Umayyad Caliphate

11 Key excerpts on "Umayyad Caliphate"

• 

  eBook - PDF

  Medieval Islamic Political Thought

  • Patricia Crone(Author)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • EUP

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER 3 THE UMAYYADS As the Roman expansion had undermined the Roman republic, so the Muslim conquest of the Middle East destroyed the patriarchal regime in Medina. In both cases, civil war was followed by the emergence of an increasingly author-itarian monarchy. The Muslim counterpart to Augustus was Mu {a wiya ( 661 – 80 ), who moved the capital to Syria and founded the Umayyad dynasty ( 661 – 750 ), under whom the embryonic state founded by the Prophet acquired a more developed form. But the developments unleashed by the conquests con-tinued to transform Muslim society, rapidly making the political organization of the Umayyads obsolete, their orientation outmoded, and the dynasty itself heartily disliked. Within three generations they had come to be denounced as impious survivors from the pagan past who had somehow managed to hijack the Islamic enterprise. They were ousted in the third civil war, more precisely that part of it known as the { Abb a sid revolution. But contrary to what many had hoped, the trend towards more authoritarian government was not reversed. A fully-fledged, if shortlived, empire emerged under the { Abb a sids (effectively 750 – 861 ; fainéance 861 – 1258 ). All the fundamental questions first raised under the Umayyads continued to be debated down to the effective end of the { Abb a sid empire some hundred years after the revolution. Legitimacy By what right did the Umayyads rule? An extraordinary amount of medieval Islamic political thought is devoted to legitimation of the dynasty in power, and this was so already in Umayyad times. [ 33 ] The Umayyads grounded their right to the caliphate in the legitimacy of { Uthm a n. He had been lawfully elected by consultation ( sh u r a ) and unlawfully killed, indeed martyred; his Umayyad kinsmen and avengers had taken over his position as imam of guidance.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  The Wiley Blackwell History of Islam

  • Armando Salvatore(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  The Trajectory of the High Caliphate 119 Prophet’s grandson, and the introduction of hereditary rule and thus “kingship” ( mulk ), as opposed to religiously legitimate rule, which the Prophet himself famously denounced (Hawting 2000: 11–12). In his classic study of the Umayyads using Arabic sources from the ‘Abbasid era, the German orientalist Julius Wellhausen characterized their polity as a secular “Arab kingdom” founded on Arab tribal chauvinism with scant regard for Islam (Wellhausen 1963). However, it was the heightened sense of Arab identity of the Umayyads which held the spectacularly successful yet fragile Muslim polity together and shaped key tools to create a distinctive late antique civilization. The consolidation of Arabic as the primary language of religion, governance, literature, and science was an Umayyad master-stroke that enabled them to absorb the cultural resources of Byzantium while preserving their identity and lay the foundations without which the mature Islamic civilization of the Middle Periods, after 946, could not have come into being. These achievements were far from near when the Umayyads came to power in the aftermath of ‘Ali’s assassination (661), as Muslims struggled to come to terms with the thorny issue of leadership. In the 30 years since the death of the Prophet in 632, four caliphs supported by different factions had been nominated by their predecessor or elected, to use the term loosely, three of whom had died violent deaths as the stakes of empire rose. Although it was agreed that a caliph should be chosen by the community, there was no consensus as to whether he should be selected on the grounds of precedence of membership in the Muslim community ( sabiqa ), kinship with the Prophet, or aristocratic Qurayshi ancestry (see Chapter 4). The first appeal to hereditary succession occurred when some Muslims nominated ‘Ali’s son Hasan to succeed him as caliph.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Early Islamic Institutions

  Administration and Taxation from the Caliphate to the Umayyads and Abbasids

  • Abd Al-Aziz Duri(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • I.B. Tauris

    (Publisher)

