Your comment is valid IF you assume Arabs holding power in 661 are the same as the ones taking over Jerusalem in 637
He is valid because the Temple Mount is a garbage for Christian who rules Palestine. It is the sign of God for them that the Jews have been superseded by Christianity.
Plus, one does not have any clear and unequivocal sources that indicates the contrary. It is then a logical deduction. 636 Yarmuk>>> 637 Jerusalem.
(and if you exclude sources pointing out to the role of the Jews but we already been there so let's not discuss this again as it is a dead end).
One knows the role of the Jews with the Persians since 614.
There is one event told in both Muslim sources as well as non Muslim source (an archaeological one) that highlight the fact that those were different Arabs.
This event can be explained differently than you do.
Christians can fight Christians, and have for centuries,
Later.
I can see why Von Sivers would see Mu'awiya as a christian king :
Of course, I can see very well too.
- Maronite Chronicle,
- portray of his son Yazid in muslim sources and Mu'awiya link with the Kalb tribe through his wife, Yazid's mother,
- the Theophanes Chronicle
It does not mean that he was Christian. Especially that "Islam"
as one knows it did not exist at that time.It is a slow construction. That is why scholars of today like Sivers can think that he was "Christian" : it is perfectly understandable that they might think it.
He might have been christian, but a different christian than the christians in Byzantium, but he was first the amir al mu'minin
A "different" Christian means nothing at that time. Mainstream institutional Christianity (Catholics, Monophysites, Nestorians) even with multiple conflicts inside it (notably the structuration of the inner nature of Jesus) and some other topics have the same basic creed : Jesus is the son of God and he is God. One does not have any sources of a group in the 5,6, 7th. which called itself "Christian" outside institutional Christianity (Catholics, Monophysites, Nestorians). The "Nazoreans" of Iraq are Christians (cf.Brelaud-Briquet Chatonnet, etc).
Did any sources attests that Mu'awiya was a Christian of any kind? None. Never the Maronite Chronicle says that Mu'awiya was a Christian. There's not perceptible stuff that would allow us to think that there would have been something which prevent the Maronite Chronicle to say so.
Sivers is wrong.