T H E UMAYYADS A N D T H E
SECOND FITNAH
Caliph Muawiyyah (661-80) managed to restore the unity of
the empire. Muslims had been horrified by the fitnah, and had
realized how vulnerable they were in their garrison towns,
isolated from their fellow Arabs and surrounded by poten-
tially hostile subjects. They simply could not afford such
lethal civil war. They wanted strong government, and
Muawiyyah, an able ruler, was able to give it to them. He re-
vived Umar's system of segregating the Arab Muslims from
the population, and even though some Muslims in Arabia
were still agitating for the right to build estates in the occu-
pied territories, Muawiyyah continued to forbid this. He also
discouraged conversion, and built an efficient administration.
Islam thus remained the religion of the conquering Arab
elite. At first the Arabs, who had no experience of imperial
government, relied on the expertise of non-Muslims, who
had served the previous Byzantine and Persian regimes, but
gradually the Arabs began to oust the dhimmis from the top
posts. In the course of the next century, the Umayyad caliphs
would gradually transform the disparate regions conquered
by the Muslim armies into a unified empire, with a common
ideology. This was a great achievement; but the court natu-
rally began to develop a rich culture and luxurious lifestyle,
and became indistinguishable in many respects from any
other ruling class.
Therein lay a dilemma. It had been found, after centuries
of experience, that an absolute monarchy was the only effec-
tive way of governing a pre-modern empire with an agrarian-
based economy, and that it was far more satisfactory than a