  146 However, the frequent reliance of the caliph on inheritance rendered the form of rule gradually oriented more and more towards despotism. 147 On the other hand, the fuqah Æ≥ considered the caliphate of the Umayyads to be a worldly possession because it was incompatible with the divine law ( al-shar ≤ ). The fuqah Æ≥ in Medina were against the Umayyads. This 26 EARLY ISLAMIC INSTITUTIONS divergence between the caliphs and the fuqah Æ≥ influenced the theory of the caliphate, since it had been formulated against the will of the fuqah Æ≥ who were far from rule and continued to be far-removed from the knowledge of the political practice of it. So they did not pay heed to reality but neglected it, intentionally or inadvertently. 148 Thus, religion had its influence in the Umayyad age, with the caliph adhering to certain religious protocols. He led the people in prayers, delivered the sermon ( khu π bah ) to them on Fridays and sent his armies to distant regions to bring them under the banner of Islam. Moreover, religion had an influence on some of the Umayyad caliphs. For example, it has come down to us that Mu ≤Æ wiyah II was deeply devout; ≤ Umar bin ≤ Abdul ≤ Az ∞ z was influenced by religion in his policies; and Yaz ∞ d III came to rule in the name of Islamic principles. 149 Finally, we can assert that the caliphate system in the Umayyad era was a period of transition from the stage of election to that of absolute inheritance, which obtained in the ≤ Abb Æ sid era. The first ≤ Abb Æ sid era (132 AH /750 AD ) until the death of al-Mutawakkil (247 AH /861 AD ) The coming to power of the ≤ Abb Æ sids had an impact on the development of the system of caliphate.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  History of International Relations

  • Erik Ringmar(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Open Book Publishers

    (Publisher)

  4. The Muslim Caliphates 73 4. The Muslim Caliphates After the death of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina in 632, his followers on the Arabian Peninsula quickly moved in all directions, creating an empire which only one hundred years later came to include not only all of the Middle East and much of Central Asia, but North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula as well. This was known as the “caliphate,” from khalifah , meaning “succession.” Yet it was difficult to keep such a large political entity together and there were conflicts regarding who should be regarded as the rightful heir to the Prophet. Thus, the first caliphate was soon replaced by a second, a third and a fourth, each one controlled by rival factions. The first, the Rashidun Caliphate, 632–661, was led by the sahabah , the “companions” who were the family and friends of the Prophet and who were all drawn from Muhammad’s own Quraysh tribe. The second caliphate, the Umayyads, 661–750, moved the capital to Damascus in Syria. And while it did not last long, one of its offshoots established itself in today’s Spain and Portugal, known as al-Andalus, and made Córdoba into a thriving, multicultural center. The third caliphate, the Abbasids, 750–1258, presided over what is often referred to as the “Islamic Golden Age,” when science, technology, philosophy, and the arts flourished. The Abbasid capital, Baghdad, became a center in which Islamic learning combined with influences from Persia, India and even China. These achievements came to an abrupt halt when the Mongols sacked the city in 1258. From then on it was instead Cairo that constituted the center of the Muslim world. Yet the caliphs in Cairo too were quickly undermined, in this case by their own soldiers, an elite corps of warriors known as the mamluks .

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Islam

  The Religious and Political Life of a World Community

  • Gustave E. Von Grunebaum(Author)
  • 1984(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  The Umayyad dynasty, whose claims to legitimacy were challenged by the family of Ali and their still embryonic "party," among others, had need of those bedouin troops, and Damascus was probably a better place than Jerusalem to control the fractious tribes. The Umayyad rulers would go into their midst to distribute gifts and display their new imperial elan at the small but sumptuous "chateaus" that they built out along the steppe line from near Amman up into middle Syria. The Dome, the Aqsa, the Jerusalem palace (had it been com- pleted), and the desert palaces were the first flowering of the visual side of the new Muslim culture. The world of word and idea, spiritual ideas and the high art-speech of the Arabic tongue, was al- ready displayed—or, rather, engraved—in the heart of every one of that small band of Muslims. But here, on the land and in the cities that had already known and savored the high culture of the Greeks and Romans, a different kind of edifice had to be con- structed. Here the Umayyads' objective was not, as was God's Word and the Prophet's voice in the Qur'an, to move the heart to com- punction and the soul to spiritual submission. The goal was to an- nounce and glorify Islam, to impress the still unconverted masses of Christians and Jews, to instill confidence in the followers of the new faith, and, to be sure, to indulge in the architectural self-flat- tery that has characterized every regime that has ever put hand to stone. How successful the Umayyad enterprise was in all its aspects is transparent to anyone, Muslim or not, who has ever stood on the Mount of Olives and gazed down upon the Noble Sanctuary of Jerusalem. To some modern eyes—those of Westerners, for example, or some Arab nationalists—the Umayyad rule of the Dar al-Islam from 661 to 750 C.E.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates

