Umayyad Caliphate

State · 656–756 CE · at its largest around 732 CE

From Damascus, the Umayyads built the first great Islamic empire, stretching from Spain to Central Asia. They made Arabic the language of government, minted the first Islamic coins and raised the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Great Mosque of Damascus.

Its battles, in Battle View

Battle of Tours (732 CE)

On its lands while it lasted

Uruk (c. 5,000 BCE – c. 700 CE): Sumerian city on the Euphrates that by about 3100 BCE was probably the largest city in the world, centre of the first urban civilization.
Sogdians (c. 500 BCE – c. 900 CE): Iranian people of the Zeravshan valley around Samarkand and Bukhara whose merchants dominated trade along the Silk Roads, especially between the 4th and 8th centuries.
Djenné-Djenno (c. 250 BCE – c. 1400 CE): One of the oldest known towns in sub-Saharan Africa, in the inland Niger delta of Mali; occupied from about the 3rd century BCE and abandoned by around 1400.
Silk Road (c. 130 BCE – c. 1450 CE): A network of overland caravan routes linking China with Central Asia, Persia and the Mediterranean, along which silk, spices, horses, religions, technologies and diseases travelled for more than 1,500 years.
Palmyra (c. 261–1929 CE): Capital of Palmyrene Empire (261–269).
Ghana Empire (c. 300–1200 CE): Soninke empire of the western Sahel, known to Arab writers as a land of gold, which grew rich by controlling trans-Saharan trade; its capital is usually identified with Koumbi Saleh.
Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE): Mu'awiya I founded the Umayyad Caliphate with its capital at Damascus; it extended Muslim rule from Iberia to Central Asia.
Battle of Karbala (680 CE): Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of Muhammad, and his small party were killed by Umayyad forces at Karbala, an event central to Shia Islam and commemorated on Ashura.
Dome of the Rock (c. 691 CE): Built on Jerusalem's Temple Mount under the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik, it is the oldest surviving major work of Islamic architecture.
Trans-Saharan trade (c. 700–1600 CE): Camel caravans crossed the Sahara between Morocco and the Niger bend, exchanging North African goods and Saharan salt from mines such as Taghaza for West African gold, enriching the empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhai.
Umayyad conquest of Hispania (711–718 CE): Umayyad forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed from North Africa and conquered most of the Visigothic kingdom within a few years.
Reconquista (718–1492 CE): Centuries-long series of campaigns by Christian kingdoms to take the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim rule, ending with the fall of Granada in 1492.
Battle of Tours (732 CE): Frankish forces under Charles Martel defeated an Umayyad army between Tours and Poitiers, halting Arab expansion into Gaul.
Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258 CE): The Abbasid dynasty, descended from Muhammad's uncle, took the caliphate from the Umayyads and ruled from Iraq, presiding over the Islamic Golden Age.
Battle of Talas (751 CE): Abbasid forces defeated a Tang Chinese army near the Talas River, ending Tang expansion westward into Central Asia.