The Umayyad Caliphate
(661 - 750 CE)
'Ali
Upon Muhammad's death, a hastily collected group of prominent Muslim leaders elected
Muhammed's father in law, Abu Bakr, to be the secular head of Islam.
However, 'Ali, Muhammed's son-in-law and cousin, was not part of this
committee nor were other members of Muhammed's immediate family, and
many believed that Muhammed had designated 'Ali as a successor, for
the Traditions had Muhammed naming him as both his brother and his
successor. 'Ali had been raised with Muhammed and was the second
person (after Muhammed's wife Khadija) to recognize Muhammed's role
as a prophet; he was the first of Muhammed's tribe to declare himself
an apostle (rasul ). But the Meccan and Medinan leaders, with
no members of Muhammed's house present, gave their allegiance to Abu
Bakr as CalipH and attempted through force of arms to coerce 'Ali
into acknowledging Abu Bakr as well. However, during the Caliphates
of Abu Bakr and his successor, 'Umar, not only did 'Ali not advance
any claims to the Caliphate, he even participated in the government
of 'Umar. It was not until the Caliphate passed to 'Uthman, who ruled
somewhat degenerately and was a member of the Umayya family, which
had fiercely fought against Muhammed during his lifetime, that 'Ali
was provoked into accepting the Caliphate. 'Uthman placed members of
his family in charge of various provinces and they ruled
disgracefully; various rebel factions, seeing their grievances
unredressed, attacked 'Uthman's house and assassinated him. The
prominent families of Medina and other areas persuaded 'Ali to become
Caliph, which he did in 656; 'Ali had become the fourth Caliph of
Islam and the last of the Patriarchal caliphs.
The Umayyads in charge of the various governments
would not accept this arrangement and rose up in rebellion and named
Mu'awiyya caliph. Eventually, 'Ali would be forced to flee Medina and
settle in Kufa in Iraq. 'Ali would eventually have to contend with
dissension in his own army while fighting the Umayyads; after
defeating these dissenters in battle, he would be assassinated a few
years later by one of them in revenge for this defeat.
From this point onwards, authority was divided in
the Islamic world. The Umayyads continued to pass the Caliphate down
through the ages among their family; but their now existed in Iraq a
separate Islamic community that did not recognize the authority of
the Umayyad Caliphs. Rather they recognized only the successors to
'Ali as authorities, and they gave these successors the title Imam,
or spiritual leader of Islam, both to differentiate their leaders
from the more worldly and secular Umayyads and because Abu Muhammed
Hasan ibn 'Ali, the second Imam, ceded the Caliphate to the Umayyads.
A grand total of ten Imams succeeded 'Ali, passing the Imamate down
to their sons in hereditary succession. However, the eleventh Imam,
Hasan al-Askari, died without a son, and the Shi'ites were thrown
into disarray. Shi'a Islam divided into several different sects, the most important of which was
the Qat'iyya ("those who are certain"). The Qat'iyya
believed that Hasan al-Askari did indeed have a son, Muhammed al-Mahdi;
one of the Qat'iyya sects believed that Muhammed al-Mahdi, the
twelfth Imam, had hidden himself and remained in hiding. This sect
was called Ithna-'Ashari (Twelver) or Imami (Imam) Shi'a, and was the
form of Shi'a that eventually came to exclusively represent Shi'ism.
The Kharjites
The civil war between the followers of 'Ali (Shi'a
'Ali) and the Umayyads produced another Islamic faction, the Kharjites,
which would be a force in early Islamic history. The Kharjites were
originally followers of 'Ali who grew disaffected when 'Ali began
bargaining with the Umayyads. 'Ali's strength had always been his
religious piety and his firm conviction that the Islamic world had
strayed from its ethical and religious principles. He attracted
followers that were equally devout and equally zealous—when he
began to strike bargains with the Umayyads, some of these followers
felt that now 'Ali, too, had betrayed Islam. They formed a separate
faction, the Kharjites, and took it upon themselves to carry the
banner for Islamic purity. One of their most significant first acts
was the assassination of 'Ali.
Many people in early Islam agreed in principle
with the Kharjites and mourned the steady secularization of the
Islamic leadership and the Islamic world. However, many who did not
agree with the Kharjites still rallied around them. Throughout the
Umayyad and the early Abassid period, the Kharjite movement was the
center of almost all the opposition to these two caliphate dynasties.
