Yazid was born in Syria. His year of birth is placed between 642 and 649.

[b] His
father was Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, then governor of Syria under Caliph Uthman (r.
644–656). Mu'awiya and Uthman belonged to the wealthy Umayyad clan of the Quraysh
tribe, a grouping of Meccan clans to which the Islamic prophet Muhammad and all the
preceding caliphs belonged. Yazid's mother, Maysun, was the daughter of Bahdal ibn
Unayf, a chieftain of the powerful Bedouin tribe of Banu Kalb. She was a Christian,
like most of her tribe.[5][6] Yazid grew up with his maternal Kalbite kin,[5]
spending the springs of his youth in the Syrian Desert; for the remainder of the
year he was in the company of the Greek and native Syrian courtiers of his father,
[7] who became caliph in 661.[8]

During his father's caliphate, Yazid led several campaigns against the Byzantine
Empire, which the Caliphate had been trying to conquer, including an attack on the
Byzantine capital, Constantinople. Sources give several dates for this between 49
AH (669–70 CE) and 55 AH (674–5 CE). Muslim sources offer few details of his role
in the campaigns, possibly downplaying his involvement due to the controversies of
his later career. He is portrayed in these sources as having been unwilling to
participate in the expedition to the chagrin of Mu'awiya, who then forced him to
comply.[9] However, two eighth-century non-Muslim sources from al-Andalus (Islamic
Spain), the Chronicle of 741 and the Chronicle of 754, both of which likely drew
their material from an earlier Arabic work, report that Yazid besieged
Constantinople with a 100,000-strong army. Unable to conquer the city, the army
captured adjacent towns, acquired considerable loot, and retreated after two years.
[10] Yazid also led the hajj (the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca) on several
occasions.[11]