Umayyad Caliphate

The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; Arabic: ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة‎, al-Khilāfat al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four great caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty (Arabic: ٱلْأُمَوِيُّون, al-ʾUmawīyūn, or بَنُو أُمَيَّة, Banū ʾUmayyah, "Sons of Umayyah ";; Persian: امویان‎ omaviyân; Turkish: emevi), an Arab lineage that exercised the power of caliph, first in the East, with its capital in Damascus, and then in al-Andalus, with its capital in Córdoba. The term Umayyad comes from an ancestor of the family, Umayya. Strictly speaking, the dynasty begins with Mu'awiya I, and ends with Marwan II, with the Abbasid Revolution in 750.

Uthman ibn Affan (r. 644-656), the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a member of the clan. The family established a dynastic and hereditary rule under Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, former Governor of Greater Syria, who became the sixth caliph after the end of the First Fitna in 661. Upon Mu'awiyah's death in the 680, conflicts over the succession gave rise to the Second Fitna, and power ended up falling into the hands of Marwan I, from another branch of the clan. Greater Syria remained the main base of power for the Umayyads, with Damascus as its capital.

The Umayyads continued the Muslim conquests, incorporating Transoxiana, Sindh, the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) under Islamic rule. At its largest, the Umayyad Caliphate covered 11,100,000 km², making it one of the largest empires in history in terms of area. The dynasty in most of the Islamic world was eventually overthrown by an Abbasid-led rebellion in 750. The survivors of the dynasty settled in Córdoba, which, in the form of an emirate and then a caliphate, became a world center of science, medicine, philosophy and invention during the Islamic Golden Age.

The Umayyad Caliphate ruled a vast multi-ethnic and multi-cultural population. Christians, who still made up the majority of the population of the caliphate, and Jews could practice their own religion, but had to pay a head tax (the jizya) from which Muslims were exempt. Muslims were required to pay the zakat tax, which was explicitly earmarked for various welfare programs '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000012-QINU`"' 6 &# 39;"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000013-QINU`"' for the benefit of Muslims or Muslim converts. Under the early Umayyad caliphs, Christians held prominent positions, some of whom belonged to families that had served in Byzantine governments. The employment of Christians was part of a broader policy of religious accommodation that was necessitated by the presence of large Christian populations in the conquered provinces, such as Syria. This policy also boosted Mu'awiya's popularity and cemented Syria as his power base.The Umayyad era is often considered the formative period of Islamic art.

Introduction

The Umayyad Caliphate (Arabic: الخلافة الأموية, trans. al-kḫilāfat al-ʾumawiyya) was the second of the four major Islamic caliphates established after Muhammad's death. The caliphate was centered on the Umayyad dynasty (Arabic: الأمويون, al-ʾUmawiyyūn and بنو أمية, Banū ʾUmayya, "Sons of Umayya"). The Umayyad family, from the oldest member, Ummayah al-Akbar ibn 'Abd Shams ibn 'Abd Manaf, born in 533, had first come to power under the third caliph, Uthman (Uthman ibn Affan) (r. 644-656), but the Umayyad Caliphate was founded by Mu'awiya (Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan), former ruler of Syria under Uthman, at the end of the first Muslim civil war or fitna in 661 (41 AH). Syria will remain the main base of power for the Umayyads and Damascus its capital. The Umayyads continued the Muslim conquests, incorporating the Caucasus, Transoxiana, Sindh, the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula (al-Andalus) into the Muslim world. At its greatest extent, the Umayyad Caliphate was some 15,000,000 km², the largest empire the world had seen to date and the fifth largest ever.

At the same time, Umayyad tribute and administrative practices were widely perceived as absolutist, oppressive, and unfair. Along with rivalries between Arab tribes, his rule was affected by unrest in provinces outside of Syria, notably during the second Muslim civil war of 680-692 and the Berber Rebellion of 740-743. During the second civil war, the leadership of the Umayyad clan passed from the Sufjanid branch of the family to the Marwanid branch. As constant military campaigns depleted the resources and manpower of the state, the Umayyads, weakened by the third Muslim civil war of 744-747, were finally overthrown by the Abbasid Revolution in 750 (132 AH). One of the few survivors after the revolution, Abderramán I, fled across North Africa to al-Andalus, where he founded the Emirate of Córdoba, which later became the Caliphate of Córdoba, which lasted until 1031 before falling to Fitna. of al-Andalus.

Origins and rise to the caliphate

Silver coins of the Omeya caliphate at the Samsun Archaeology Museum.

The Umayyads were a clan of the Quraysh tribe of Mecca, to which Muhammad belonged. The ancestor who gives the family its name, Umayya ibn Abd Shams, was the nephew of Háshim, the great-grandfather of Muhammad who gives his name to the Hashimites or Hashemites.

