In the rich and ancient history of Islam and the Arab peoples, few empires have managed to expand so rapidly and with such great stability as the Umayyad empire. After the assassination of Caliph Ali in 661 A.D., son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān took control of the Islamic caliphate after a bloody civil war and established the new capital of the Islamic empire in Damascus, Syria. The city soon became a prosperous centre of arts, culture and scientific innovation, as well as the most important political centre of the booming Islamic world.

The Umayyads originated from the powerful Quraish tribe of Mecca, the same tribe from which the prophet Muhammad came, yet they were long his rivals (originally) until their conversion to Islam. Until the death of Ali, Muʿāwiya had been the ruler of Syria and his move was revolutionary; he transformed the Islamic Caliphate into a hereditary monarchy, breaking with the previous tradition of the elective Caliphate.

Within a few decades the Islamic Empire, under the new Umayyad dynasty, extended from Persia to Spain, controlling large regions of Central Asia, Mesopotamia, North Africa and most of the Iberian Peninsula. Never since Roman times had an empire managed to control such vast territories that were administered from Damascus. In 711 the conquest of Spain marked a key moment, Islam arrived in Europe opening a new era of trade and conflict, but going beyond the military nature of the Umayyad Empire, it was also an incredible political and administrative laboratory. The empire organised an efficient centralised and Arabic-speaking bureaucracy that for the first time in many centuries also accepted religious plurality and the coexistence of different faiths within its borders.

Obviously such plurality should not be confused with the modern concept of religious tolerance, and non-Islamic citizens were forced to pay extra taxes and were treated as second-class citizens, but considering the fact that there was no room for other faiths in Christian Europe, these facts can be considered highly innovative.