  The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century

  • Hugh Kennedy(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  4 The Umayyad Caliphate

  DOI: 10.4324/9780429348129-4

  The Sufyanid caliphs: Mu‘āwiya and his family: 41–64/661–684

  The assassination of ‘Alī b. Abī Ṭālib in 40/661 left his rival Mu‘āwiya b. Abī Sufyān as the undoubted strongman of the Muslim community. Mu‘āwiya was by this time in his fifties, having been born in the first decade of the seventh century. His father, Abū Sufyān, had emerged as a leader of the Meccans in the years that followed the battle of Badr and had conducted the negotiations which brought the city to acknowledge the authority of the Prophet. His young son received a political education in the best traditions of the Quraysh. Like his father, he became a Muslim at the time of the conquest of Mecca, that is, later than many over whom he was subsequently to rule, but his education meant that he became one of Muhammad’s secretaries and part of the new Muslim élite. After Muḥammad’s death, he and his elder brother Yazīd went on the expeditions to Syria, where the family had owned property before the coming of Islam. Yazīd’s premature death from plague meant that Mu‘āwiya came to be the leader of the family and governor of Syria after the death of Abū ‘Ubayda. He remained the governor without interruption or challenge for the next twenty years, thus obtaining an unrivalled opportunity to build up and strengthen his power base in the province.

  While his place in the affections of the Syrians was secure, even his enemies attested that the problems he faced in the rest of the Islamic world were formidable. He had to assert not only his personal power but also the credibility of the caliphate and the unity of the Muslim community, which had been so badly damaged in the preceding years, and he faced opposition not just from people who resented his assumption of power, but from people who resented the whole idea of a strong and effective government. Perhaps his greatest achievement was to ensure that despite the stresses his policy inevitably caused, the Muslim world remained united enough to resist the attacks of its enemies and to expand its own borders.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Religious Scholars and the Umayyads

  Piety-Minded Supporters of the Marwanid Caliphate

  • Steven Judd(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  Part I The Umayyad problem in early Islamic history Passage contains an image

  1 Umayyad scholars in modern studies

  DOI: 10.4324/9781315890166-1

  The Umayyad era, particularly its Marwānid period (64/684–132/750), is crucial for understanding the emergence of Islamic legal and theological thought. During these decades the Muslim empire evolved from a rapidly expanding polity whose rulers relied on ad-hoc solutions into a more mature, bureaucratic regime. After ‘Abd al-Malik's success against the Zubayrids in 72/692, the empire's center of gravity shifted permanently from Arabia to the north, making old urban centers like Damascus and new ones like Kufa and Basra the focal points for administrative, intellectual, and religious development. The tribal arrangements of Arabian life were increasingly ill-suited for the complexities of the growing empire, which by now comprised more non-Arabs than Arabs.

  The urge to systematize and bureaucratize that characterized much of ‘Abd al-Malik's reign (r. 65/685–86/705) extended to intellectual and religious issues as well. It is no coincidence that ‘Alids, Kharijites, and other sectarian movements became threats during the Marwānid period. They, like their Marwānid enemies, sought tidy, uniform approaches to questions of doctrine and law. This tendency toward the articulation of more consistent doctrines, albeit competing ones, reflects the natural development of the faith itself. As the faith matured and zeal gave way to reflection, greater consistency and coherence became more desirable. Arguably, Islam as we know it today, including both its agreed doctrines and its deepest schisms, is the fruit of the labors of Marwānid-era thinkers addressing Marwānid-era questions and conflicts.

  Unfortunately, it remains extremely difficult to gain a clear picture of how these early debates played out. The lack of reliable contemporary sources, combined with the well-studied tendency of later authors to project more recent solutions back to the formative period of Islam, makes a coherent image of the Marwānid era elusive at best. One gets the clear impression that certain aspects of Islamic thought were coalescing and that particular theological and legal topics, such as human free-will and caliphal authority, were the focus of significant, increasingly sophisticated, debate. However, the evidence is scarce enough to make it difficult to gain many insights into the process by which legal and theological doctrines and practices were formed. Who contributed to the debate? How was consensus forged? What catalysts put particular topics on the agenda?

