wiya, if he even appointed his son as heir apparent, was not setting a precedent and that these accounts are to be apprehended as attempts of regional and political actors at understanding their acceptance of the appointment of Yaz?d as heir apparent.