TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > History > Foundation of the Marwand Caliphate and the Achievement of Abd al-Malik
- Problems in Syria and Iraq (Basra) internal feuding over family connections etc
- 684 – terrible battle at Marj Rahit – Marwan of Yamani acknowledged caliph at Damascus.
- Qays and Yaman split across Syria and until 19th century battles between the two still being fought.
- Administrative centralization 690 etc with Abd al-Malik – Arabization of coinage etc – all surpluses forward to treasury in Damascus.
REASONS FOR SUCCESS ETC
- House of Islam and House of War – attack whenever possible – conflict interrupted by occasional peace.
- True peace only when tributary peace accepted.
- Apart from Tang China – Muslims did not come into contact with any powers who were equal in terms of wealth or military power – like Romans could treat all others as Barbarians – only toward end of Umayadd period that Byzantines able to face Muslims on anything approaching equal basis. Little incentive for sending diplomatic missions to establish modus vivendi with other powers to establish permanent relations who were soon to be defeated and incorporated within Daral-Islam
- Umayadd Period bleak time for Byzantine – iconoclast emperors concentrated all energies on ensuring survival of the state, frontier provinces devastated by warm land of ruined cities and deserted villages – scattered population looked to rocky castles or impenetrable mountain rather than empire army for defence.
- Mediterranean almost entirely war zone rather than commercial highway - some cultural and commercial interchange with mosaics in workers from Byzantium decorating D. mosques. Fruitful diplomatic and commercial exchanges were limited before more settled period of Abbasid period.
- Umayyads virtually no communication at all with Lombards of Italy, late Merovingian and Early Carolingian rulers of France.
- Muslims sign permanent treaty with Christian people of Nubia – south Egypt.
- Traffic with Indian ocean seems to have grown rapidly – ports like Ubulla and Basra grew rich on products of trade – Muslim commercial settlement overseas (Sind Pakistan)
- Battle of Talas 751 – Tang’s of China – symbolic ending of expansion in north-eastt Iranian word.
- Umayyad caliphate – self-contained social, cultural, economic unit – much diversity within frontiers
- Not until 10th century that affairs of Western Europe and Near East began to interact again – self contained and it against this background of cultural self-sufficiency that Islamic civilisation developed.
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