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  The Formation of al-Andalus, Part 1

  History and Society

  • Manuela Marin(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  22 This legitimacy formulated in the East seems to have been based on the inheritance, limited to the Marwanls, of the caliphate through 'Uthman. W. Montgomery Watt points out how Umayyad theology unduly accentuates pre-Islamic ideas of predestination; more-over, the principal argument for the Umayyads' exclusive claim to the caliphate was based on the idea of blood revenge, the heir being the avenger (God's Caliph, pp. 569, 572). The arguments put forward by 'Abd al-Ra}:lman to justify his adoption of the title of caliph-the central one being inheritance ( mfriith )-have been studied in depth by Maria Isabel Fierro (Sabre la adopcion del titulo califal, pp. 38, 41-42). See also M. HISTORY AND SOCIETY -----431 The Manifest Caliph 7 'Abd al-Ra~man always appears implacable when it comes to carrying out the design which both he as well as the palace chroniclers saw perfectly clearly. 23 On occasion, the account gives us a picture of how the ruling clique (khii~~a) that surrounded the caliph was organised, a group whose members ranged from the highest-ranking officials, both civil and religious, to members of the caliph's immediate family, as well as more distant relatives (Quraysh al-~ulb). Such is the case when we are told of the pact formalising the submission of Mu~ammad ibn Hashim al-Tujibi of Zaragoza, which has been studied by P. Chalmeta. 24 Regrettably, the volumes of the Muqtabis which would allow us to study the consolidation of the caliphate from the perspective of the palace itself have been lost. We have at our disposal only a report of the events of the years 360-64/971-75, by which time al-I:£akam Kably's analysis of the differences between the Umayyad caliphal institution and its so-cial base compared with its 'Abbasid successor-the former dynastic and Arab, the latter supranational-( Variations islamistes et identite du Maroc medieval, Paris, 1989, pp. 20-24).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Muslim Spain and Portugal

  A Political History of al-Andalus

  • Hugh Kennedy(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  There were a number of reasons for this important move. The Umayyads of Spain were fully aware that they were the descendants of the Umayyad caliphs of Damascus and they often used the honorific 'Sons of the Caliphs'. They could not be accused of being upstarts. They had probably been restrained from claiming the title before by the general feeling that there could only be one caliph in Islam at a time and the 'Abbasids held on to this honour. In the early tenth century, however, this had changed. During 'Abd al-Raḥmān's reign the 'Abbasid caliphate slid into chaos and the caliphs themselves lost all effective power. Cordoba was very well informed about events in the east and everyone would have been aware of the complete débâcle of 'Abbasid power, which made a mockery of their claims to lead the entire Muslim world.

  Events nearer home also had their effect. In 909 the Fatimids, who claimed descent from the Umayyads' arch-rival, 'Alī b. Abī Ṭālib, cousin and son-in-law to the Prophet, had captured Qayrawān, the then capital of Tunisia, and proclaimed themselves caliphs. This suggested that there could indeed be two caliphs at the same time, though the Fatimids, unlike the Umayyads of Spain, did have universal pretensions. If their old enemies could claim the title, should not the Umayyads do so too? The matter was made pressing by the growing influence of the Fatimids in the Maghreb: if the Umayyads were to counter this expansion, they too would have to boast an equal title.

  So it was that early in 929 'Abd al Raḥmān caused the khuṭba, the formal Friday sermon in the mosque when the ruler was publicly acknowledged, to be given by the qāḍī, Ahmad b. Bāqī, in his name as Commander of the Faithful.19 A letter was dispatched to all the provinces announcing his new title. At the same time he caused gold dīnārs to be minted for the first time for two centuries, a clear indication of his wealth but also of his status and so, as al-Rāzī put it, 'benefitting the people and completing the attributes of his sovreignty'. The chronicler goes on to comment on the excellent quality of the coins:20