The first step of the Umayyads with the caliphate occurs when a member of the clan, Uthman ibn Affan, a wealthy merchant from Mecca and successive husband of two daughters of Muhammad, is elected successor to Caliph Omar on his death in the year 644, thus becoming the third of the so-called well-guided caliphs. The election of the caliphs comes into conflict, each time it occurs, with the claims of the so-called Party of Ali, which affirms that Ali ibn Abi Talib, cousin and son-in-law of the prophet, is the one who should occupy the position due to his close proximity to Muhammad. Uthmán is assassinated in the year 656 and Ali is elected caliph. However, this election is contested by another member of the Umayyad clan, Muawiya I, at the time governor of Syria. Mu'awiya accuses Ali of complicity in the murder of his predecessor and takes up arms against him. Both armies face each other in the Battle of Siffin, an event of great importance since it is the one that marks the origin of the three great doctrinal divisions of Islam. Ali is defeated and retreats to his stronghold in Kufa (Iraq), while Mu'awiya proclaims himself caliph in Damascus, thus transferring the capital of the Islamic State from Medina, in the Hijaz (in present-day Saudi Arabia). to the Syrian city.

The Caliphate of Damascus (661-750)

The Umayyads were divided into two family branches: the Sufjanids, descendants of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb who ruled from 661 to 684, beginning with Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan and ending with Muawiya II, and the Marwanids of Marwan ibn al-Hakam and his descendants, who ruled between 684 and 750 with Marwan II.

The Mosque of the Omeyas in the Syrian capital, one of the most important artistic legacy of the Damascus caliphate.

The Umayyad caliphate ends the system of caliph election by a council of notables and gives way to a purely hereditary system, thus turning the Umayyads into a dynasty, since the considered first Umayyad caliph, Muawiyah, chose his successor between one of his sons, Yazid I.

Facing abroad, the Umayyads continued the conquests of the preceding era. It is during this period when the last great expansions of the Islamic Empire take place: to the west, the Maghreb is conquered (founding the city of Kairouan) and the Iberian Peninsula; to the east, Iran has just been subdued and incursions are made beyond its limits, towards Afghanistan and China, where the conquest is stopped.

On a domestic political level, the Umayyads have many enemies. Alis or supporters of Ali, as well as the branch of Kharijites, which split from the Alis in Siffin, remain very active in various places and especially in Iraq: Basra is a hotbed of Kharijite dissent, bent on fighting what they call illegitimate caliphs., while Kufa remains a stronghold of the Alis (later called Shiites). Mu'awiya manages to calm the situation by reaching a peace agreement with Hasan, Ali's eldest son and successor, who had died in 661, thus avoiding a new civil war. Mu'awiya's death marks the beginning of a new conflict, as the question of succession is reopened. Although he had named his son Yazid as his heir, this family transmission of the charge is contested and many turn their eyes towards Husayn, Ali's youngest son. Husayn and the small army that accompanied him are massacred by the troops of the new caliph in the battle of Kerbala (680), when he was going to Kufa to lead a rebellion. The death of Husayn, a figure respected by all Muslims, caused great commotion and added material to the accusations of impiety and lack of scruples that were leveled against the Umayyads from the beginning. With the death of Husayn, the line of succession is definitively established, which will be recognized by the majority of Muslims. Alis and Kharijites will, however, continue their opposition work and in the long run will contribute to the fall of the Umayyads.

Expansion of Islam until the fall of the Omegas.

In general terms, it could be said that the Umayyads undertook the task of administratively organizing a territory considerably larger than that controlled by their predecessors, and with a majority non-Arab population, made up of non-Muslims or recent converts to Islam, characteristics that it will not have when it passes into the hands of its Abbasid successors a century later. The Umayyad caliphs had a tendency to act more like kings, that is, to worry about administration, than as religious leaders. Conversion to Islam was not encouraged, as it could mean a decrease in state income due to the higher volume of taxes paid by Christians and Jews, and it was even prohibited on some occasions. Hence the accusation of being bad Muslims that their enemies leveled against them. Despite the many problems posed by the social complexity of the territory they ruled and the incessant opposition of Alis and Kharijites, no major national problems (i.e., between the different ethnic groups of the empire, and especially between the Arabs and the others) nor clashes between religious communities nor between non-Muslims and the central power.

Around 740 the Umayyad caliphate was weakened due, on the one hand, to internal struggles within the Umayyad family itself and, on the other, to constant pressure from Kharijites and Alis. It was the latter who started a revolt in Iran that sought to restore caliphal power to the Hashimite clan (to which Muhammad and Ali had belonged). At the head of the revolt, at the last moment and without historians having been able to explain exactly how, was Abu l-Abbas (also known as As-Saffah), head of the Abbasids, a secondary branch of the Hashimites. His army of black banners (the Umayyads were white) entered Kufa, a major Islamic center in southern Iraq, in 749 and he declared himself caliph. His first priority was to eliminate his Umayyad rival, Caliph Marwan II. The latter was defeated in February 750 at the Battle of the Great Zab, fought on the banks of the Zab River, north of Baghdad; This disaster marked the end of the great Umayyad caliphate, founded in 661.

Genealogical tree of the Omeya family. In blue is the Uthman caliph, one of the four Orthodox caliphs. In green, the Omega caliphs of Damascus. In yellow, the omeya emires of Cordoba. In orange, the Omeya caliphs of Cordoba (note: Abderramán III was emir until the year 929, in which caliph was proclaimed). It includes the kinship of the omeyas with the prophet Mohammed, pointed in capital letters.

