Umayyad+and+Abbasid+Dynasty

The first of Umayyads were the Sufyanids (decsendents od Abu Sufyan) who ruled from 661-684. Under Muawiya (661-680) the capitol of the Muslim empire was transferred to Damascus. He is credited with raising a highly-trained army of Syrian soldiers which was used to expand Muslim authority east into Khorasan and west into North Africa. Muawiya also led excursions into Anatolia beginning in 672, which culminated into an unsuccessful three-year seige of Constantinople (674-677). He retained the administrative structures left by the Byzantines and Persians but consolidated his authority by appointing kinsmen to key posts. Before his death, Muawiya secured allegiance to his son, Yazid, thus introducing dynastic succession to Muslim rule. During Abd al-Malik's reign (685-705), order was gradually restored to Iraq and Arabia; Ibn al-Zubayr, who had taken advantage of the civil war in Syria to extend control into Iraq, was defeated in 692. Arabic was made the official language of administration, and Byzantine coins were replaced with a new Islamic-style coinage. Under his sons, Walid I (705-715) and Sulayman (715-717), the empire expanded westward to Morocco and Spain, and eastward to Transoxiana. Constantinople was beseiged, again unsuccessfully, for one year (717-718). This period also marks the building of several grand palaces and the famous Umayyad mosque in Damascus. With the death of Sulayman, power was transferred to his cousin Umar b. Abd al-Aziz (717-720). He enacted fiscal reforms which placed all Muslims, Arab and non-Arab, on equal footing. His successor, Yazid II (720-724), caused a renewal of the hostilities between the Qaysites and the Kalbites by openly favoring the the former. During Hisham's long reign (724-743), the Muslim empire reached the limits of its expansion. Discontent with the Umayyad regime manifested itself with the rebellion of Zayd b. Ali in 740, while Berber revolts in North Africa that same year effectively cut off what is today Morocco and Spain from Umayyad rule. Under Hisham's successors, Walid II, Yazid III, and Ibrahim, a series of rebellions paralyzed the caliphate: Kharijites seized Kufa, and feuds between the Qaysites and Kalbites errupted. The last Umayyad caliph of Syria, Marwan II (744-750), attempted to restore order, but by this time the Abbasid revolutionary movement had gained momentum in the eastern provinces of the empire. In 749 Abu al-Abbas al-Saffah was proclaimed the first Abbasid caliph; the Umayyads were massacred in 750. Only one Umayyad, Abd al-Rahman, escaped: he fled to Spain where he established the dynasty of the Umayyads of Cordoba

The Abbasid Caliphate or, more simply, the Abbasids was the third of the Islamic caliphates. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphate from all but the al-Andalus region. The Abbasid caliphate was founded by the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad's youngest uncle, ‘Abbas ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib, in Harran in 750 CE and shifted its capital in 762 to Baghdad. It flourished for two centuries, but slowly went into decline with the rise to power of the Turkish army it had created, the Mamluks. Within 150 years of gaining control of Persia, the caliphs were forced to cede power to local dynastic emirs who only nominally acknowledged their authority. The caliphate also lost the Western provinces of al-Andalus, Maghreb and Ifriqiya to an Umayyad prince, the Aghlabids and the Fatimid Caliphate, respectively. The Abbasids' rule was briefly ended for three years in 1258, when Hulagu Khan, the Mongol khan, sacked Baghdad, resuming in Mamluk Egypt in 1261, from where they continued to claim authority in religious matters until 1519, when power was formally transferred to the Ottoman Empire and the capital relocated to Constantinople. The Abbasid caliphs were Arabs descended from Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–662), one of the youngest uncles of Muhammad, because of which they considered themselves the true successor of Muhammad as opposed to the Umayyads. The Umayyads were descended from Umayya, and were a clan separate from Muhammad's in the Quraish tribe.