The Umayyads (661 – 750 AD) were the first Islamic dynasty. On Muhammad’s death a leader, the Caliph, had been chosen by a council. This custom continued for a while until a power struggle broke out with the appointment of Caliph Uthman and subsequently worsened under his successor, the Prophet’s son-in-law, Ali. After his victory in the ensuing civil war, the first Umayyad ruler Muawiya moved the capital north to Damascus where he had been governor, shifting power from the Hijaz northwards.

The Umayyads presided over a tremendous expansion of the Muslim world: to North Africa, Spain and Central Asia. It was a time of dynamic development, but it also saw the beginnings of dissent and schism within Islam – the Shiite movement developed after the death of the Prophet’s son-in-law Ali in 661 and his son Hussein in 680. Ultimately this conflict and tribal feuding were to lead to the downfall of the Umayyad house, but in the 90 years of Umayyad rule their achievements were considerable: they forged a new Islamic administration capable of running an empire that by then stretched from India to Morocco.

Aesthetically they stood for a fusion of styles from which a truly Islamic art was forged. In Syria, the Arabs entered a region with its own artistic and cultural heritage and were influenced both by Persian and Eastern Mediterranean art and iconography. Hence the importance of the Umayyad monuments found in Jordan, Syria and Palestine: buildings like the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, or the Great Mosque in Damascus paved the way for the later developments in Islamic art.

On a more personal level there are the “Desert Castles”, expressions of a more private side of their lives, but which stand today as prime examples of early, secular, Islamic art. Showing great variety in their construction and functions (the Amra baths, enigmatic Kharana, the splendid but unfinished palace of Mshatta) one of their hallmarks was a wealth of decoration: mosaic, fresco, stone or stucco carvings, depicting events, people animals and sometimes just pure pattern.

These complexes, often called castles, are located at the edge of the desert and have aroused much speculation among scholars, who first saw them as retreats for the Umayyad rulers. Certainly, they may have been built there to maintain a close relationship with the tribes whose support the Umayyads needed, but there are other explanations: some were on well-used trade routes and may have served transient visitors, and some may have had a defensive or agricultural purpose, while yet others were there purely for pleasure and as an escape from the city for a dynasty with those links to the Bedouin and desert life.

It became increasingly difficult for the Umayyads to hold their empire together, weakened as it was with feuding and religious dissent. The Shiite movement was gaining support from disaffected converts to Islam, disgruntled at tax burdens and perceived discrimination. A further shift in the centre of power was heralded by the ascendancy of the Abbasid dynasty east of Baghdad.

The last of the Umayyads, Marwan II, was killed in Egypt and his head was sent back to the man who had by then been proclaimed Caliph, Abul Abbas, a descendant of a relation of the Prophet. A branch of Umayyads hung on in Spain until the 11C, but Syria and Jordan were never again to be so close to the centre of power. Nonetheless, the monuments of the Umayyads still stand in the desert as reminders of the early days and achievements of Islam.