The Umayyad caliph, Marwan II, fled to Egypt and Abu l-Abbas became caliph, thus inaugurating the Abbasid Caliphate. All the Umayyads were killed; Umayyad dead were even taken from their graves, thus erasing traces of the family. Only one managed to escape the slaughter, and in time it reappeared at the other end of the Islamic world, in al-Andalus.

Survival in Al-Andalus

The independent emirate of Córdoba (756-929)

The only survivor of the Umayyads, Abd al-Rahman, went into exile in the Maghreb, an area at that time a refuge for all dissidents due to its distance from the Caliphate capitals. Host of Berber tribes along with a handful of allies, Abd al-Rahman sought support among the Syrian troops of al-Andalus, until in September 755 he disembarked in Almuñécar.

With the support of the jund or Syrian army of al-Andalus, he defeated the Abbasid government in the battle of Al-Musara (756) and was named emir by his supporters. Abd al-Rahman, called al-Muhājir ('the emigrant'), will rule defensively, that is, pending the conspiracies of supporters of the Abbasids and other groups, particularly the Berbers and the Yemenis, who will revolt several times between the years 766 and 776. Abd al-Rahman relies on the army, which is increased in numbers, and appoints people he trusts to administration posts. He also surrounds himself with a personal guard.

Al-Andalus thus becomes politically independent, although Abd al-Rahman will avoid making explicit his non-recognition of the caliph of Baghdad in order to maintain the appearance of unity in the umma or Muslim community. After his death, al-Andalus was a fully structured State. Four other emirs will succeed him before the country also becomes independent on a religious level, giving rise to the Caliphate of Córdoba.

The Caliphate of Córdoba (929-1031)

The mosque of Cordoba, the most well-known monument of the West Osmeyas.

It will be the emir Abd al-Rahman III, an-Nāsir, who consummates the break with the East by proclaiming himself caliph in the year 929, since in any case the umma had been split by creation, in Tunisia, of the Shiite caliphate of the Fatimids. He proclaimed himself caliph based on different arguments that gave solidity to his decision. On the one hand, the family came from the Quraysh tribe, to which Muhammad belonged and had stopped the attempts of the Christians from the north to reconquer al-Andalus. With this, the Umayyads consolidate their position of power and at the same time consolidate the position of the country abroad.

After the occupation of Melilla in 927, in the mid-x century, the Umayyads controlled the triangle formed by Algeria, Siyilmasa and the Atlantic Ocean. The power of the caliphate also extended to the north and in 950 the Holy Roman Empire exchanged ambassadors with Córdoba. In the north of the Iberian Peninsula, the small Christian kingdoms began to pay tribute to the Caliphate, enduring all kinds of impositions in exchange for peace.

This is the most splendor political stage of the Islamic presence in the Iberian Peninsula, although it did not last long since, in practice, its heyday ended in 1010. Officially, the caliphate continued to exist until 1031, the year in which it was abolished as a result of the fitna ('civil war') caused by the possession of the throne among the supporters of the last legitimate caliph, Hisham II and his successors of its prime minister or háyib, Almanzor. The end of the caliphate gave way to the fragmentation of al-Andalus into various kingdoms known as Taifa kingdoms, and which was the cause of its decline, favoring the expansion of Christian territories at its expense.

Survival of the Umayyads

After the disintegration of the Caliphate of Córdoba, the lineage of the Umayyads slowly fades into the population of al-Andalus.

At the end of the 16th century, the Moorish Fernando de Córdoba y Válor from Granada, a descendant of the Umayyads, will be elected king of the Moors during the so-called War of the Alpujarras, changing his Christian name to the Arabic Muhámmad ibn Umayya, who will go down in the chronicles as Abén Humeya. When he died for treason, his cousin Abén Aboo succeeded him, who was defeated by D. Juan de Austria. Once defeated they settled in the Valencian region where they were still allowed to practice Islam; proof of this is that the expulsion that took place in 1609 was materialized by the departure from the port of Alicante of more than a million people. It is very likely that some Umayyads of the line of Muhammad ibn Umayya still exist in Spain under Spanish surnames such as Umayyad, Benjumea or Alomía.

Some genealogists and Arabists think that the Spanish surname Benjumea and its variants (Benhumea, Benjumea, Benhumeda, Benumeya, Alomía, etc.) comes from the Arabic Ibn Umayya and therefore its bearers could be descendants of the Umayyads. However, due to the obligation of the Moors who remained in Spain after the expulsion of 1609 to become Christianized, we could contemplate some possibilities in some Christianized variants of the Umayyad surname. Keeping the Arabic triconsonantal root ' m intact and ignoring the first ' which has no equivalent in Spanish or Catalan, we could witness consonantal variants such as m-y, m-ll or m-y-r, m-ll-r or some others.^{[citation needed]}

The Umayyad banner was white.

List of Umayyad Caliphs

This list includes the members of the Umayyad family who rose to power in any of the states formed by this dynasty.