Only eighteen years after the battle of Tours, the Arabian
Empire was divided into two rival and more or less hostile parts, which came to
be called the Eastern and Western caliphates. The title of caliph, meaning
"successor" or "representative," had first been assumed by
Mohammed's father-in-law, Abu Bekr, who was chosen to succeed the prophet as
the civil and religious head of the Moslem world. After him followed Omar, who
had been one of Mohammed's most faithful adherents, and then Othman and Ali,
both sons-in-law of Mohammed. These four rulers are sometimes known as the
"Orthodox" caliphs, because their right to the succession was
universally acknowledged by Moslems.
OMMIAD CALIPHS AT DAMASCUS, 661-750 A.D.
After Ali's death the governor of Syria, Moawiya by name,
succeeded in making himself caliph of the Moslem world. This usurper converted
the caliphate into a hereditary, instead of an elective, office, and
established the dynasty of the Ommiads. [17] Their capital was no longer Medina
in Arabia, but the Syrian city of Damascus. The descendants of Mohammed's
family refused, however, to recognize the Ommiads as legitimate caliphs. In 750
A.D. a sudden revolt, headed by the party of the Abbasids, [18] established a
new dynasty. The Abbasids treacherously murdered nearly all the members of the
Ommiad family, but one survivor escaped to Spain, where he founded at Cordova
an independent Ommiad dynasty. [19] North Africa, also, before long separated
itself from Abbasid rule. Thus the once united caliphate, like the old Roman
Empire, split in twain.
[17] So called from a leading family of Mecca, to which
Moawiya belonged.
[18] So called from Abbas, an uncle of Mohammed.
[19] This was at first known as the emirate of Cordova,
but in 929 A.D. it became the caliphate of Cordova.
