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Umayyad Caliphate

Middle East & Central AsiaHeartland today: Syria

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The second Islamic caliphate, ruled from Damascus by the Umayyad family. Its armies reached Iberia and the Indus, and its rulers made Arabic the language of government, before the Abbasids overthrew the dynasty in 750.

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Key events

  1. Muawiya, governor of Syria, becomes caliph and rules from Damascus, founding the Umayyad dynasty

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  2. Umayyad troops kill Husayn ibn Ali and his small band of followers at Karbala

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  3. Caliph Abd al-Malik completes the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the oldest surviving major work of Islamic architectureDisputed

    Most historians date completion to 691 or 692 from the dated inscription (AH 72). Some scholars read that date as the start of construction.

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  4. – Tax registers in Iraq, Syria and Egypt begin to be kept in Arabic instead of Persian and GreekDisputed

    Traditional accounts credit Caliph Abd al-Malik (685 to 705) with a language reform: Wikipedia gives about 697 for Persian, 700 to 705 for Greek and about 705 for Coptic. Recent research argues that the change was the translation of fiscal registers in provincial capitals, province by province, and that Greek stayed in use in Egyptian offices long afterwards.

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  5. – Caliph al-Walid I replaces the cathedral of Damascus with the Great Mosque, built from about 706 to 715Disputed

    Sources date the start of work to 705 or 706 and the end to 715.

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  6. Tariq ibn Ziyad crosses from North Africa into Iberia and defeats the Visigothic king RodericDisputed

    Few early sources survive. The detailed accounts come from Muslim writers centuries later, so the sequence of events is uncertain; the year 711 is widely accepted.

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  7. Abbasid forces rout the army of the last Umayyad caliph, Marwan II, at the Great Zab river

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