A Synopsis Of Banu Umayyah s Caliphate

يَزْهُو بِهِ تَارِيخُنَا الإِسْلامِـيْ
لمِئَةٍ وَ(بَاْ) وَ(لامٍ) وُطِّدَاْ (2)

ومِنْ عُلُومٍ و تَعَالِيْمٍ تُهِـمْ (4)

مُلْـكُ بَني أُمَيَّـةَ الكِـرَامِ
مِنْ عَامِ أَرْبَعِينَ مُلْكُهُمْ بَدا
وكَمْ فُتُوحَاتٍ جَلِيْلَةٍ لهُمْ (3)

The Dome of the Rock - Jerusalem

(1) The author Allah mercy his soul presented here some advantages and merits of Umayyad state and then detailed the causes of the fall of their state. We will quote here also the reasons for the falling of the Umayyad using words from the History scholars that would support the authors’ poetry.

Before starting we need to clear that the Arab state as subsequently it will be referred to later is the state that has passed the following three phases:

Islamic Da`wah stage.
The Rightly Guided Caliphates’ Stage.
The Umayyad State Stage.

It has been described as the Arabic State because Arabs who were holding its banner and flag, and the accomplisher of its affairs until the end of the Umayyad state. When the Abbasid state had the regimen , matters of the Islamic State handed over to the Persians or to nations that converted to Islam such as The Persians , The Turks and Berbers. (Fi altarikh ala'basi wala'ndlsi –The Abbasid and Indlosian History-D.Ahmed Mukhtar ALAbadi P9) .

(2) It has been mentioned previously and in details that , the Umayyad state ruled in the year 40 a.h. by Muawiya ibn Abi Sufian may Allah be pleased with him, and ended in the year 132 a.h. when Marwan II Allah mercy his soul was in Caliph . The letter B in the poem الباء is the second character in alphabet, its symbolized by the number 2 as well the letter L اللام symbolized by the number 30.

(3) The Revivals of Umayyad are alot ,we will mention it in the following order:

Expansion of the Arab state in the east of the Islamic world.
Conquest of Transoxiana : During the reign of Yazid Bin Muawiya: Salm ibn Ziyad the governor of Khurasan who conquest the region of Khiva; and across the Oxus River, along with his wife, and send an army To Khjendh which was defeated ,knowing that the conquest of Transoxiana was not activated until AlHajjaj bin Yusuf was the governor of Khorasan with the Iraqi people in the year of 78 a.h in the era of Abdul Malik Bin Marwan who appoint Muhallab ibn Abi ALSufrah as a ruler for Khorasan who leaded expeditions against Sughd. When Al-Muhallab died ALYazid In AlMuhalab was appointed as the ruler for Khorasan by ALHajajj . In his reign Muslims leaded by Musa bin Abdullah bin Khazim clashed with Al-Hiatelah the residents of Turkestan province and defeated them and Musa took over Termez .
- the conquest included Bukhara , Samarqand and Tashkent between the years 89a.h-95a.h , then the conquests of Qutaiba were influenced by the death of Hajjaj ibn Yusuf in Shawwal 95 A.H. Qutayba was killed in the year of 96 a.H.
Conquest of Gorgan and Tabaristan: Yazid bin Muhallab marched within one hundred thousand of the people from Syria, Iraq and Khurasan, He managed to conquest it; then crawled to Tabaristan.
Conquests of Sindh: In the year 44a.h during the reign of Muawiya, AlMuhalab Bin AlSufrah captured Kiknan . During the time of AlHajajj he appointed his nephew Muhammad Bin ALQasim ALThaqafi in the year 89a.h in a campaign to invade Sindh which was conquest and he built a mosque .Then he marched with his army toward the old Barhamnabad and captured it , He then captured Aror the capital of Dahir . then and by this time he had the possession of almost all major parts of Sindh,then he moved towards Banghal .In the reign of Hisham Bin Abdul Malik the governance of Sindh was given to Junaid Bin Abdulrahman al-Marri.

B- The expansion of the Arab world in the west of the Islamic world.

