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

mawla
‘client’; a non-Arab who has accepted Islam; a
follower of an important individual
 
salat
the ritual, five times daily, prayer service of Islam
shurta
a small force used by the governor or other
authority to keep order
sunna
‘accepted usage or practice’; eventually identified
with the 
Sunna
 of the Prophet, the usage of
Muhammad which Sunni Islam accepted as being,
together with the Koran, the main source of
authority for its law
 
‘ulama’
the religious scholars of Islam
 
wali’l-‘ahd
the heir apparent
 
* The meanings given are those usually applicable in this book. In
other contexts the words may have other meanings.
 

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Figure 1:  
The ‘Northerners’

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Figure 2:  
The ‘Southerners’

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Figure 3:  
The Umayyads

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Figure 4:  
The Other Descendants of ‘Abd Manaf

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xix
Foreword to the Second Edition
 
In spite of some significant developments in our understanding of
aspects of the history of the Umayyad caliphate in the fifteen years
or so since this book was first published, readily accessible
introductions to the period for undergraduates and interested non-
specialists remain few. This book was generally well received by
reviewers and has proved useful for its intended readership. Since it
has been out of print for some time and in any case was available
only as a (rather expensive) hardback, it has now been decided to
reissue it in paperback. The opportunity has been taken to correct a
few errors (for pointing out which I am grateful to reviewers) and to
add a postscript surveying some of the important work relevant to
the Umayyad caliphate which has appeared since the first edition in
1986. The postscript also refers to a few works which should have
been included in the original bibliography.
For technical reasons it has not been possible to change the
original text in three places where some expansion is required:
At p. 83, with reference to the victory of Charles Martel over the
Arabs, the date of 732 should probably be changed to 733. At the
very least the article of M.Baudoit, ‘Localisation et datation de la
première victoire remportée par Charles Martel contre les
musulmans’, in 
Mémoires et documents publiés par la Societé de
l’Ecole de Chartres,
 12 (1955), 93–105 needs to be consulted on this
question. Secondly, at p. 52, it is wrong to give the impression that
the term 
mahd
i
 is not known in accounts of events before the rising
of al-Mukht
a
r: it occurs of course, apparently for the first time, in
reports about the rising of the Taww
a
b
u
n which took place just
before that of al-Mukht
a
r. I am especially grateful for Michael
Morony’s review (
IJMES,
 21 (1989)) for drawing attention to these
points. I remain unconvinced, however, that the word 
mahd
i
originally lacked any eschatological significance.
Finally, on p. 91 reference is made to the theory that Rus
a
fat
Hish
a
m was not at the Rus
a
fa which was ancient Sergiopolis but was
rather to be identified with Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharq
i
 near Palmyra. I

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xx
Foreword to the Second Edition
ought to have known, but did not, that that theory, proposed by
Sauvaget and others, has been discredited by Oleg Grabar in his
work on Qasr al-Hayr: 
City in the Desert: Qasr al-Hayr East
(Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press 1978). There is now a
convenient discussion of Ru?
a
fat Hish
a
m in the second edition of
the 
Encyclopaedia of Islam,
 s.v. ‘Rus
a
fa’ (by C.-P.Haase), which
explains too the problematic tradition that Hisham was there when
he received the caliphal regalia.
GRH. March 2000
 

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xxi
Preface and Acknowledgements
 