There are still Kharjites around today, mainly in North Africa and
southern Arabia, but they were the most significant oppositional
group in early Islam.
The Umayyad Dynasty
The Umayyads do not fare well in Islamic history
which tells a tale of an unremitting line degenerate and weak
caliphs; western historians have for the most part accepted this
history. But the truth may be somewhat grayer. The Umayyads saw a
great expansion of Islamic empire and were responsible for building a
highly efficient and lasting governmental structure. The Umayyad
caliphs could be startlingly brilliant both militarily and
politically. And there is no question, that Islamic material and
artistic culture has its roots in the Umayyad dynasty and the courts
of Umayyad power.
This is not to say that the Umayyad caliphate was
not unmarred by degeneracy and downright cruelty. But the Umayyads
seem to be fairly uninterested in religious questions or the
religious obligations of their position—it is rather as secular and
secularizing rulers that their interest and greatness lies.
Muhammad and the Patriarchal Caliphs integrated
themselves closely with the Islamic community—the entire religion
is founded on an unprecedented egalitarianism. These caliphs lived
fairly normal and unpretentious lives and did not seek to separate
themselves in dress or manner from the community they ruled.
Mu'awiyya and the Umayyads, however, adopted models of kingship from
surrounding peoples. They separated their court from the Muslim
community and surrounded themselves with wealth and ceremony. This
was a model of leadership based on the idea that authority was vested
in super-normal individuals, a radically different turn of events in
the Muslim world. This model, however, is what kept the new empire
together. While nomadic and sedentary Arabs were completely
accustomed to the tribal patriarchal model that the early caliphs
followed, subject populations only understood authority as it was
vested in a powerful and distant monarch. Under the Umayyads, then,
the caliphate became something much closer to a monarchy rather than
a tribal or religious leadership.
The first Umayyad caliph, Mu'awiyya, also
introduced a new method of selecting caliphs. The caliphate was a
unique institution in that the caliph was elected by a small group of
powerful tribal leaders. Mu'awiyya convinced the most powerful to
recognize his son, Yazid, as the next caliph. Technically, Yazid was
still elected; in reality, he was selected by his father to succeed
him. This would become the model of caliphal succession—the
reigning caliph would name his successor and the notable would elect
that named successor. So the Umayyad caliphate was essentially a
hereditary dynasty. It is for this reason that Islamic historians do
not call the Umayyad period a caliphate, but rather use the term
"kingdom" (mulk).
The Umayyads wrought many changes in Islamic
government. The most significant of these was the adoption of
Byzantine administrative and financial systems. Mu'awiyya had moved
the administrative center of Islam from Medina to Damascus in Syria,
right in the heart of the Byzantine presence in the Fertile Crescent.
He was persuaded by his closest advisors to adopt the Byzantine
administration he found in Damascus and he appointed a large number
of Byzantine administrators and counselors—almost all of these were
Christians.
The establishment of wealth and monarchical
trappings led to bitter opposition among many Muslims. It was seen as
a fundamental perversion of the religious and social principles of
Islam. At the same time, however, the establishment of a monarchical
and court culture began an efflorescence of Islamic culture in art,
architecture, and writing.
Despite much of the irreligious character of his
caliphate, Mu'awiyya was an enormously brilliant and effective ruler.
During his tenure, Islam enjoyed twenty years of internal peace and
solidified its control over Iraq and Iran. Mu'awiyya was an effective
adminstrator and staffed administrative positions with the best
administrators he could find. He also embodied fully the Arabic
virtue of hilm, or "leniency," and generously
forgave even some of his worst enemies. That forgiveness and leniency
is what helped to establish the new administrative structure the
Umayyads were building.
Second Civil War
(680-694)
With the death of Mu'awiyya in 680 and the
succession of his son, Yazid, a second civil war broke out with the
followers of 'Ali. Yazid had some of the administrative effectiveness
of Mu'awiyya, but none of the moral restraint and certainly no
portion of the hilm that characterized his father. Anxious to
force 'Ali's son, Husayn, to recognize his authority, Yazid
eventually killed Husayn and a handful of his followers at Karbala in
Iraq. This intemperate act inspired the people of Medina to revolt—Yazid
put down this revolt and then laid siege to Mecca. In the middle of
the siege, however, he died, and the caliphate was bestowed on his
adolescent son, Mu'awiyya II. But the young boy soon died and the
Islamic world fell into disarray over competing claims to the
caliphate—the hereditary caliphate was still too young in its
establishment.
