THEUMAYYAD IN POWER (660-749 A.D.) POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE UMAYYAD DYNASTY(part 2)

"Muawiya's most lasting innovation was his designation of his son Yazid as his successor. Upon the death of Muawiya II (683-684 A.D.), civil war broke out between two Arab actions, the Qaysites and the Kalbites, the latter of whom supported the candidacy of Marwan Umayyad caliphs. As he died a year later, the task of reunification was placed in the hands of his bin al-Hakam. His ascendance to the caliphate in 684 A.D. established the Marwanid line of

son, Abd al-Malik.

Abd al-Malik spent his youth in Madinah until the rebellion of Ibn al-Zubayr in 682 (A.D.).

army advancing toward Madinah, he returned with it after giving advice concerning the town He left the town when the Umayyads were expelled by the rebels, but upon meeting the Syrian and its defences. He acceded to the caliphate after the assassination of his father in 685 A.D. Abd al-Malik faced numerous difficulties at the beginning of his reign. Although the Qaysites had been defeated by the Kalbites in 684 A.D., thus reasserting Umayyad control of Syria, Qaysites still held out in northern Iraq. The Byzantines had pushed into Anatolia, and Ibn al- Zubayr was being recognised as caliph in most parts of the empire.

The governor of Kufa and Basra, who had been forced out after the death of Yazid in 683 A.D., was unable to regain control. Kufa was seized by Mukhtar shortly after Abd al-Malik's accession, and Basra was held by Ibn al-Zubayr's brother, Musab. Musab's forces defeated al- Mukhtar in 687 A.D. and occupied Kufa. Abd al-Malik freed himself from the Byzantine problem by making a ten-year truce with the emperor. In 690 A.D., his forces captured the rebel Qaysites. The following year Musab was defeated and a Syrian army under the command of al-Hajjaj was sent to Makkah. The city was beseiged for six months; Ibn al-Zubayr was slain in 692 A.D.

Al-Hajjaj was subsequently sent to Iraq to quell Kharijite uprisings, which continued there and further east until 697 A.D. The revolt of Iraqi troops under the command of Ibn al-Ashath in 700-701 A.D. led to al-Hajjaj's establishment of a garrison city in Iraq to house Syrian troops. Despite these preoccupations, Abd al-Malik initiated several reforms to further centralise caliphal control. Arabic was made the official language of administration, replacing Greek and Persian; this helped to unify the tax-systems of the various provinces. Byzantine coins were replaced with a new Islamic-style coinage; the Byzantine emperor's refusal to accept this new currency caused a breakage of the truce in 692 A.D.

Attributed to al-Hajjaj is edition of the Quran with vowel signs. The last years of Abd al- Malik's reign were peaceful on the whole. A crisis of succession was very nearly averted: his father, Marwan, had appointed his brother Abd al-Aziz to succeed Abd al-Malik, but Abd al- Malik wished to favour his own sons. Abd al-Aziz died just five months before Abd al-Malik, and the caliphate was passed to his son Walid.

With the death of Sulayman, power was transferred to his cousin Umar bin Abd al-Aziz (717-720 A.D.). He enacted fiscal reforms which placed all Muslims, Arab and non-Arab (mawali), on equal footing. His successor, Yazid II (720-724 A.D.), caused a renewal of the hostilities between the Qaysites and the Kalbites by openly favouring the the former. During Hisham's long reign (724-743 A.D.), the Muslim empire reached the limits of its expansion. Discontent with the Umayyad regime manifested itself with the rebellion of Zayd bin Ali in 740 A.D., while Berber revolts in North Africa that same year effectively cut off what is today Morocco and Spain from Umayyad rule.