1 - Muslim conquest of Maghreb –North Africa (Seven Stages) :

The first stage: Mu'awiya ibn Hudayj went out of Egypt in the year of 45 a.h.at the head of a huge army to invade Ifriqiya, until he reached to Cartagena ,and from there he sent two armies, one led by Abdullah bin Zubair targeting Sousse which managed to defeat and conquest it, and the second with the commands of Abdullah Bin Marwan heading to Jalawla which he Sieged it . Afterwards Mu'awiya ibn Hudayj went north and conquest Bizerte. Then invaded Sicily in the year 45 a.h . At last He concluded his conquests by the opening of the island of Djerba 47 a.H. through Roifea’a Bin Thabit ALAnsary.

The Second Stage: Uqbah went to AL -Maghreb in the year of 49 a.h. Who realized that to Conquest this country, it is imperative to create an Arabic Islamic base in Africa, so he set up a military posts at regular intervals along his route. In a region of what is now called Tunisia, he established a town now called Kairouan in the year 50a.h and founded the Great Mosque of Kairouan which became the capital of the Islamic civilization in North Africa in the era of Umayyad Caliphate.

The third stage: The governance of Uqbah in Africa did not last more than 5 years when Muawiyah Bin Abi Sufyan isolated him in the year 55 a.h and assigned Maslama Bin Makhlid ALAnsari the ruler of Egypt to attack Tlemcen and Cartagena who defeated it and been conquest.

The Fourth Stage : When Muawiya died in 60 AH his successor Son Yazid isolated Abu al-Muhajir Dinar and returned Uqbah to rule Africa, who went with his army towards the city of Tahwadeh to seize it and take Uras area as a base for his troops, and as he was approaching Uras he found himself surrounded by crowds from the barbaric under the leadership of Ksila, where a battle happened in between them and Uqbah was martyred then leader Kusaila was able to seize Kairouan in the year of 64a.h.

The Fifth stage: In the succession of Malik ibn al-Hakam, he sent Zuhair bin Qais to retrieve Kairouan the year 69 AH , he Clashed with Kusaila and defeated him and then entered Kairouan . While Zuhair bin Qais was returning to Egypt, The Byzantines cut his way and after a battle accrued between them, Zuhair was martyred in Berqh- Cyrenaica. In the year 74a.h Abdul Malik moved an army with the leadership of Hassan b. al-Nu'man who attacked Carthage, overcame and sacked it and clashed in a battle beside a river which was later called the Affliction River, Hassan was defeated and the Muslims army withdraw back to Berqh- Cyrenaica- and lost their dominance of North Africa.

Sixth stage: Hassan lived in Cyrenaica approximately four years, until Abdul Malik sent him huge supplies that encouraged him to determine to attack The Byzantines in Carthage and before reaching them, most of The Byzantines run away through the sea. Hassan decided to build an Islamic city towards Cartagena located on the sea, and he built Tunisia and in it, he established a mosque and the house of the Emarah ,and worked hardly to spread The Arabic language and The Islamic religion , also he distributed scholars throughout al-Maghrib .

The Seventh stage: During the reign of Abdul Aziz bin Marwan as Wali- The governor of Egypt; he assigned the Muslim military leader to Musa Ibn Nusair, who substantially completed the conquest of al-Maghrib. Ibn Nusair took the city of Tangier on the Atlantic coast, except a stronghold an unconquered Visigothic outpost remained nearby at Ceuta the symbol of recalcitrance which was supplied by Spain.

2The Conquest of Al-Andalus : Ceuta, a stronghold was commanded by a nobleman named Julian the last king of the Goths , and Spain was ruled by Roderic who was the governor of Cordoba. Musa bin Nusayr appointed Ṭāriq Bin Zyad as governor of Tangiers after its conquests and to lead the army to conquest Andalus , who sailed from the port of trip Tangier on the fifth of Rajab 92 AH and Seized Cartagena Island , Roderic troops clashed in a battle with the Muslim troops who defeated them in the 28th of Ramadan from the same year. After the victory of Tariq he rushed with his armies to Toledo, the capital which was conquest in the year of 93 a.h . Then Musa Bin Nasir crossed to Andalusia in cooperation with Tariq in the conquest of the rest of Andalusia. In the era of Musa son Abdulaziz, Muslims conquest the west of Andalusia in the year of 95 a.h while the east and southeast of Andalusia conquest in 96 a.h.

It was the fate of who was succeeded from the rulers of Andalusia to expand the Islamic authority of Peninsula. (History of the Arab state » briefly «; D.AlSaid Abdulaziz Salem p. 351-375).