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Opposing the Imam

  The Legacy of the Nawasib in Islamic Literature

  • Nebil Husayn(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  5 According to Caetani and Madelung, the interests of the leaders of Quraysh who sought political power and hegemony over the Islamic empire were virtually identical to those of the Umayyads. 6 These leaders generally pursued policies that did not benefit Ha ¯shimids, Arabs of other tribes, or non-Arabs. ʿUthma ¯nı ¯s who supported the Quraysh extolled the virtues of Abu ¯ Bakr, ʿUmar, and the commanders of the army that faced 2 These views are expressed in their alleged letters to Muʿa ¯wiya: see Madelung, Succession, 213–214 (for ʿAlı ¯), 314 (for H ˙ asan). For Shı ¯ ʿı ¯ ih ˙ tija ¯j literature of this type, see al-T ˙ abrisı ¯, al- Ih ˙ tija ¯j. See also H ˙ asan, Muna ¯z ˙ ara ¯t fı ¯ ’l-ima ¯ma. 3 Al-Bala ¯dhurı ¯, Ansa ¯b al-ashra ¯f, 10:378; al-Suyu ¯t ˙ ı ¯, al-Durr al-manthu ¯r , 2:173; al-T ˙ abarı ¯, Ta ¯rı ¯kh, 3:288. Al-Bala ¯dhurı ¯ and al-T ˙ abarı ¯ cited al-Mada ¯ʾinı ¯ as their source. See also Madelung, Succession, 67–68. 4 Madelung, Succession, 68. 5 Ibid., 28–29, 72–73. 6 Ibid., 96 (also citing Caetani). The dominance of Quraysh in the reign of the first three caliphs can be observed from the ascendancy of the Umayyads and their partisans during ʿUthma ¯n’s rule. 40 The Umayyads and the ʿUthma ¯nı ¯s ʿAlı ¯ at the battle of the Camel. 7 This party also defended the legacy of ʿUthma ¯n after his death in spite of their opposition to Umayyad ascend- ancy near the end of his life. After the battle of the Camel, ʿUthma ¯nı ¯s in Yemen sought the patronage of Muʿa ¯wiya. 8 The Zubayrids revived their claim to the caliphate and the interests of Qurashı ¯ aristocrats after Muʿa ¯wiya’s death. ʿA ¯ ʾisha Sunnı ¯ literature occasionally portrayed ʿA ¯ ʾisha, the daughter of Abu ¯ Bakr and the wife of the Prophet, as loathing ʿAlı ¯, some of his close kin, and his disciples.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Princely Authority in the Early Marw?nid State

  The Life of ?Abd al-?Az?z ibn Marw?n

  • Joshua Mabra(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Gorgias Press

    (Publisher)

  13 C HAPTER 2. T HE C OALITION OF K ALB AND U MAYYA Almost every modern scholar of the first century of Islam has un e-quivocally concluded that the Sufyānid dynasty (4 1– 64/66 1– 683) rose to power with the military support of the tribal coalition of Quḍāʿ a , a support that was solidified when Muʿāwiya b. Abī Su-fy ān, the founder of the Sufyānids, married Maysūn bt. Baḥdal, the daughter of the sayyid (chief) of Kalb and the leader of Quḍāʿ a . 1 The family ties of the Marw ānids to Quḍāʿa through ʿAbd al -ʿ Az ī z, however, have been largely overlooked, and it is for this reason that modern scholarship has had a hard time explaining how the Marw ānids came to win the support of the Sufy ānid tribal coalition. Since little research has been done on the Marwānid alliance with the Kalb, we will look at what has been written about the Kalb and the Sufyānids, thereby laying the groundwork for our conten tion that ʿAbd al -ʿ Az īz’s maternal lineage was critical to the tribal su p-port the Quḍāʿa provided the Marwānid dynasty. The Quḍāʿa first began their political fortunes as overseers of the northern reaches of Arabia for the Ḥimyarite kingdoms in the 1 Wellhausen, Arab Kingdom , 132 f; Gerald Hawting, The First Arab Dynasty: The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661–750 (London, 1986) 42; Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam , I (Chicago, 1975), 221, 229; Hugh Kennedy, Age of the Caliphates , 99; M. Hinds, “Muʿā wiya I,” EI 2 ; Patricia Crone, Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity (Cambridge, 1980), 34 ff; Bo s-worth, “Marwān,” EI 2 ; Madelung, Succession to Mu ḥ ammad , 61; Madelung, “Apocalyptic Prophecies,” 184; Andrew Marsham, Rituals of Islamic Monar-chy: Accession and Succession in the First Muslim Empire (Oxford, 2009), 115.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book