Umayyads

The Umayyads were a major ruling dynasty of the Islamic Caliphate, belonging to the Quraysh clan and named for Umayya ibn Abd Shams. They came to power after Muawiya I founded the Umayyad Caliphate in 661, establishing Damascus as the capital and moving the caliphate from a primarily elective system toward hereditary succession. The dynasty governed a vast empire that stretched from the Iberian Peninsula in the west to Transoxiana in the east, and included both Arab and non-Arab Muslims under its administration. The Umayyads pursued a centralized, bureaucratic state with appointed governors, standardized taxation, and Arabic as the administrative language. They expanded Islam’s political footprint, supported monumental architecture, and promoted coinage and public works; notable examples include the Dome of the Rock and the Great Mosque of Damascus.

Despite military expansion, internal challenges built up during the 8th century, including tensions over the rights of mawali (non-Arab Muslims) and succession disputes among rival branches of the dynasty. These pressures, combined with sustained Abbasid opposition, culminated in the Abbasid Revolution, and in 750 the Umayyad Caliphate was overthrown in favor of Abbasid rule in the East. A surviving Umayyad branch fled to Iberia, where Abdul Rahman I established the Emirate of Córdoba in 756; it later became the Caliphate of Córdoba in 929 and endured as a separate Umayyad state until the early 11th century, when it dissolved into rival taifa kingdoms after 1031.

The Umayyads left a lasting legacy in political organization, architecture, and cultural exchange across the Muslim world, shaping subsequent caliphal rule in both the East and West.