Umayyad Caliphate

Umayyad Caliphate (Arabic, Umawi), dynasty of caliphs which ruled the Arab caliphate of Islam from 661 until 750. All of the caliphs of the dynasty were descended from Umayya ibn Abd Shams, a Meccan of the tribe of Quraysh, who lived two generations or so before the prophet Muhammad. The founder of the dynasty, Muawiya, and his two successors, belonged to the Sufyanid (descendants of Abu Sufyan) branch of the Umayyad family, while all of the other Umayyad caliphs were Marwanids, descendants of Marwan ibn al-Hakam who took over the caliphate in 684.

The centre of Umayyad power and the seat of their caliphate was Syria, and their court was most often in Damascus. The best-known Umayyad is probably Abd al-Malik (685-705) who built the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, issued the first Muslim coinage, and inaugurated the use of the Arabic language for administration. The Great Mosque of Damascus (converted from the Byzantine church of St John) and the Aqsa mosque of Jerusalem are Umayyad foundations, and the ruins of several of their palaces and hunting lodges survive in the Syrian desert.

The dynasty organized a massive expansion of the territories under Arab Muslim rule. Although they were unsuccessful in attempts to conquer Constantinople (modern İstanbul), capital of the Byzantine Empire, by 750 they ruled an area extending from Morocco and much of Spain to the borders of China and northern India.

During this period, Islam, as a religion and culture, underwent a number of important developments. The two main forms of Islam that we know today, Sunni Islam and Shiism, began to form, although neither of them reached full development until after the Umayyad caliphate had ended. The Umayyads and the Arab elite whom they represented regarded Islam as something reserved mainly for the Arabs, and generally they were reluctant to allow the non-Arab conquered peoples to join it. The only way in which the non-Arabs could enter Islam was by becoming clients (mawali) to the Arabs, a process which involved their taking on an Arab name and identity. Those who did manage to achieve client status were not regarded by the Arabs as their equals, but nevertheless there were incentives, especially economic ones, for many of the subject peoples to wish to enter Islam as clients of the Arabs in this manner. The reluctance of the Umayyads to allow this reflected their concern that people would avoid paying taxes by changing their religious and social status, and they continued to demand taxes from those who thought that they were exempt because they had become clients and entered Islam.

Among those Arabs and non-Arabs who stressed the religious, and not merely social or political, character of Islam, it was an important principle that it should be open to all, not merely to Arabs. In their eyes, the Umayyad rulers, with a few exceptions, were not true Muslims. This tension between different ideas of what Islam was or should be, which grew as Islam developed as a religion, had much to do with the increasing opposition to the Umayyad caliphate among Arab and non-Arab Muslims. It also led to the negative image of the Umayyads in Muslim historical tradition. There Muawiya is portrayed as having cheated Ali ibn Abi Talib, the son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad, of the caliphate, and Muawiya's son and successor Yazid is given ultimate reponsibility for the killing of Ali's son Husain at Karbalā’ in Iraq in 680. With one or two exceptions, the Umayyad caliphs are seen as tyrannical and worldly rulers, who took little notice of the interests of Islam but pursued worldly power and crushed pious Muslims who got in their way. Frequently they are denied the title of caliph and referred to as a dynasty of kings, like those who ruled non-Muslim lands. The Shiite tradition rejects the legitimacy of Umayyad rule completely, while the Sunnis have a grudging and more ambiguous attitude to them. The only two Umayyad caliphs to escape such condemnation are Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (caliph 717-720) and, to a lesser extent, Yazid ibn Walid (caliph 744).

The dynasty was overthrown in favour of the Abbasids in 750 by a revolt which began in the province of Khurasan in north-east Persia. This revolt was sparked by dissension between factions in the Arab army, and fuelled by the resentment of both Arab and non-Arab Muslims who felt excluded from power and wealth by Umayyad policies. After the overthrow of the Umayyad caliphate, a member of the family made his way to Muslim Spain (al-Andalus) where he obtained recognition as ruler with the title Amir. A line of Umayyads ruled Muslim Spain between 756 and 1031, and from 929 these Spanish Umayyads used the title of caliph.