During the troublous times of which mention has been made, several successions had taken place in the Caliphate. After a short and anxious reign, Yezîd died, leaving the kingdom to a weak son, who survived but a few months. Merwân, A.H. 65.Amidst the disturbances which followed, Merwân made his way to the throne, and, dying in the following year, left the empire to his son Abd al Malik. Abd al Malik. A.H. 65–86.This prince wielded the sceptre for one-and-twenty years. The greater part of his reign was a struggle with foes such as Ibn Zobeir, Mukhtâr, and other leaders of the Alyite faction, besides the chronic outbursts of Khârejite fanaticism. At one time the Caliph was so beset by these opponents, that for three years he submitted to the humiliation of paying tribute to the Byzantine Court. In the end he triumphed over all his enemies, and transmitted a magnificent and still expanding kingdom to his son Welîd.[601] Notwithstanding the storms that so long surrounded his throne, Abd al Malik cultivated letters, and was mild and beneficent in his sway. Welîd A.H. 86–96.During the reign of his son, which lasted ten years, the glory culminated of the Omeyyad race. Elements of disorder still remained, but under the wise and firm sceptre of Welîd they were held in check. The arts of peace prevailed; schools were founded, learning cultivated, and poets royally rewarded; public works of every useful kind were promoted, and even hospitals established for the aged, lame, and blind. Such, indeed, at this era, was the glory of the Court of Damascus, that Weil, of all the Caliphs both before and after, gives the precedence to Welîd. It is the fashion for the Arabian historians to abuse the Omeyyads as a dissolute, intemperate, and godless race; but we must not forget that these all wrote more or less under Abbasside inspiration. And Welîd especially suffers at their hands; for it was under him that Hajjâj[602] made the assault upon the Holy City—a ‘sacrilege’ which still rankles in the Believer’s soul; and, moreover, during whose twenty years’ splendid vice-royalty in the East, Kûfa and Bussorah were both bathed in blood; and hence some part of the hatred against the tyrant has come to be reflected upon the name of his Master also. It is too true, indeed, that at Damascus, as in other great cities of the empire, there was now rapidly supervening a shameless laxity of manners; but neither in the Caliphs themselves, nor in their surroundings, did the looseness of morality at the Syrian Court surpass that which, under the Abbassides, not long after prevailed within the royal precincts of Baghdad.[603]
Omeyyad Caliphs. A.H. 96–132.
After Welîd, the Omeyyad dynasty lasted six-and-thirty years. But it began to rest on a precarious basis. For now the agents of the house of Hâshim, descendants of the Prophet and of his uncle Abbâs, commenced to ply secretly, but with vigour and persistency, their task of canvass and intrigue in distant cities, and especially in the provinces of the East.
The Shîya faction canvass for Alyite pretenders.
For a long time, the endeavour of these agitators was directed to the advocacy of the Shîya right; that is to say, it was based upon the Divine claim of Aly, and his descendants in the Prophet’s line, to the Imâmate or leadership over the empire of Islam.[604] Risings everywhere from time to time took place in favour of some one or other in whose veins flowed the blood of Aly. Everywhere the attempts were suppressed, the pretenders slain or cast into prison, and their armies defeated in the field. Canvass in favour of house of Abbâs.But a new and more fatal danger soon arose. The discomfiture of the Shîyas paved the way for the designing advocates of the other Hâshimite branch, namely, that of the house of Abbâs, the uncle of the Prophet. These had all along been plotting in the background, and watching their opportunity. They now vaunted the claims of this line, and were barefaced enough to urge that, being descended from the uncle of Mahomet through male representatives, they took precedence over the direct descendants of the Prophet himself, because these came through Fâtima in the female line. Abul Abbâs supported by Abu Muslim in Persia. A.H. 130.About the year 130 of the Hegira, Abul Abbâs, of Abbasside descent, was put forward in Persia, as the candidate of this party, and his claim was supported by the famous general Abu Muslim. Successful in the East, Abu Muslim turned his arms to the West. Battle of the Zab. A.H. 132. A.D. 750.A great battle, one of those which decide the fate of empires, was fought on the banks of the Zab; and, through the defection of certain Khârejite and Yemen levies, was lost by the Omeyyad army. Merwân II., the last of his dynasty, was driven to Egypt, and there killed in the church of Bussir, whither he had fled for refuge. Abul Abbâs succeeds to the Caliphate.At the close of the year 132,[605] the black flag, emblem of the Abbassides, floated over the battlements of Damascus. The Omeyyad dynasty, after ruling the vast Moslem empire for a century, now disappeared in cruelty and bloodshed. Alyite, Omeyyad, and Khârejite, were equally the victims of the exterminating sword of the first Abbasside Caliph, who thereby earned for himself the unenviable name of Al Saffâh, ‘The Bloody.’[606]
Omeyyad dynasty in Spain. A.H. 138. A.D. 756.
So perished the royal house of the Omeyyads. But one escaped. He fled to Spain, which had never favoured the overweening pretensions of the Prophet’s family, whether in the line of Aly or Abbâs. Accepted by the Arab tribes, whose influence in the West was paramount, Abd al Rahmân now laid the foundation of a new Dynasty, and perpetuated the Omeyyad name at the magnificent court of Cordova. Moslem defeat at Tours. A.D. 732.Some years previously, the flood of Moslem victory sweeping northwards had been stemmed and rolled back by Charles Martel at Tours; but a grand career yet remained within the peninsula of Spain to illustrate this remnant of the Omeyyad race.
Other Moslem kingdoms.
Thus with the rise of the Abbassides, the unity of the Caliphate came to an end. Never after, either in theory or in fact, was there a successor to the Prophet, acknowledged as such over all Islam. Other provinces followed in the wake of Spain. The Aghlabite dynasty in the east of Africa and west of it, the Edrisites in Fez, both of Alyite descent; Egypt and Sicily under independent rulers; the Tâhirite kings in Persia, their native soil; these and others, breaking away from the central government, established kingdoms of their own. The Caliphate in its original significance comes to an end.The name of Caliph, however it might survive in the Abbasside lineage, or be assumed by less legitimate pretenders, had now altogether lost its virtue and significance.
The Abbassides transfer seat of government to Baghdad. A.H. 145.