The Umayyad dynasty took its legitimacy from the fact that it was among the close relatives of Muhammad (although, as I have said, most of its prominent personalities had opposed him during his lifetime) and that it avenged the assassination ofits close relative the caliph ‘Uthman in ad 656. Since the assassins were given refuge and in some cases high office by ‘Uthman’s successor, ‘Ali b. Abi Talib (ad 656-61), the long-time governor of Syria-Palestine, Mu‘awiya, had a good excuse to oppose and eventually to defeat him. The Umayyad dynasty made Damascus its center, although, true to its Arab heritage and marriage links, members of the extended family spent much of their time in the series of outlying settlements often called ‘‘the desert castles’’ (see below) and, toward the middle of the eighth century, moved their power bases progressively northward and eastward.
Conventionally, the Umayyad dynasty is divided into several periods: that of Mu‘awiya and his son Yazid I (ad 661-83), called the Sufyanid period, and that of the Marwanid family (ad 683-747), comprising ‘Abd al-Malik, his four sons and several other close relatives. In general, the Sufyanid period was noted for conquest and left a collective memory of wealth in the Arab tradition. For centuries after the fall of the Sufyanids, the figure of the Sufyani remained the focus of messianic expectations among Syrian Arabs.
But the more obvious conquests are associated with the early Marwanids, especially with ‘Abd al-Malik and his son al-Walid I (ad 705-15), under whom the areas of North Africa and Spain, as well as most of the region of Central Asia were conquered. Both of these rulers were also well known for their monumental building projects, such as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus (as well as others scattered around the Muslim world). The tradition of conquest continued under the other three sons of ‘Abd al-Malik, but increasingly the Arabs lacked the manpower to conquer further territories, or else the supply lines to distant battlefields were simply too long. A major attempt to conquer Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, failed in ad 715-17. This reverse is reflected in some of the most popular apocalyptic traditions from Syria (especially Hims) concerning the future conquest of Constantinople, dating from that period:
You will raid Constantinople three times: the first time you will meet with disaster and hardship, the second time there will be a peace between you and them - such that mosques will be built in Constantinople and you will raid behind Constantinople together with them, then they will go back on it [the peace agreement]. The third raid will be when God will conquer it with cries of allahu akbar [God is greater!], and it will be in three parts: one third will be destroyed, one third will be burned, and one third will be divided up and weighed out [as spoils]. (al-Marwazi 1993: 288)
This promised final conquest of Constantinople, however, the foremost desire of Syrian Muslims during the Umayyad period, never came about (at least for hundreds of years). In fact, the following years saw a series of reverses in the battlefield that Blankinship has rightly called ‘‘The End of the Jihad State’’ (Blankinship 1994). Hisham (ad 724-743), the last of the sons of ‘Abd al-Malik to rule, was by sheer willpower able to keep the Umayyad state intact, even with the defeats that punctuated his reign. But the final group of Umayyad rulers (ad 743-7), mostly grandsons of‘Abd al-Malik, were unable to hold it together, and were overcome by the ‘Abbasid revolution during the ad 740s.
The Umayyad dynasty is usually interpreted as a tribal Arab dynasty with little connection to Islam. Indeed, balancing the warring tribes in Syria, and especially in
Iraq, was a major part of the policy of any of their rulers. In general, this involved favoring tribes either from the ‘‘southern’’ or the ‘‘northern’’ Arabs. When one group was in favor, it usually suppressed or oppressed the other. For the most part, the Umayyads favored the southern tribes and brilliantly reworked the genealogy of a number of tribes of indistinct origins to assimilate them into the mostly southern oriented coalition they built in Syria. Tribal differences in Syria were kept to a minimum by severely curtailing which tribes could actually enter the province.
Many of these tribes were fiercely partisan, and some of their partisan propaganda has come down to us in the form of apocalyptic traditions, especially from Hims, where the dominant tribes were Yemenite (southern). They strongly opposed the official mosque, describing the people there as a ‘‘mixture’’ and as the mosque of Satan (the Christian church of St. Mary):
There are three mosques in Hims: one belonging to Satan and his people - meaning Satan’s - and a mosque belonging to God whose people are Satan’s, and a mosque belonging to God whose people are God’s. The Church of Mary and its people are the ‘‘mosque’’ belonging to Satan and Satan’s people; as to the mosque belonging to God whose people are Satan’s - [their] mosque and its people are a mixture of people, and the mosque belonging to God whose people are God’s is the ‘‘mosque’’ of the Church of Zakariyya. Its people are Himyar and the people of Yemen gather in it. (al-Marwazi 1993: 255)
With this kind of atmosphere, it is not surprising that the Umayyads had difficulties controlling the disturbances between the northern and southern tribes in Syria.
It would be a mistake to say, however, that the Umayyads were entirely secular. It is true that the remains of their so-called desert castles bear frescoes that portray scenes of drinking and other un-Islamic activities. But in other, more formal ways, the Umayyads strongly supported Islam and made strenuous efforts not to be assimilated into the cultural sphere of the Christian Mediterranean basin. ‘Abd al-Malik, for example, arabized the language of the administration, as well as turning away from the coinage minted by the Byzantines. His coins were the first to bear Islamic slogans and symbols. Until this occurred, there had been strong economic ties between the Byzantines and the Arabs of Syria:
The Byzantine emperor wrote to ‘Abd al-Malik b. Marwan: You have made new changes in the qaratis [coinage] - that which was never done previously. If you do not stop doing this, I will cause your prophet [Muhammad] to be cursed in everything that is done in my realm. ‘Abd al-Malik was worried about this, and Da’ud b. Yazid b. Mu‘awiya [grandson of the caliph Mu‘awiya] entered in to him and saw him worried by what had arrived to him. He said: ‘‘Strike lesser dinars and dirhems than his dinars, and make the name of the Messenger of God clear on them so that you will not need what is being struck with him’’ so he ceased [being worried]; this was in the year 689-690. (Ibn ‘Asakir 1995-8: 17. 195)
This break with the Byzantines was probably the most significant event in the entire Umayyad period, as it was essentially a declaration of cultural and economic independence from what had been until then the more dominant state bordering upon Syria to the north. It also indicates the religious nature of the Umayyad disagreement with the Byzantines, in which the issue of Muhammad’s status as a prophet was of primary importance. The Umayyads took the title of ‘‘God’s Caliph,’’ meaning that they saw themselves as the viceregents of God on earth, and they exercised that authority by involving themselves in religious disputations (Crone and Hinds 1986). Thus, for them the war with the Byzantines was also one concerning religious authority.
World History