Between the general surveys of Islamic, Arab or Middle Eastern
history, of which there are several of varying quality, and detailed
monographs on particular aspects of Umayyad history, many of
which are not in English, there is little that can be recommended
confidently as an introduction to the importance, main events and
personalities, and problems of the Umayyad period. The present
work tries to provide such an introduction.
The standard modern account of Umayyad history is Julius
Wellhausen’s 
The Arab kingdom and its fall,
 first published in
German in 1902 and translated into English in 1927. In spite of the
inevitable dating of Wellhausen’s own political and religious
outlook, and the criticisms of his method of source analysis made
recently by Albrecht Noth, his book remains of fundamental
importance for anyone wanting more than an introductory
knowledge of Umayyad history, particularly its political and
military events. The present work is certainly not intended to
supersede 
The Arab kingdom
.
As an introduction, however, experience has shown that
Wellhausen’s work is not especially suitable. Leaving aside the
rather idiosyncratic English of its translation, it contains more detail
than is readily absorbed, its presentation is not as clear as modern
readers expect, and its concern with source criticism is not
appreciated by those who do not have even a simplified traditional
narrative against which to set it. Attempts to get students to read and
digest Wellhausen usually result in puzzlement and the beginnings
of a conviction that Umayyad history is too difficult for
undergraduate study.
But there is really little else, especially in English, which treats
the period as a whole and which can serve as an introduction. M.A.
Shaban’s first volume of his 
Islamic history. A new interpretation,
 it
is true, is readily available and does provide a lively narrative
coverage of the period. Its interpretation, however, seems to me to
be frequently questionable and on occasion only loosely related to

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xxii
Preface
the sources, and the title itself indicates that it was not conceived as
an introduction. Similarly, Patricia Crone’s 
Slaves on horses
 seems
to me a brilliant analysis of the development of the early Islamic
state and society but not a book for relative beginners since it
presumes, rather than provides, a fairly detailed acquaintance with
the events of the period. There still seems a need, therefore, for the
sort of introduction which I have attempted here.
Given, then, that the present work is not attempting to provide a
wholly new version of the Umayyad period, and that much of it
depends on the findings of the many scholars who have contributed
to our understanding of Umayyad history, it has seemed unnecessary
to provide references to the original Arabic or other sources.
Readers capable of studying the primary sources themselves will
easily be able to track them down in the secondary works to which
references are normally confined in my notes. These notes are
usually a guide to further reading, with readers of English primarily
in mind, and are not necessarily the sources of particular statements,
but in a general way they indicate the scholars and works to which I
have been most indebted. Neither the references in my notes nor the
bibliography given at the end claim to be complete or extensive, but
I hope that I have mentioned most works of fundamental
importance.
My special thanks are due to my colleague Dr David Morgan,
who kindly read the whole typescript and whose feeling for both
history and style has undoubtedly saved me from a number of
blunders; to my wife Joyce who has similarly read and commented
on the typescript; to Sue Harrop, the Cartographer at the School of
African and Oriental Studies, University of London, for help with
the maps; and to Peter Sowden who first suggested that I write the
book and then gently prodded until it was done. For the remaining
limitations, imperfections and errors I am responsible.

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1
Chapter 1
 
Introduction: The Importance of the
Umayyad Period and its Place in Islamic
History
 
In the summer or autumn of AD 661, Mu‘awiya b. Abi Sufyan,
governor of Syria since 639 and already acclaimed by his Syrian
followers as caliph 
(khalifa),
 religious and political leader of the
Muslim state, entered the Iraqi garrison town of Kufa. In historical
tradition this event is seen as bringing to an end a bitter period of
civil war among the Arabs, achieving the reunification under one
ruler of all the territories conquered by them, and initiating the
caliphate of the Umayyad dynasty of which Mu‘awiya was the
founder. The dynasty was to rule for 90 years or so until its
overthrow and replacement by that of the ‘Abbasids in 749–50.
The Umayyad dynasty was the first to emerge in the Middle East
following the conquest of the region by the Arabs, a conquest which
had begun in the 630s and was still continuing for much of the
Umayyad period. Apart from this fact, however, what was the
importance of the period of Umayyad rule, a period which in its
details is often complex and confusing, and how has it traditionally
been regarded by Muslims in relation to the history of Islam? The
answer to the first part of this question is provided by discussion of
the two concepts of islamisation and arabisation, referring to two
related but essentially distinct historical processes.