The Umayyad Caliphate
An empire from Spain to the Indus, governed in Arabic.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 89 years
- Known to
- ± 2 years
- Era
- Post-Classical, Holocene
The Umayyads rule from Damascus from 661 to 750, extending Muslim rule across North Africa into Iberia by 711 and east to Central Asia and Sindh. Abd al-Malik makes Arabic the language of administration and issues a purely epigraphic coinage, and builds the Dome of the Rock. Their expansion into Francia is checked at Tours in 732, though the significance of that battle has been much debated.