Umayyad army

The Umayyad army was the military land force and naval force of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. It was the successor to some of the conquest armies of the Rashidun Caliphate. The period is commonly divided into two: the Sufyanid period (661–684) and the Marwanid period (684–750). During these periods, the army formed from conquest-era provincial forces into a social-military system based on the Syrian ajnad, the Divan, regular payments, Arab tribal groups, garrison towns, annual raids and provincial military districts inside cities.

Under Mu'awiya (r. 661–680 AD), the main strength of the army was the Syrian military districs known as the Ahl al-Sham. These troops were organised through the ajnad of Damascus, Hims, Palestine, Jordan and, from the late 7th century, Qinnasrin. By the reign of the Marwanid al-Walid I, the Damascus jund alone is reported to have about 45,000 names. Blankinship estimates that the total Syrian rolls may have contained about 175,000, apart from forces in the Jazira.

Its main strengths were regular payment, Syrian cohesion, tribal recruitment and constant raid warfare. Its main tensions came from stipend disputes, Syrian-Iraqi rivalry, Umayyad-Hashimite rivalry, the status of mawali and Berber, and the growth of Qays–Yaman factionalism.

Umayyads expanded the caliphate from the Atlantic and al-Andalus to Transoxiana and Sindh. Syria remained the centre. Under al-Hajjaj, Iraq became the main base for eastern campaigns. Khurasan became the decisive northeastern frontier. Ifriqiya and Qayrawan served the western advance towards Iberia and the Frankish realms . Egypt supplied revenue, grain and naval manpower against Byzantine. By the reigns of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and Marwan II, pressure on several frontiers, depletion of Syrian manpower, provincial rebellion and the rise of the Abbasid movement in Khurasan broke the old military order. The final defeat came at the Battle of the Zab in 750, when Marwan II's Syrian and Jazirian army was destroyed by Abbasid Khurasani forces.