The Umayyads
After the death of Mohammed in 632 AD, the leadership of the new religion, and of the newly united Arab tribes, was taken over by Mohammed's upper-class father-in-law (through his second wife) Abu Bakr. Mohammed left no sons, and in any case there was no tradition of sons taking over in the Arab world. Abu Bakr only lived for two years after becoming Caliph, but he managed to unite the whole Arabian Peninsula under Islam.
There was a rebellion of the Arab tribes after Mohammed's death, which is called the Ridda. With their leader gone, they wanted to go back to being independent. Abu Bakr took an army and succeeded in destroying the Ridda and bringing those Arab tribes back under Islamic control.
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Almost immediately after becoming the Caliph, or ruler, in 634 AD, the second Caliph Umar led Arab raids into both the Roman and the Sassanid empires. Both raids were very successful. The Arabs, who had been doing most of the fighting for the Romans and the Sassanians, knew that neither the Romans nor the Sassanians had good armies anymore. Umar was assassinated in 644 AD, and succeeded by Uthman. Encouraged by these early victories, Uthman and his army organized a real campaign, and by 651 AD they took over most of Western Asia, from the Mediterranean coast to eastern Iran.
Uthman was assassinated in 656, and succeeded by Ali, who had a somewhat more radical view of the Islamic faith. Under Ali, the soldiers of the Islamic Empire fought their way through Egypt and North Africa, and although Ali was assassinated in 661, the armies continued and then crossed the Straits of Gibraltar to attack Spain in 710 AD.
A Ribat, or fort, in North Africa
Kairouan, the fourth holy city
of Islam, was founded in the late 600s AD.
As the Arabs made their way through North Africa, they built small forts
to guard against attack, especially along the coast. These forts are called
Ribats. Many of them are still there today. This is one from a small village
in Tunisia called Lamta (notice the goats grazing near it).
Another Ribat
After the death of Ali, there was a bitter religious and political struggle between the followers of a more traditional Islamic faith, who were called Sunnis, and the more radical followers of Ali, who were called Shiites (SHE-eye-ts). The Sunnis won, and established the Umayyad dynasty, with its capital at Damascus in Syria.
Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem
In Jerusalem, the Umayyads built the first major mosque, the Dome of the Rock, on the site of Solomon's Temple (and the place where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac). They began building it in 687 AD and finished it in 691 AD.
Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem
The Umayyad advance was eventually stopped in several places. In the West, the Romans stopped Islamic attacks against Constantinople in 674-678 and again in 717 AD. The Frank Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne, turned back a series of Islamic raids into France in 732 AD. In the East, the Islamic Empire came up against the Tang Dynasty Chinese, who were also expanding their empire at this time. Though the Arabs won a great battle against the Chinese in 751, near Samarkand in Central Asia, the border stayed about the same from then on.
To find out more about the Umayyads check out these books from Amazon or from your local library:
Abbasids
Main Islamic history page
Main Islam page
