The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate ad 661-750

‘Abd al-Malik and al-Hajjaj 
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Yazid led Fakhita to poison her new husband. A stronger rival of
Marwan was ‘Amr b. Sa‘id al-Ashdaq of another branch of the
Umayyad family, whose seniority was indicated by the fact that he
had been governor of Medina for a while under Yazid. When ‘Abd
al-Malik succeeded Marwan, ‘Amr felt that the guarantees made
before Marj Rahit had not been honoured, and, in 689–90, taking
advantage of the absence of ‘Abd al-Malik in the field against the
Zubayrids, he revolted and seized Damascus. ‘Abd al-Malik had to
abandon his expedition and on his return to Damascus he had ‘Amr
b. Sa‘id killed, apparently after promising him a safe conduct.
2
Marwan had planned it that he should be succeeded by his two
sons, ‘Abd al-Malik and ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, one after the other, and had
had the oath of allegiance taken for them while he still ruled. When
‘Abd al-Malik became caliph his brother ‘Abd al-‘Aziz was
appointed to be his governor of Egypt. There then arose a tension,
which became quite common in the Marwanid period, between the
ruler’s desire to pass on the caliphate to his own children and the
previous caliph’s arrangement of the succession. ‘Abd al-Malik
tried without success to get ‘Abd al-‘Aziz to give up his claims to
the caliphate, and it was only the death of the latter shortly before
that of the caliph which prevented a possible dispute over this
question. In view of the potentiality for conflict inherent in the lack
of a fixed order of succession to the caliphate in the Umayyad
period, it is remarkable how seldom real trouble developed from it.
When it did, as in the third civil war following che death of Hisham
in 743, it was because the succession issue was bound up with
others.
Apart from the difficulties caused by the feuds between Kalb and
Qays after the battle of Marj Rahit, which continued in Syria and
Mesopotamia even after the ending of the second civil war, the other
important and interesting occurrence involving ‘Abd al-Malik in the
early part of his caliphate was his building of the Dome of the Rock
in Jerusalem. The original inscription which he had put inside the
Dome tells us that it was built by ‘Abd al-Malik in the year 72 (that
is, AD 692). In spite of a recent attempt to argue that this date refers
to the beginning of the building, it is more likely, and is generally
accepted, that it is the date of its completion. In other words, the
conception and construction of the Dome occurred while the second
civil war was still in progress, while Arabia and Iraq were still in the
hands of the Zubayrids. K.A.C.Cresswell suggested a date between
684 and 687 for the beginning of the building.

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‘Abd al-Malik and al-Hajjaj
The Dome of the Rock has been the subject of considerable
speculation and controversy. We have no clear and uncontestable
statement about why ‘Abd al-Malik built it, what function the
building was intended to have (it is not, for example, a mosque), the
significance of the site which it occupies (it may be questioned
whether the traditional association between the rock over which it is
built and the miraculous ascension of Muhammad to heaven, the
mi‘raj,
 existed at the time when it was built), or its relationship to
other Muslim sacred places and buildings. Attention has centred
especially on this last question. Some of the Muslim sources say that
it was built to provide a focus for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem which
would rival the Ka‘ba at Mecca, at that time under Ibn al-Zubayr’s
control. While some modern scholars have accepted this view, and
sought to relate the Dome to what they saw as a more general
Umayyad policy to build up the religious significance of Jerusalem
at the expense of the holy places in the Hijaz, others have argued
that it relies too much on the tendentious anti-Umayyad outlook of
the Muslim tradition. If the Dome was meant or used as a centre of
pilgrimage, the latter argue, this could only have been intended as a
temporary measure, since no Muslim ruler could risk being regarded
as an enemy of the pilgrimage to Mecca (the 
hajj
), one of the five
‘pillars of Islam’ and a fundamental duty which had been imposed in
the time of the Prophet. Those who adopt this latter position tend to
see the Dome as an expression of cultural and religious assertiveness
on the part of ‘Abd al-Malik directed particularly at the Christians,
the previously dominant religious group in Syria. Some support for
this interpretation can be gathered from passages in some sources
and from the inscriptions of the Dome itself.
3
Nevertheless, to interpret the Dome as primarily an expression of
Muslim self-confidence, or as an attempt to outshine the Christian
religious buildings of Jerusalem and Syria, possibly underestimates
the significance of the site on which it was built and isolates it from
other developments involving the sanctuary in the second civil war.
Whatever specifically Muslim associations came to be attached to
the rock over which the Dome was built, at the time it was generally
held, by Muslims, Jews and Christians, to be part of the ancient
Jewish Temple of Jerusalem. As such it had great cosmological
significance and was regarded as the centre of the world, although
Christians had transferred several of the cosmological notions to
Christian holy places such as the church of the Holy Sepulchre and
Mount Calvary. This alone makes it likely that the Dome of the Rock

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‘Abd al-Malik and al-Hajjaj 
61
was to have a unique importance. In addition, Jewish apocalyptic
ideas expected the coming of a king who would restore the Temple
(destroyed by the Romans in AD 70), and it seems likely that ‘Abd
al-Malik’s uniquely magnificent edifice would be put in this
context. Finally, it has already been noted that Ibn al-Zubayr seems
to have identified himself with the Ka‘ba at Mecca and that the
second civil war saw the repeated demolition and rebuilding of Ibn
al-Zubayr’s sanctuary. It seems logical, therefore, to see the building
of the Dome of the Rock against the background of arguments about
the sanctuary in the second civil war and to see it as a contender for
the role of the Muslim sanctuary. That it did not achieve this status,
and that when Mecca came under Umayyad control its Ka‘ba was
accepted as the sanctuary by all Muslims, need not reflect on ‘Abd
al-Malik’s intentions when he built it.
Whatever the significance of the Dome of the Rock at the time
when it was built, it stands out as one of the earliest surviving
concrete expressions of the new religion and civilisation of Islam
which was beginning to emerge in the lands which had been
conquered by the Arabs. Apart from its innovative architecture
(which is not to say, of course, that it is unrelated to previous
architecture), two things in particular are noteworthy. First, the
inscriptions in the Dome contained passages which may be
recognised, in spite of one or two minor variants from the Koran as
we know it, as Koranic. These are the earliest securely datable
examples of Koranic texts to have survived. Secondly, the texts refer
to Islam as ‘the religion of truth’, and this is the first certain
evidence of Islam as the name of the religion of the Arabs; earlier
non-Muslim literary texts do not call the Arabs Muslim or refer to
their religion as Islam.
4