The Arabian people were by now scattered all over
the Islamic world. Two tribes based in Syria, the Qays and the Kalb,
rallied around two separate candidates for caliph: Marwan ibn al-Hakam
and Ibn al-Zubayr. A bitter war was fought between the two tribes and
Marwan, backed by the Kalbites, became caliph in 684 and founded a
new Umayyad dynasty. But because he died a year later, the reconquest
of Islamic lands would fall to his son 'Abd al-Malik, who ruled from
685 to 705 (65-86 AH). When 'Abd al-Malik
became caliph, all of Arabia was under the control of his rival, Ibn
al-Zubayr, while much of Iraq had fallen under the control of a rebel
named al-Mukhtar. al-Mukhtar was defeated by Ibn al-Zubayr and, in
692, 'Abd al-Malik defeated Ibn al-Zubayr at Mecca. So desperate was
he for victory, that he showered Mecca and the Ka'aba with catapults
and freely destroyed the holy place.
His victory cemented Umayyad control over Islam;
however, both the Shi'a and the Kharjites would remain powerful
oppositional forces.
The Later Umayyads
With the Islamic world enjoying a measure of
stability, Abd al-Malik's son and successor, al-Walid I (705-715 AD/86-96 AH), began again Islamic conquests and took
the early Islamic empire to its farthest extents. He reconquered
parts of Egypt from the Byzantines and moved on into Carthage and
across to the west of North Africa. Then, in 711, Muslim armies
crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and began to conquer Spain using
North African Berber armies. By 716, the Visigoths of Spain had been
defeated and Spain was under Muslim control. This would be the
farthest extent of Islamic control of Europe—in 736, they were
stopped in their expansion into Europe south of Tours, France. In the
east, Islamic armies made it as far as the Indus River in 710—under
al-Walid, the caliphal empire stretched from Spain to India!
Al-Walid also began the first great buiilding
projects of Islam, the most famous of which is the mosque at
Damascus. The long history of Islamic architecture really begins with
al-Walid. This is also the period, however, in which Islamic court
culture begins to germinate. With the caliph as a patron, artists and
writers begin to develop a new, partly secular culture based on
Islamic ideas.
It was also al-Walid that coupled islamicization
with arabicization. Conversion was not forced on conquered peoples;
however, since non-believers had to pay an extra tax and were not
technically citizens, many people did convert for religious and
non-religious reasons. This created several problems, particularly
since Islam was so closely connected with being Arab—being Arab, of
course, was more than an ethnic identity, it was a tribal identity
based on kinship and descent. As more and more Muslims were
non-Arabs, the status of Arabs and their culture became threatened.
In particular, large numbers of Coptic-speaking (Egypt) and
Persian-speaking Muslims threatened the primacy of the very language
that Islam is based on. In part to alleviate that threat, al-Walid
instituted Arabic as the only official language of the empire. He
decreed that all administration was to be done only in Arabic. It was
this move that would cement the primacy of Arabic language and
culture in the Islamic world.
The Fall of the Umayyads
None of the remaining Marwani caliphs
enjoyed long reigns except for Hisham, who ruled from 724-744
(105-132). During this period, the Muslims expanded out of Spain and
into France until their advance was finally stopped by the Franks in
736.
When Hisham died in 743, the empire collapsed into
a series of rebellions mostly by disaffected non-Arabs and by the
Kharjites. It was one such rebellious group, the 'Abassids, that
would finally overthrow the dynasty. The 'Abassids were descendants
of al-Abbas, the paternal uncle of Muhammad. Like the followers of
'Ali and the Kharjites, the 'Abassids believed that the spirit of
Islam had been betrayed by the secular-minded Umayyads—as relatives
of Muhammad, their pietism had a concrete character to it.
It was when the 'Abassids allied themselves with
the 'Alids that the death-knell of Umayyad power was sounded. With
their combined forces, they defeated the last of the Marwani calphis,
Marwan II (744-750/127-32), who was later murdered. The leader of the
'Abassids, Abu'l-'Abbas, went about systematically and ruthlessly
killing as many Umayyads as he could find.
Sources: Islam
from Washington State University, �Richard Hooker, reprinted by
permission.
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