He reversed the reformist policies of Umar, mainly by reimposing the jizya (poll tax) on the mawali (non-Arab Muslim converts) and resuming the war efforts on the frontiers of the Caliphate, especially against the Khazars in the Caucasus and the Byzantines in Anatolia.

Yazid's moves were in line with the desires of the Arab militarist camp and the Umayyad dynasty but did not solve the fiscal crisis of the Caliphate as war booty had become insufficient and the reimposition of the jizya met strong resistance from the converted populations in the large provinces of Khurasan and Ifriqiya.

[1] He rarely left Syria except for a number of visits to the Hejaz (western Arabia, home of the Islamic holy cities Mecca and Medina),[1] including once for the annual Hajj pilgrimage sometime between 715 and 717.

[6] Yazid established marital ties to the family of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf (d. 714), the powerful viceroy of Iraq for his father, Caliph Abd al-Malik, and brother, al-Walid I (r. 705–715).

[1][16] For most of his reign, he resided in Damascus or his estates in Jund al-Urdunn (the military district of Jordan),[1] which was centered in Tiberias and roughly corresponded with the Byzantine province of Palaestina Secunda.

[20] Evading the pursuit of Umar's or Yazid's commanders, Ibn al-Muhallab made his way to Basra, one of the main garrison towns of Iraq and the center of his family and the Azd Uman tribe.

[22] Yazid pardoned him, but Ibn al-Muhallab continued his opposition, declaring jihad (holy war) against the caliph and the Syrian troops who enforced Umayyad authority in Iraq.

[23] Most of the qurra (pious Qur'an readers) and the mawali (non-Arab Muslim converts) of Basra supported Ibn al-Muhallab's cause, except the prominent theologian al-Hasan al-Basri.

[24] The Iranian dependencies of Basra, namely Ahwaz, Fars and Kerman, joined the revolt, though not Khurasan, where Qays–Mudar troops counterbalanced the pro-Muhallabid Yamani faction in the province's garrisons.

[32] The defeat of the Yamani Muhallabids and Yazid's successive appointments to Iraq of the pro-Qaysi Maslama—who was shortly dismissed for not forwarding the provincial tax surplus to the caliph's treasury—and Maslama's Qaysi lieutenant, Umar ibn Hubayra al-Fazari, signaled a triumph for the Qays–Mudar faction in the province and its eastern dependencies.

[33] According to the historian Julius Wellhausen, "the proscription of the whole of the prominent and powerful [Muhallabid] family, a measure hitherto unheard of in the history of the Umaiyids [sic], came like a declaration of war against the Yemen [faction] in general, and the corollary was that the government was degenerating into a Qaisite party-rule".

[20] He appointed Yamani governors to the large provinces of Ifriqiya (central North Africa) and the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia) and its dependent districts of Adharbayjan and Armenia.

[1] The expenses of enforcing Umayyad rule in Iraq and the expansionist war efforts along multiple fronts, including the enormous cost of the failed sieges of Constantinople in 717–718, had erased much of the monetary gains from the conquests of Transoxiana, Sind and the Iberian Peninsula under al-Walid I, causing a financial crisis in the Caliphate.

[35] Yazid attempted to reverse, with limited success, the reforms of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, which were opposed by the Arab militarist camp in the Caliphate and the Umayyad ruling family.

[37] Under Yazid, Maslama and his proteges, including Ibn Hubayra, were restored or appointed to senior commands, Syrian garrisons were reintroduced to Iraq, the traditional annual raids against the Byzantines and the war with the Khazars were restarted, and the grants of estates or generous sums to Umayyad princes resumed.

[38] Although Yazid's policies were presumably meant to gain the backing of the ruling elite and restore the flow of war spoils, they proved insufficient to finance the Caliphate's troops, particularly as booty had become increasingly difficult to obtain by the Arab expeditionary forces.

[1] In Ifriqiya, the caliph's governor Yazid ibn Abi Muslim, himself a mawla from Iraq and a protégé of al-Hajjaj, was assassinated by his Berber guard in 720, shortly after his appointment, for attempting to reinstate the jizya.

[41] To avenge this defeat, Yazid II sent al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah at the head of a 25,000-strong army of Syrians, who pushed into the Caucasus homeland of the Khazars and took their capital of Balanjar on 22 August.

[42] The main body of the highly mobile Khazars avoided the Muslims' pursuit, and their presence compelled al-Jarrah to withdraw to Warthan south of the Caucasus and request reinforcements from Yazid.

[45] Yazid died of consumption[47] in Irbid, a town in the Balqa subdistrict of Jund Dimashq (the military division of Damascus corresponding to Transjordan) on 24 Sha'ban 105 AH (26 January 724).