The Abbasid Revolution and the End of Umayyad Rule
An Empire That Looked Stable but Had Already Started Cracking In the years following 720 CE, the Umayyad Caliphate stood at its greatest territorial extent, yet it was entering one of its most fragile internal phases. The death of Caliph Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz marked a quiet but decisive turning point. His short reign had attempted to realign governance with Qur’anic ethics—ending discriminatory taxation on non-Arab Muslims, restraining governors, and emphasizing moral accountability. When he died, those reforms were not …