4 - The manifestations of the Arab civilization in the era of the Umayyad State can be divided briefly as the following:

A.The administrative systems:

1-The Caliphate and The Ministry (Al-Wizara )

The Caliphate system was transformed since the establishment of the Umayyad dynasty to tyrannical reign. The ministry-(AlWizara ) has been founded in the Umayyad period in terms of designation without jurisdiction.

2-The Divans (Omar Bin Al-Khatab was the first who created the Divan System among the Muslim caliphate) .

a.Diwan al-Jund –Militery Department : The Diwan of Umar assigning annuities to all Arabs and to the Muslim soldiers of other races underwent a change in the hands of the Umayyads. The Umayyads meddled with the register and the recipients regarded pensions as the subsistence allowance even without being in active service. Hisham reformed it and paid only to those who participated in battle. The Diwan stayed in Arabic since Umar established it .

-The organizational clauses: When Caliph Omar bin Khattab wanted to organize Diwan al-Jund he consulted the Prophet companions may Allah be pleased with them who agreed to enact laws of this organization which was three as follows:

·The first clause: The identification of Soldiers and their description, as five conditions shall be considerate: The Puberty, freedom, being a Muslim, healthy and free from diseases and Disabilities that forbid him from fighting also his knowledge of the fighting Arts.

·The second clause: with regards to their way of rising, as the following conditions must be considerate, soldiers degree of kinship to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) ,their precedence in Islam , jihad (holy fighting)and their races of Arab and Ajam (non-Arabs).

·The third clause: concerning the al-Ata’a estimation, as the estimation would be according to sufficiency and it is divided into three divisions: the number of children and servants’ they are counting on the soldiers, the number of horses and animals he owns and the prices rises and fallen.

These conditions used to be reviewed every year and to be change as needed.

Also the following were clauses listed to organize the work in the Divan:

·Any soldier express a desire of leaving the army, will be allowed to in a condition that he is dispensed by the army itself, while as long as he is needed in army he cannot leave unless he is excused.

· Any soldier declined fighting when he is capable of, will be declined his salary –ALAta’a- but in case he was unable of fighting he will still receive the salary.

·The solider –Fighter- will be compensates for what he spent in the fighting-the battle – as the mare and weapons.

·If the soldier is died or was killed the Ata’a will be deserved for his heirs and will become a debt owed to them in the house of money (Bait Al-Mal) .

b- Diwan al kharaj ( Al -Tax Department): it’s the Central Board of Revenue administered the entire finances of the empire. It also imposed and collected taxes and disbursed revenue. The first one who transfer the writing language From Persian into Arabic in Khurasaan was Yitzhak Bin Taliq in the reign of Hisham 124a.h.

c- Diwan al-Rasa'I – A regular Board of Correspondence was established under the Umayyads - Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan era . It issued state missives and circulars to the Central and Provincial Officers. It co-ordinated the work of all Boards and dealt with all correspondence as the chief secretariat, supervised by ALKhazen –The Guardian

d- Diwan al-Khatam : (Bureau of Registry) a kind of state chancellery, was instituted by Mu'awiyah. It used to make and preserve a copy of each official document before sealing and dispatching the original to its destination. One of the reasons for establishing it was to seal every document before dispatching and nobody will know the Secret contents of it except the caliph.

e- Diwan al-Barid : Mu'awiyah introduced the postal service for the purpose of transferring

messages and letters between the Caliphat and his rulers in different regions in an infinite speed .

3 Diwan al-Qudat : ( judiciary) the selection and appointment of judges use to be administered by the Caliphat (Successor )

(4)Currencies: In the succession of Othman bin Affan dirhams was minted and the phrase (Allah is great), was engraved. Pre-existing coins remained in use, but with phrases from the Quran stamped on it. Then the Umayyad government by Abdul Malik Bin Marwan began to mint his coins in Damascus, which were similar to pre-existing coins, who also struggled to unify the monetary system in the most of the Arabic world.

This accrued in two stages:

First: The golden Dinars were mint similar to the Byzantine and Sassanid Empires coins.

Second: Abdul Malik excluded the Byzantine effects totally when he engraved his picture instead of Hercules and his two sons, in spite that the Dinar of the second stage as preface for issuing the Islamic Dinar in the year 77 a.h .

