Muawiyah had been appointed as the governor of Syria in 639, by the second caliph, Umar, after his brother the previous governor Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan, and the governor before him Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah, had died in a plague along with twenty-five thousand other people.
'Amr ibn al-'As had been sent to take on the Roman Army in Egypt.
With limited resources, Muawiyah’s marriage to Maysum had been politically motivated, as she is the daughter of the chief of the Kalb tribe, a large Jacobite Christian Arab tribe in Syria.
The Kalb tribe had remained largely neutral when the Muslims first went into Syria.
After the plague that killed much of the Muslim Army in Syria, Muawiyah, through marrying Maysum, had started to work in cooperation with the local Christian population, using the Jacobite Christians against the Romans.
He has left the Roman and Persian administrative structures intact, being sure not to give his largely non-Muslims subjects any incentive to revolt.
The postal system, which had been created by Umar for military use, was now opened to the public by Muawiya.
When Uthman dismissed 'Amr ibn al-'As from the governorship of Egypt in 642, Muawiyah had asked him to join him in Syria.
Muawiya is one of the first in the Rashidun Caliphate to realize the full importance of having a navy; as long as the imperial fleet can sail the Mediterranean unopposed, the coast line of Syria, Palestine and Egypt will never be safe.
Muawiyah, along with Adbullah ibn Saad, the new governor of Egypt, had successfully persuaded Uthman to give them permission to construct a large fleet in the dockyards of Egypt and Syria
Muawiyah in 649 sets up a navy manned by Christian sailors of the Monophysite, Coptic, and Jacobite Syrian persuasion, and Muslim troops.
