Umayyad Imperial Conquest Essay

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In Islamic history, upon the death of Muhammad, his followers were faced with the decision of who should take his place as the leader of Islam. This leadership position was called the caliph. The empires of the caliphates in the Middle East began and expanded with imperial conquest, actively and passionately practice the conversion of non-believers to Islam, and ended with destructive civil wars. The empires started and expanded using imperial conquest. After the death of Mu’awiya, the Umayyad leader, the Umayyads united their rule and embarked on wars of imperial conquest. (Spodek 351) To make known their imperial power, the Umayyad caliphs build elegant monumental mosques in Jerusalem, Medina, and Damascus. (Spodek 351) These mosques are still tourist destinations today and are still quite beautiful. They borrowed their imperial conquest style, amongst other things, from the Byzantine Empire. (Spodek 352) The Umayyad’s also expanded their empire through a series of enormously successful imperial conquests.(Spodek 351) In these conquest they reach a point where their empire stretches 6000 miles long. The Abbasid Caliphs, unlike the Ummayads, didn’t expand as much, but did …show more content…
In the Umayyad Empire, a new social structure was developing that was dividing the Arab upper and lower classes while mixing the Arab and non-Arab elites. The Umayads had raised conflicting expectations. Non-Arab Muslims, whose taxes were not lowered, or lowered only temporarily, railed against the government for not delivering on its promises. Arabs were unhappy that their own taxes were being raised to compensate for the reductions offered to others. Eventually they were over-extended and exhausted and began to lose major battles. The Abbasid caliphs also had inner empire problems. The process of choosing a successor to the caliph remained un-resolved. Harun-al-Rashid had two sons who fought for the throne provoking a civil

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