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

The Sufyanids 
37
relatively limited and localised, not involving all of the Arabs nor
covering all of Arabia. The first indication that we have of the new,
more intensified and widespread formation of supra-tribal groups
among the Arabs is at the time of the second civil war, almost
simultaneously in Syria and Iraq. It obviously has to be explained by
such things as the disruption of the old way of life, the need to forge
new social links in the post-conquest conditions, and the struggle for
land and resources among the Arabs, intensified when new groups of
Arab immigrants moved into an area and challenged the position of
those already settled there. With the breakdown of Umayyad
authority at the end of the Sufyanid period the lid was removed from
a mixture which had been fermenting for some time.
6
The other, larger population which the caliphs and their
governors ruled was that of the conquered peoples, and, just as the
Arabs were governed indirectly by means of their tribal notables, so
the non-Arabs were generally administered through their own native
authorities, priests, rabbis, nobles or others. At this early date it
seems that little assimilation or even contact between conquerors
and conquered was envisaged, and the latter were regarded by their
rulers mainly as a source of revenue for the benefit of the Arabs. The
nature of the taxes imposed on the conquered peoples is still, in spite
of much scholarly debate, rather obscure and probably varied from
place to place according to, first, the way in which the locality was
conquered by the Arabs—by force or by agreement—and, secondly,
the nature of the taxation system which had existed in the locality
before its conquest. Nevertheless, at the taxpayer’s level it seems
likely that there was generally a dual system of poll tax (i.e., a tax
levied at a fixed rate on individual persons) and land tax and that the
poll tax was a sign of social or religious inferiority. There was as yet
probably no fixed and universally used terminology for the various
taxes, and, as far as the Arabs are concerned, they probably only
interested themselves to the extent of making sure that the non-Arab
notables handed over the required sums. How these notables raised
the sums from the non-Arab communities did not concern the Arabs.
Even in the short term the effects of the Arab conquest on the
non-Arab people of the Middle East must have been considerable,
but our Arabic sources only supply incidental information on this
issue and it is only quite recently that detailed study of this question,
involving the use of a range of sources produced in various
languages, has begun. Some of the effects of the conquest on the
non-Arab peoples are fairly obvious, such things as the virtual

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The Sufyanids
disappearance of the former Byzantine and Sasanid ruling classes,
and the demographic redistribution brought about by war and
captivity and the foundation of new major settlements like Basra and
Kufa. Other suggested consequences—regarding, for instance, the
strengthening or weakening of Monophysite and Nestorian
Christianity, or the transformation of the Jews from an agricultural
to a predominantly urban and mercantile people—are more
debatable.
7
Of the lands ruled by the Umayyads, Syria, the centre of
Umayyad power, was neither the richest nor most populous, but
owed its importance to a number of other factors. The long and
continuous association with Mu‘awiya before he became caliph, and
the fact that he was able to call on the support of one strong tribal
group in Syria, Quda‘a, in contrast to the multiplicity of tribal
fragments elsewhere, have already been mentioned. In Syria too the
fact that the Arabs settled among the local population, in already
existing towns such as Damascus and Hims, seems to indicate a
certain security in comparison with Iraq and Egypt where new
garrison towns were founded and the Arabs kept apart from the local
population. Furthermore, Syria, although it was the centre of the
Umayyad territories, had a border with Byzantium and this meant
that the Syrian Arabs could be kept active in warfare against the
infidel without having to send them to far distant borders. Finally,
the religious significance of Syria, and particularly of Jerusalem,
may have been greater for nascent Islam than it was at a later period.
For military and administrative purposes, Syria was at first
divided into four districts or 
ajnad:
 Damascus, Hims, Jordan with its
centre at Tiberias, and Palestine with its centre at Ramla. Later,
about 680, a fifth district was added, Qinnasrin in the north,
probably in connection with the warfare against Byzantium. From
one point of view, the Umayyad period can be characterised as a
brief and fairly unusual time of Syrian domination of the Middle
East.
Of the other provinces, Iraq was the richest and most valuable.
Benefiting from the climate and fertility of the lower Tigris and
Euphrates valleys, the agricultural land was given a name indicative
of its richness: it was the 
sawad,
 the black land. Iraq was also the
military centre from which the lands to the east were conquered and
administered, and its garrison towns of Kufa and Basra provided the
Arab settlers for the eastern provinces. Like Syria, Kufa and Basra
were subdivided for military and administrative purposes. Kufa had

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The Sufyanids 
39
originally been divided into sevenths, but around 670 was
reorganised into quarters. Basra was divided into fifths. Each of
these subdivisions consisted of a number of tribal groups, and it has
been argued that the less volatile character of Basra, as compared to
Kufa, may be partly explained by the less heterogeneous nature of
the tribal groupings in the Basran divisions compared with those in
Kufa. The reorganisation of Kufa into quarters may have been
intended to decrease the fragmentation of the sevenths. The
importance of Iraq for the development of Islam during the
Umayyad period meant that its influence was decisive too for the
formation of the historical tradition for the period. Our sources tend
to reflect the viewpoint of Iraq, with its anti-Umayyad point of view,
and provide us with more information about events in Iraq and the
east than in the other provinces.
Khurasan, the north-east border province of the Umayyads, was
the most important eastern dependency of Iraq so far as the history
of the Umayyad period is concerned. The early Umayyad period saw
its conquest and settlement by the Arabs, and it then served as a base
for expansion and raids further east. Its two chief towns were both
garrison centres, Nishapur in the west of the province and Merv in
the east. To some extent the tensions among the Arabs of Iraq were
carried over into Khurasan, where they were able to intensify away
from the close control of the Umayyad government. They were made
more dangerous for the government because the Arabs of Khurasan,
unlike those of Iraq, continued to be involved in constant military
activity, and they were altered by the different society which existed
in the province. It was there that the movement which eventually
overthrew the Umayyads became strong.
Finally, although we do not hear nearly so much about Egypt
under the Umayyads, it too was extremely important militarily and
economically. Its fertility depending on the annual rise and fall of
the Nile, Egypt was the granary of the Mediterranean, and from it
the infertile but religiously important region of the Hijaz was
supplied with food. It was from Egypt that North Africa was
conquered and settled. It is also important to remember that,
although our Muslim literary sources are relatively uninformative
about Egypt during this period, it is virtually the only region for
which we have a substantial body of contemporary administrative
material, preserved on papyrus, enabling us to put together a more
certain picture of the Umayyad administration than is possible for
the other provinces.
8

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The Sufyanids