Accession of the Ommeyades to Power.—With the death of Ali and the renunciation of Hassan came to an end the Republic of Islâm. Up to this time the office of Caliph was elective, and the government essentially democratic. Muâwiyah, whilst retaining the form of election, made it in reality hereditary and autocratic. The seat of government was removed from Medîna to Damascus, where the head of the state surrounded himself by Syrian mercenaries.
The Butchery of Kerbela—The Martyrdom of Hussain.—Muâwiyah died in 680 A.C., and was succeeded by his son Yezîd, the Domitian of the Arabs. Hussain, the second son of the Caliph Ali, had never acknowledged the title of Yezîd, whose vices he despised and whose character he abhorred; and when the Moslems of Mesopotamia invited him to release them from the Ommeyade yoke he felt it his duty to respond to their appeal. Accompanied by his family and a few retainers he left for Irâk. On the way, at a place called Kerbela, on the western bank of the Euphrates, they were overtaken by an Ommeyade army, and, after a heroic struggle, lasting over several days, were all slaughtered save the women and a sickly child, also named Ali, who were carried as captives to Damascus.
The butchery of Kerbela caused a thrill of horror throughout Islâm, and gave birth in Persia to an undying national sentiment.[43]
Conquest of Spain, 712 A.C.—Under Walid the fifth sovereign of this family, Spain was conquered and added to the Caliphate. The seventh Ommeyade ruler was the pious Omar II., deservedly called the Marcus Aurelius of the Arabs.
The Ommeyades held the reins of government for nearly ninety years.
The Rise of the House of Abbâs.—In the middle of the eighth century of the Christian era Western Asia was the scene of a great revolution, which resulted in the downfall of the Ommeyades. The revolt was headed by a descendant of Abbâs, an uncle of the Prophet. The contest between the Ommeyades and Abbassides reminds us, in its bitterness and cruelty, of the later quarrel between the White and the Red Rose of England.
Foundation of the Ommeyade Caliphate in Spain, 756 A.C.—The Abbassides were successful and the Ommeyades were practically annihilated. Only one solitary scion of this ill-fated family escaped to Spain, where he founded the brilliant empire of Cordova. The Abbassides held the Eastern Caliphate with its seat in Bagdad from 756 A.C. to 1258 A.C.
Destruction of Bagdad.—When Bagdad was destroyed by the Mongols, a member of the Abbasside family succeeded in escaping to Cairo. Here he was recognised as Caliph by the Sultan of Egypt, and was surrounded by all the dignity attached to the pontifical office. The eighth Pontiff, by a formal act, renounced the Caliphate in favour of Sultan Selim, the great Ottoman conqueror.
The Title of the Ottoman Caliphs.—The title of the Sultans of Turkey to the spiritual headship of Islâm is based on this renunciation, and on the possession by them of the seal, mantle, and staff of the Prophet; and their claim is recognised as valid by the whole of the Sunni world.
Mansûr, the second Abbasside Caliph.—The first eight Caliphs of the house of Abbâs were men of great ability and force of character. Mansûr, the second sovereign, was the real founder of the Abbasside polity and system of administration, which became in after years the model for all civilised Mussulman States, and which were copied in later times by the Christian countries of Europe.