DURING the reign of Umayyad Caliph Hisham bin Abdul-Malik, the state reached the height of its expansion, and was considered in the ancient world as one of the greatest and most powerful states.

At the same time, it was showing reasons for its weakness and demise through the hands of some members of the ruling house for various reasons, including poor choices, and chaos in governance in a bid to overcome the crisis facing the members of that house.

Therefore, its demise happened when the rulers did not manage the decision well, and saw that they could quell the internal opposition among them by the power of concessions.

Indications of the demise of the Umayyad Dynasty began when Yazid bin Abdul-Malik felt he was close to death, and entrusted his brother Hisham with the rule, but under the condition that his son Al-Walid bin Yazid, who was then ten years old, would be the crown prince.

This arrangement turned out to be the first nail in the coffin of a strong dynasty because the upbringing of Al-Walid involved a lot of entertainment and promiscuity, and he was unaware about the difficult task entrusted to him.

On the other hand, the state was facing many problems such as the uprising ignited by some members of the ruling house, especially in the last three decades of its life, and the conspiracies that were hatched in the hope of winning power and the presidency of the state. The best example of this is the poisoning of its ruler Omar bin Abdulaziz because he made justice his wand in governance.

After that, when Hisham discovered that his nephew was highly promiscuous and did not care about the matter of governance, he wanted to depose him and install his son Salama as the crown prince, but the latter was not better than the first, and the relationship between the uncle and his nephew deteriorated.

Al-Walid fled to the desert and stayed there until Hisham died. He assumed power as a young man, and the first thing he did was confiscate his uncle’s wealth. He then began to harass his cousins, imprison them, humiliate them, and confiscate their money. He also kept some of them under house arrest. After that he indulged in a life of fun and promiscuity, and did not give much attention to the governance of the state.

The affairs of the state were rapidly deteriorating at that time, leading his cousin Yazid bin Al-Walid to take advantage of the situation. He rebelled against him and took power, and wanted to follow the biography of Omar bin Al-Aziz. He thus decreased the salaries of the soldiers, and began enriching his people, and within 13 months of his rule, opposition spread among the people, and the resentment increased against him. However, fate caught up with him as he was struck by an incurable disease that took his life.

In all of this, propaganda, or the so-called “electronic flies”, i.e. poets and mouthpieces, were working on marketing to whoever pays the most, while the Abbasid call was at its strongest. It was working systematically to exploit mistakes in the house of Umayyad rule, especially the struggle for the leadership of the state between the sons of cousins, the last of which was the revolution launched by Marwan, nicknamed “The Donkey”, against his cousin Ibrahim bin Al-Walid.

All of this made the Abbasids seek strength, gather the people around them, and finally win power after the Battle of Zab, which revealed the extent of the abuse of power. The members of the ruling house dispersed from what the conditions of the states would turn out to be, and it is not confined to the Umayyad state only, as the European kingdoms in the past witnessed similar scenarios.

Some of the royal and ruling houses benefited from the lessons, and worked to reform their conditions from the inside, and were able to continue to this day, while others ignored due to which their demise was quick.

The closest example of sowing the causes of weakness within ruling houses from the inside was the French Empire, which fell by the power of hunger and resentment towards the royal family when it let its greed and whims take precedence over the people who were in the end the shield of the state.

This is what history has for us ... Is there anyone to take admonitions?!

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times