The Umayyad Caliphate And The Ottoman Empire

The empire that succeeded the Umayyad Caliphate was the Abbasid Caliphate. The dynasty ruled from 750 to 1258 AD, making it one of the longest and most influential Islamic dynasties. This regime was formed after the Abbasid Revolution which took place between the end of the Umayyad Caliphate and the start of the Abbasid Caliphate. The Umayyads had become increasingly unpopular as they favored Syrian Arabs over other Muslims. The mawali, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, were treated as second-class citizens. The most numerous group of mawali were the Persians, who lived side-by-side with Arabs in the east who were angry at the favor shown to Syrian Arabs. Together they were ripe for rebellion and they united under the Abbasids,

However the strengths of the Abbasid Caliphate outweighed its weaknesses the most out of the three regimes. The Umayyad Caliphate had an unclear agenda since Mu’awiya wanted to eliminate Christian influence but ended up marrying a Christian woman and allowed Christians to live and practice their religion within the empire. The Ottoman Empire, being founded on the basis of Islam, held bias against non-Muslims in the empire by not sharing the same rights and privileges that Muslims held and made them pay a special tax to the state. The Abbasid Caliphate replaced the uncertainty of the Umayyad government, allowed the equality among different groups of people such as the mawali and initiated a golden age. The Abbasid Caliphate is the clear-cut winner out of the Umayyad and Ottoman empires. Now the Abbasids may be superior but all the regimes had effects on the modern day world. Without the Umayyads, the Arab language and culture may have never spread across the region. The golden age during the time of the Abbasids exchanged and expanded upon many ideas from Egyptians, Persians and the Chinese. The city of Baghdad, which is currently the second largest city in the Arab world, may have never evolved into the cultural and intellectual center of the Islamic world. If the Ottoman Empire never existed, the gunpowder weapons may have never been discovered and Islamic culture may have not reached the point it is at today. However, all these regimes existed and together they allow present-day Middle East today to be viewed as a place where people of all religions, cultures and ethnicities come to exchange goods and