A disputed succession

When the Prophet Muhammad died in 632, he had not named a successor. The spiritual and temporal leader of the Muslim community had no sons, and he had not named any of his close companions as his successor. This gave rise to a dispute over who should replace him. The first four caliphs, his successors at the head of the community, were among his closest disciples: Abu Bakr (ruled 632-634), 'Umar (ruled 634-644), 'Uthman (ruled 644-656), and lastly 'Ali (ruled 656-660), son-in-law and cousin of Muhammad. The election of the first caliph, Abu Bakr, by the assembled Arab chiefs, was contested by 'Ali and his supporters, and led to the murder of 'Uthman. Accused of complicity, 'Ali was opposed by ‘Uthman’s former supporters, among them Mu'awiyah, then governor of the newly conquered province of Syria.

A caliphate dynasty   

A member of one of the richest families in Mecca, Mu'awiyah was appointed by Abu Bakr to lead the great campaigns of conquest in the Near East, before being named governor of the province of Syria by 'Umar. As a close relative of 'Uthman, it was Mu’awiyah’s duty to avenge his murder. In 660, a few months before the murder of 'Ali, he was formally recognised as caliph in Jerusalem.

He introduced a system of hereditary succession which stabilised the caliphate system and gave rise to a dynasty that ruled the Islamic empire until 749.

The first Arab Islamic empire

The Umayyad dynasty was faced with the need to create institutions to govern the vast empire that emerged from the early Islamic conquests, which it extended far to the west, incorporating the Iberian Peninsula in 711, and to the east, with the crossing of the Indus River in 713. Establishing Arabic as the official language, the dynasty planted the seeds of a brilliant Arab-Islamic culture. Now settled throughout the empire, the former Arab conquerors controlled power at the expense of local elites in the newly converted territories, rapidly causing tensions that led to the Abbasid revolution in 749 and the overthrow of the Umayyad dynasty.

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