The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

Umayyads (661–750)

The Umayyads were a dynasty of caliphs who ruled the Muslim empire between 661 and 750. They descended from a clan of the Quraysh that had led the opposition to Muhammad in Mecca under the leadership of Abu Sufyan.

The Umayyads ruled from Damascus in Syria, as it was difficult to manage the conquered lands from Medina, the original capital in Arabia. They had to cope with enormous changes wrought by the conquests, notably the massive influx of new non-Arab members into the Muslim community, the divergent aspirations of Arab populations settled in different regions, significant regional priorities, a variety of religious communities that had been established before the conquests, and the political and economic consequences of these phenomena and processes. They tried to cope by centralizing their power, refining their governmental system, and establishing a professional army. Their measures brought some short-term solutions, but in the process they enhanced the erosion of the positions of Arab tribal chiefs, the rivalries among tribal groups, and the emergence of religious leadership, all of which eventually contributed to their demise.

The beginning and the end of Umayyad rule were effected through civil wars. After the Prophet Muhammad had died in 632, four of his Companions succeeded one another as caliphs, assuming office through various mechanisms, including appointment and election (632–61). Three of these four caliphs, known as the Rightly Guided Caliphs, were assassinated, and a civil war (656–61) effectively brought Mu‘awiya, the first Umayyad caliph, to power in 660. Hoping to prevent additional civil wars and eager to perpetuate Umayyad power, Mu‘awiya introduced hereditary succession (from father to son, brother to brother, or between more distant relatives) that was put into practice by two branches of the Umayyad dynasty: first the Sufyanids (661–84) and then the Marwanids (684–750). This measure, as well as other policies carried out by Mu‘awiya, raised opposition that challenged Umayyad authority. Upon the death of Mu‘awiya (680), civil war broke out, first on a small scale on the accession of his son and then more generally in 684. The Marwanids assumed power, putting an end to the civil war in 692 yet not to the continued rivalry of Arab tribal groups (the Qays and Kalb in particular). In 750, the Abbasid revolution put an end to Umayyad rule and made hereditary succession the norm for their rule of the Muslim empire.

In spite of the enormous internal challenges, the Umayyads succeeded in expanding the Arab-Muslim empire they founded, westward and eastward, across North Africa into Spain and across the Iranian plateau into Central Asia and India. They established effective ways of administration for the vast empire by appointing enterprising governors in the heart of the newly conquered regions and managed to integrate whole blocks of newly attracted ethnic groups into its polity. The height of Umayyad power became symbolized by the magnificent and triumphal Dome of the Rock they had erected on the temple precinct of Jerusalem in 691.

The Abbasids portrayed their predecessors as oppressors of Muslims and transgressors against Islam. This propaganda influenced much of Muslim scholarship and subsequently many modern scholars, which characterizes the Umayyads as purely political, and even secular-minded, Arab rulers who turned khilāfa or imāma, the rule of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, into mulk, Arab kingship. However, whatever their personal piety or impiety, the Umayyads’ position was not purely political but on the contrary conceived religiously as the deputyship of God. Speeches and letters by these caliphs, as well as panegyrics by their poets and officials, especially from the reigns of ‘Abd al-Malik (r. 684–705) onward, show that the Umayyads saw history as revolving around obedience to God’s authority based on the Qur’an and the leadership of the Prophet Muhammad. Drawing on the Qur’an, they envisaged God as having been known to humankind from the beginning of history through prophets and messengers He had sent to communicate His will. The first of these prophets was Adam, the very first man created by God, but humanity erred time and again. God repeatedly sent prophets to deliver His message and establish communities of believers, but these always erred in their turn. This cycle of error and amendment ended with Islam. Muhammad came to be seen as the seal of the prophets and his successors, the caliphs, as God’s deputies, entrusted with interpreting, implementing, and protecting the religion as well as managing the affairs of God’s community so that it would not err. Each caliph was seen as directly chosen by God to serve as His agent, though in practice he had received his office from his predecessor or through civil war. At the same time the caliphs presented themselves as heirs to the Prophet Muhammad, upholding his legacy and following his tradition. The Umayyads thus saw themselves as both political and religious leaders, and although they carried no prophetic message, they conceived of themselves as the interpreters of the sacred law, laying down rules to meet new problems and situations. Obeying the Umayyads and their laws was tantamount to obeying God and became the only way to ensure the right implementation of God’s religion on Earth. To explain why God should choose His deputies from among the Umayyads, the caliphs stressed their kinship with the Rightly Guided Caliph ‘Uthman b. ‘Affan (r. 644–56), claiming that he had been a legitimate caliph and unjustly slain. Since the Rightly Guided Caliphs had derived their authority from their Companionship with the Prophet, the first Umayyads also stressed that they had been close to him, although their clan had in fact opposed him until the end of his life. The main sources of Umayyad legitimacy thus were their deputyship of God, their closeness to the Prophet, and their kinship with ‘Uthman.