(5) Al-Tiraz: Arabs Abandoned their coarse clothes after the conquests. And they started dress up smartly ,for this reason the industry of weaving had Boomed, and Arabs took advantage from Egypt which was famous before Islam with its textile industry and used this fame in making of the covering of the Ka ' bah.

b- The Commonness luxury in civil society: Omar bin al-Khattab may Allah be pleased with him was keen that Arabs should be committed after their Conquests to keep the Roughness, austerity and asceticism; fearing that the civilized life will sweep them away in its stream. But unfortunately the austerity policy by Omar ended by his death as during Othman Succession Arabs started the luxury life, spending a lot in their food, drinks and cloths, as Othman was not committed with this policy as Omar. Also they replaced their old houses with decorated palaces. In the Umayyad period a lot of Muslims became fan with hearing music and singing especially the rich people after being impacted by the money flow after their conquests.

c- The Intellectual life: Intellectual movement has Boomed in the Umayyad period, covering areas of the Islamic Sciences, The history and geography Science and Mental science such as Philosophy, Astronomy ,Mathematics and Natural Sciences, below is a summary of the Intellectual activities :

1-The Islamic Sciences: The first sciences Arabs learned. They founded schools to teach the basics of the Islamic religion in regions they conquests. Muslim scholars started at an early date teaching the study of the Qur'an and thus the sciences of readings as interpretation developed. In addition to the Qur'an, scholars paid great attention to the sayings of the Prophet and thus began the science of Hadith (Tradition). The Qur'an and Hadith formed the basis of fiqh (jurisprudence) science. One of the most important sciences of them all was the science of modes of recitation, which is the basis of the interpretation science and the science of Hadith (knowledge of hadith). A number of religious disciplines used in the study and evaluation of the Islamic hadith (the collections of the reports of what the Islamic prophet Muhammad said verbatim on any matter) by Muslim scholars. One from the most famous narrators in the Umayyad was al imam al awza'i.

2-The scientific language: Despite the predominance of illiteracy and Nomadism among Arabs before Islam –Al-Jahiliya –The classical Arabic language which is the language of the Holy Quran as well as the masterpieces of ancient Arabic poetry, was the only of what they carry from the Arabian Peninsula to the era of Islam to spread it among most of the regions they conquest. The Islamic law and the political and administrative systems have originated new terms and verbs that were not used before among Arabs. Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi al-Azdi was the first Arabic Muslim who collected the Arabic terms in one dictionary.

3-The History Science : the Islamic historical studies started in the beginning by treatise the biography of the prophet (Muhammad ) , the invasions News , the News of Muslim immigration-Hijah to Abyssinia and then to Madina .The historical news used to be drawn from the trusted Memorizers. AlSeera (the prophet (SAAW) bio) Historians and the invasions Historians of Madina and Mecca were divided into three classes : in the first class , Apan bin Othman bin Affan and Urwah ibn al-Zubayr. While in the second class there is Abdullah ibn Abi Bakr ibn Hazm Al Ansari and in the third class there is Muhammad ibn Ishaq who attributed to him the oldest books of Biography –The Prophet Seera . During the Umayyad state a school specialized in teaching History was founded in Basra and Kufa. From the well-known Historians who worked in the narration of the Arabic news before Islam Obaid bin Sharih Jerhma and Wahab bin Munabih .

4-Islamic Theology: 'Ilm al-kalam (literally 'the science of debate') which evolved from the political and religious controversies that engulfed the Muslim community in its formative years especially in The Umayyad state. Philosophical religious movements such as The Necessitarianism, Fatalism and Mu'tazila. The Necessitarianism or Jabriyya is a metaphysical principle that denies all mere possibility; there is exactly one way for the world to be. Each of which deny free will, reasoning that human actions are predetermined by Allah. The fatalism Al-Qadariyya, which adopted the concept of the freedom of will.

5-The Umayyad Poetry: is one of the most interesting and important for the critic of poetry, more than the verse of any other period prior to modern times, Umayyad poetry was in dynamic development, registering obliquely and directly, the deeper changes in the spiritual condition of the times. From the poetry art styles that was renewed in this period was ALGhazal – (The love poetry-), the political poetry, the lampoonery, the Oratory and pious poetry and the Proudness poetry plus the other kinds that resulted from these kinds as the antithesis poetry. From the most important poets of the Umayyad (in the political poetry): Akhtal, Greer, Farazdaq, Kumait, Abdullah bin Qais Alrkiet and Imran bin Hattane. In the virtuous love poetry which was burgeons in the Valley of the Hijaz, Jamil Bin Muammar. And from the poets who registered a record in the praise of Abdul Malik bin Marwan was Al-Akhtal, Jarir in the praise of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and the Triplets’ of the lampoonery poetry Al-Akhtal , Jarir and Al-Farazdaq who were well known with the antithesis poetry.

