| rdfs:comment | - The Umayyad Caliphate (Arabic: الخلافة الأموية, trans. Al-Ḫilāfa al-ʾumawiyya) was the second of the four major Islamic caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was centered on the Umayyad dynasty (Arabic: الأمويون, al-ʾUmawiyyūn, or بنو أمية, Banū ʾUmayya, "Sons of Umayya"), hailing from Mecca. The Umayyad family had first come to power under the third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan (r. 644–656), but the Umayyad regime was founded by Muawiya ibn Abu Sufyan, long-time governor of Syria, after the end of the First Muslim Civil War in 661 CE/41 AH. Syria remained the Umayyads' main power base thereafter, and Damascus was their capital. The Umayyads continued the Muslim conquests, incorporating the Caucasus, Transoxiana, Sind, the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula (Al-And
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| abstract | - The Umayyad Caliphate (Arabic: الخلافة الأموية, trans. Al-Ḫilāfa al-ʾumawiyya) was the second of the four major Islamic caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was centered on the Umayyad dynasty (Arabic: الأمويون, al-ʾUmawiyyūn, or بنو أمية, Banū ʾUmayya, "Sons of Umayya"), hailing from Mecca. The Umayyad family had first come to power under the third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan (r. 644–656), but the Umayyad regime was founded by Muawiya ibn Abu Sufyan, long-time governor of Syria, after the end of the First Muslim Civil War in 661 CE/41 AH. Syria remained the Umayyads' main power base thereafter, and Damascus was their capital. The Umayyads continued the Muslim conquests, incorporating the Caucasus, Transoxiana, Sind, the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) into the Muslim world. At its greatest extent, the Umayyad Caliphate covered 5.79 million square miles (15,000,000 km2), making it the largest empire the world had yet seen, and the fifth largest ever to exist. At the same time, the Umayyad taxation and administrative practice were widely perceived as absolutist, oppressive and unjust, deviating from the precepts of Islam. Coupled with rivalries between the Arab tribes, their rule was plagued by unrest in the provinces outside Syria, most notably in the Second Muslim Civil War of 680–692 CE and the Berber Revolt of 740–743 CE. During the Second Civil War, leadership of the Umayyad clan shifted from the Sufyanid branch of the family to the Marwanid branch. As the constant campaigning exhausted the resources and manpower of the state, the Umayyads, weakened by the Third Muslim Civil War of 744–747 CE, were finally toppled by the Abbasid Revolution in 750 CE/132 AH. A branch of the family fled across North Africa to Al-Andalus, where they established the Caliphate of Córdoba, which lasted until 1031 before falling due to the Fitna of al-Ándalus.
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