Abd al-Malik, the Dome of the Rock and Arabic as the language of state

Part oneJerusalem, 72 AH

Picture Jerusalem around 691 CE. On the raised platform where the Temple of Solomon (peace be upon him) once stood, builders were completing an eight-sided building with a great dome, over the rock at the heart of the platform. This was the Dome of the Rock, the oldest great monument of Islam that still stands.

The building is simple in plan. An octagon of arches and walls rises around a circle of columns, and above them sits a timber dome, with the rock directly beneath. Mosaics of plants, vines and jewels decorate the interior, and no human or animal figures appear anywhere, only patterns and writing.

Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan ordered it built as the civil war was ending. He had grown up in Madinah and had studied there before politics claimed him. Jerusalem is the city of many prophets, the first direction of prayer for the Muslims for more than a year after the Hijrah, and the place the Prophet ﷺ was taken to in the Night Journey. Historians suggest the building also declared Islam's confidence in a city full of churches.

The inscriptions inside are among the oldest dated Islamic writing that survives. They speak of the oneness of Allah and of Muhammad ﷺ as His messenger, and they address Christian belief about Jesus (peace be upon him) with respect and firmness. Long bands of early angular script, now called Kufic, run around the arcades, and one band gives the year as 72 AH.

From the Quran

سُبْحَـٰنَ ٱلَّذِىٓ أَسْرَىٰ بِعَبْدِهِۦ لَيْلًا مِّنَ ٱلْمَسْجِدِ ٱلْحَرَامِ إِلَى ٱلْمَسْجِدِ ٱلْأَقْصَا ٱلَّذِى بَـٰرَكْنَا حَوْلَهُۥ لِنُرِيَهُۥ مِنْ ءَايَـٰتِنَآ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ هُوَ ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلْبَصِيرُ ۝١

Glory be to the One Who took His servant ˹Muḥammad˺ by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque whose surroundings We have blessed, so that We may show him some of Our signs. Indeed, He alone is the All-Hearing, All-Seeing.

The platform itself is called the Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary. Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) had come to Jerusalem in the first years after the Prophet's ﷺ passing, and Muslims had prayed on the platform since then. Abd al-Malik's building gave the sanctuary a lasting shape. Al-Aqsa mosque, at the southern end of the platform, was built in the same period.

Part twoAn empire in Arabic

Abd al-Malik inherited a state that still ran on borrowed machinery. In Syria and Egypt the clerks wrote Greek. In Iraq and Iran they wrote Persian. Coins copied Byzantine and Persian designs, with crosses, fire altars and portraits.

Around 77 AH, in 696-697, he introduced a coinage that carried only writing. On the gold dinar and the silver dirham were the declaration of faith and words from Surah al-Ikhlas, which proclaims that Allah is one. Weights and sizes were standardised across the lands. Coins in this style stayed in use for centuries.

Around 700, the registers of government were switched to Arabic, first in Damascus and Iraq, then elsewhere. It was a huge change. Scribes who had written Greek and Persian all their lives had to learn a new language, and Arabic grew new words for administration, taxes and accounts. In these same decades, scholars in Iraq added dots to distinguish similar letters and signs for the vowels, so that the Quran and official records could be read correctly by those who had not grown up speaking Arabic. Many peoples across the empire learned Arabic in the following generations, and writers from Persia and Syria made it their own.

The change mattered for ordinary people as much as for clerks. The Quran was already in Arabic, and now the law courts, the army registers and the tax offices were too. A young man in Basra or Fustat who learned the language could read scripture, join the administration or become a scholar. Over the next generations, many of the most famous scholars of the Arabic language and of Islamic learning came from families who had not spoken it at home.

Arabic was also becoming the language of poetry at court. The rival poets al-Farazdaq and Jarir were famous across the empire, and a Christian poet, al-Akhtal, wrote in Arabic at the caliph's court. A language that had once belonged to the tribes of Arabia was now spoken in Damascus and Basra.

Part threeA firm hand

Abd al-Malik also kept a swift postal service and a paid army. His governor in Iraq, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, founded the city of Wasit between Kufa and Basra as a garrison. Al-Hajjaj was an effective administrator and a stern ruler. Many admired his firmness, and others remember a hard hand and the hardship his rule brought to Iraq. Muslims have long disagreed about him.

Tax rules were harder to settle. Many people in the conquered lands were becoming Muslim, and the treasury, which had counted on taxes paid by non-Muslims, felt the loss. In practice some converts went on paying, and this caused lasting resentment. It returns later in this story.

Abd al-Malik died in Damascus in 705 (86 AH), after twenty years as caliph. Four of his sons would rule after him. He left a state with its own coins, its own language and its own monuments.

He left a state with its own coins, its own language and its own monuments.

WatchThe lecture for this chapter

Lecture Al MuqaddimahAbd al-Malik, The Most Influential Caliph (opens on YouTube)

The mapWhere it happened

• Damascus
• Jerusalem
• Kufa
• Wasit
• Basra

This map is a simple sketch to help you picture where events took place. Positions, distances and borders are approximate, so please use it for reference only, not as an accurate map.

SourcesSources for this chapter