6-Arabization and the start of scientific translation: While the translation in the Umayyad period were limited on chemistry, astronomy and medicine, it became wider in the Abbasid state that included Philosophy, logic ,the experimental sciences and Literary books.

The Religious and civil establishments: Umayyad Caliphs were men of war and conquests, Policy and management as well as men of buildings and Architecture. The building of new cities and the development of the old ones accompaning by the construction of an appreciable number of mosques and palaces was a well- known feature of the Umayyad. The limits of the Umayyad dynasty widened to extent that it is necessary to connect the parts of this state with a network of paved roads and to facilitate the Communication between the state edges and the capital Damascus, as well as to make the movement of armies so easy.

Also due to the religious obligation AL-Hajj - the pilgrimage to Maccah- they had to Pave all the ways linking Mecca and Medina to the rest of the Islamic world to be easier for pilgrims to reach those Holy places without discomfort, with the spread of the markets and the restrooms that supply the travelers with their needs of food and drink.

Irrigation works and water distribution were very prominent among the state's achievements. The Islamic religion considered these among the chief duties of the state, also because the state included many agricultural countries with large rivers such as the Levant, Egypt, Iraq and Persia, so simultaneously building some canals for conveying drinking water and for irrigation was necessity.

The Umayyads built luxurious palaces; which is famous for its magnificent wall illustrations and decorations that represented the way of enjoying their life . In the recent years they discovered many of the mansions that was built in The Umayyad period which was decorated with pictures even in the bathrooms knowing that most of the Umayyad mansions discovered by archaeologists since the last century in the desert of Al-Sham (The Levant desert) in particular ,and that is because The Umayyads used to love the desert life aiming for the joy of the tranquility and the outdoor away from the noise of the cities.

Umayyad also were interested in buildings the civilian facilities such as roads, irrigation projects, palaces, and others. It was their greatest interest in the religious establishments in the forefront of it the mosques which was the first thing the Messenger of Allah did In Medina when he immigrated to it that he put the foundations of his great mosquethat the Prophet who taught his companions the laws of Islam and the arts of leadership in the fields of war, politics and administration . Afterwards most Muslims have followed the example of the Prophet everywhere they settled-in as in each new city they found, the first thing they care about is building the mosque as they did in Basra , Kufa , Fustat and the Kairouan etc ..

The building of mosques has occupied a prominent place In the era of Umayyad state who cared about building it in the whole Islamic world, they also increased the area of the mosques to occupy the large number of Muslims such as the Mosque of Sanaa and the Mosque of Amr ibn al-A’as, which was rebuilt during the reign of Walid bin Abdul Malik. The mosque of the Apostle of Allah was the first mosque that received attention from the Umayyad state, when Al-Walid Bin Abdul Malik ordered his cousin Omar Bin Abdul Aziz to expand and renovate the mosque by supplying him with huge amounts of money as well as construction and decoration materials such as mosaics to look great and wonderful.

Among the most famous Mosques in the Umayyad state, The construction of the Great Mosque in Damascus that was built by al-Walid Bin Abdul Malik who was fond of buildings and Construction, so much so that historians recall that the conversation of the people of his era were only about the construction and the architecture like their Caliphate . Al-Waleed worked hard and he spent a lot of money in building that mosque to make it a symbol of the greatness of Islam and the Islamic State, this mosque is still existing until now witnessing the greatness of its construction.

The mosques’ had spread in most of the Islamic Statesduring the Umayyad period such as The Kairouan mosque which was built by Uqba bin Nafa’a which was built during the reign of Muawiya ibn Abi Sufian in the years 50-55 A.H ,and Zitouna Mosque in Tunisia, which was built during the reign of Caliph Hisham bin Abdul King the year 114 AH, alsoAl-Jame’a Mosque in Wasit, Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi Mosque, the Jama Masjid in Haran, and the mosque in Alexandria, known as the Mosque of the thousandth column.

Adapted from the book:

1- Studies in the History of the Umayyad dynasty

Professor Dr. Abdul Shafi Mohammed Abdul Latif.

2- Kitab al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyya

Abi ALHassan Al-maourdi