The Umayyad Caliphate
Explore the Umayyad Caliphate — the first great Islamic dynasty that ruled from Damascus and expanded Muslim territory from Spain to Central Asia.
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE) was the first hereditary dynasty in Islamic history and the largest empire the world had yet seen. Ruling from Damascus, the Umayyads transformed the early Muslim community from a religiously motivated movement into a sprawling imperial state stretching from the Iberian Peninsula to the borders of China.
The Umayyads were masterful administrators. They adopted Byzantine and Sassanid bureaucratic practices, established Arabic as the official language of government, introduced a standardized Islamic coinage, and built monumental architecture — including the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Great Mosque of Damascus — that declared Islam's arrival as a world civilization. Their road networks, postal systems, and irrigation projects knit together a vast and diverse empire.
Yet the Umayyads faced persistent challenges to their legitimacy. Many Muslims saw their hereditary rule as a betrayal of early Islamic egalitarianism. Their privileging of Arab identity over the universal claims of Islam alienated non-Arab converts. These tensions fueled the Abbasid Revolution of 750, which overthrew the Umayyads everywhere except in Spain, where a surviving prince established the independent emirate of Córdoba.