Cultural Life in the Umayyad era (41-132 AH/661-749 AD)

Abstract

The Umayyad Caliphate (41-132 AH/661-749 AD) was one of the most important political entities to emerge in the Islamic East under Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan (41-60 AH/661-680 AD). It was the second caliphate in history, with Damascus as its capital, and reached its maximum expansion during the reign of Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (105-125 AH/724-743 AD). Despite this, it did not neglect the cultural and scientific aspects, which were the first building blocks in the formation of the sciences at that time, especially the sciences of the Holy Quran (sciences: recitations, interpretation, jurisprudence, hadith, and theology). During this period, we observed the emergence of multiple recitations, in addition to the emergence of several interpreters who strove to interpret the verses of the Qur'an, and jurisprudence, which Caliph Umar ibn al-Aziz (99-101 AH/717-719 AD) was keen to codify. As for literary and linguistic sciences, the arts of poetry, rhetoric, grammar, and writing emerged, characterized by the appearance of new themes as a result of the demands of the Umayyad era.

The Umayyads did not neglect the rational sciences such as medicine and translation, which helped to translate medical books from Greek into Arabic, as well as chemistry and history, which saw the emergence of books on biography, military campaigns, genealogy, and conquests.

The study concluded that the Umayyads contributed to the development of intellectual life and architecture, which paved the way for the scientific renaissance that prevailed in the Abbasid era, with particular mention of the Arabization movement carried out by Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (65-86 AH/685-705 AH).