Toward the end of his reign, Abd al-Malik, supported by al-Hajjaj, attempted to nominate al-Walid as his successor, abrogating the arrangement set by Marwan whereby Abd al-Malik's brother, the governor of Egypt,
Abd al-Aziz, was slated to succeed. Though the latter refused to step down from the line of succession, he died in 704 or early 705, removing the principal obstacle to al-Walid's nomination. After the death of Abd al-Malik on 9 October 705, al-Walid acceded. Al-Walid was physically described by the 9th-century historian
al-Ya'qubi as "tall and swarthy ... snub-nosed ... with a touch of gray
[sic] at the tip of his beard". He noted that al-Walid "spoke ungrammatically". To his father's chagrin, al-Walid abandoned speaking the
classical Arabic in which the
Qur'an was written but insisted that everyone in his company have knowledge of the Qur'an. Al-Walid essentially continued his father's policies of centralization and expansion. Unlike Abd al-Malik, al-Walid heavily depended on al-Hajjaj and allowed him free rein over the eastern half of the caliphate. Moreover, al-Hajjaj strongly influenced al-Walid's internal decision-making, with officials often being installed and dismissed upon the viceroy's recommendation.
Territorial expansion . The
Maghreb,
Hispania,
Sind and
Transoxiana, including
Khwarazm,
Tukharistan and
Ferghana, (the areas shaded in green) were all conquered during al-Walid's reign The renewal of the
Muslim conquests on the eastern and western frontiers had begun under Abd al-Malik, after he neutralized the Umayyads' domestic opponents. Under al-Walid, the armies of the caliphate "received a fresh impulse" and a "period of great conquests" began, in the words of the historian
Julius Wellhausen. During the second half of al-Walid's reign, the Umayyads reached their furthest territorial extent.
Eastern frontiers Expansion from the eastern frontiers was overseen by al-Hajjaj from Iraq. His lieutenant governor of
Khurasan,
Qutayba ibn Muslim, launched several campaigns in
Transoxiana (Central Asia), which had been a largely impenetrable region for earlier Muslim armies, between 705 and 715. Qutayba gained the surrender of
Bukhara in 706–709,
Khwarazm and
Samarkand in 711–712, and
Farghana in 713. He mainly secured Umayyad suzerainty through tributary alliances with local rulers, whose power remained intact. With Qutayba's death in 716, his army disbanded and the weak Arab position in Transoxiana allowed for the local princes and the
Turgesh nomads to roll back most of Qutayba's gains by the early 720s. From 708 or 709, al-Hajjaj's nephew,
Muhammad ibn al-Qasim, conquered
Sind, the northwestern part of South Asia.
Western frontiers In the west, al-Walid's governor in
Ifriqiya (central
North Africa),
Musa ibn Nusayr, another holdover from Abd al-Malik's reign, subjugated the
Berbers of the
Hawwara,
Zenata and
Kutama confederations and advanced on the
Maghreb (western North Africa). In 708 or 709, he conquered
Tangier and
Sus, in the far north and south of modern-day Morocco. Musa's Berber (freedman or client; pl. ),
Tariq ibn Ziyad, invaded the
Visigothic Kingdom of
Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula) in 711, and was reinforced by Musa in the following year. By 716, a year after al-Walid's death, Hispania
had been largely conquered. The massive war spoils netted by the conquests of Transoxiana, Sind and Hispania were comparable to the amounts accrued in the Muslim conquests during the reign of Caliph
Umar ().
Byzantine front Al-Walid appointed his half-brother
Maslama as governor of the
Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia) and charged him with leading the war effort against Byzantium. Although Maslama established a strong power base in the frontier zone, the Umayyads made few territorial gains during al-Walid's reign. After a
lengthy siege, the Byzantine fortress of
Tyana was captured and sacked in . Al-Walid did not lead any of the annual or bi-annual campaigns, but his eldest son
al-Abbas fought reputably alongside Maslama. His other sons
Abd al-Aziz,
Umar,
Bishr and Marwan also led raids. By 712, the
Arabs solidified their control of
Cilicia and the areas east of the
Euphrates River and launched raids deep into
Anatolia. After one such raid against
Ancyra in 714, the Byzantine emperor
Anastasios II () sent a delegation to negotiate a truce with al-Walid or decipher his intentions. The delegates reported back that al-Walid was planning a land and naval assault to conquer the Byzantine capital
Constantinople. Al-Walid died in 715 and the
siege was carried out under his successors, ending in 718 as a disaster for the Arabs.
Provincial affairs Syria Al-Walid entrusted most of Syria's
military districts to his sons; al-Abbas was assigned to
Homs, Abd al-Aziz to
Damascus, and Umar to
Jordan. In
Palestine, al-Walid's brother
Sulayman had been appointed by their father as governor and remained in office under al-Walid. Sulayman sheltered the deposed governor of Khurasan,
Yazid ibn al-Muhallab, a fugitive from al-Hajjaj's prison, in 708. Despite his initial disapproval, al-Walid pardoned Yazid as a result of Sulayman's lobbying and payment of the heavy fine that al-Hajjaj had imposed on Yazid.
Egypt Between 693 and 700, Abd al-Malik and al-Hajjaj initiated the dual processes of establishing a single Islamic currency in place of the previously used Byzantine and
Sasanian coinage and replacing
Greek and
Persian with
Arabic as the language of the bureaucracy in Syria and Iraq, respectively. These administrative reforms continued under al-Walid, during whose reign, in 705 or 706, Arabic replaced Greek and
Coptic in the (government departments) of Egypt. The change was implemented by al-Walid's half-brother,
Abd Allah, the governor of Egypt and appointee of Abd al-Malik. These policies effected the gradual
transition of Arabic as the sole official language of the state, unified the varied tax systems of the caliphate's provinces and contributed to the establishment of a more ideologically Islamic government. In 709, al-Walid replaced Abd Allah with his (scribe),
Qurra ibn Sharik al-Absi, who belonged to the same tribe as the caliph's mother. This was prompted either because of mounting complaints against Abd Allah's corruption, which was blamed for Egypt's first recorded famine under Islamic rule, or a desire to install a loyalist as governor. Qurra ibn Sharik served until his death in 715 and established a more efficient means of tax collection, reorganized
Egypt's army and, on al-Walid's orders, restored the
mosque of Fustat.
Hejaz Al-Walid initially kept Abd al-Malik's appointee,
Hisham ibn Isma'il al-Makhzumi, as governor of the Hejaz and leader of the Hajj pilgrimage. Both offices were of great prestige owing to the central religious importance of Mecca and Medina, the two
holiest cities of Islam. Al-Walid dismissed him in 706 as punishment for flogging and humiliating the prominent Medinan scholar
Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib for refusing to give the oath of allegiance to al-Walid as heir apparent during Abd al-Malik's reign. Although Hisham's act was in support of al-Walid, he considered it an abusive excess. According to the historian M. E. McMillan, other than al-Walid's "sense of righteous indignation", dynastic politics motivated his dismissal order. Hisham was the maternal grandfather of al-Walid's half-brother
Hisham, who was a contender for the caliphal succession, which al-Walid coveted for his son Abd al-Aziz. Rather than leaving such a close relative of his brother Hisham at the helm of the Islamic holy cities, al-Walid installed his cousin
Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, who was the husband of al-Walid's sister Fatima and brother to al-Walid's wife Umm al-Banin, the mother of Abd al-Aziz. On al-Walid's orders, Umar had Hisham publicly humiliated, an unprecedented motion against a sacked governor of Medina, which set "a dangerous precedent", according to McMillan. Umar maintained friendly ties to the holy cities' religious circles. He led the Hajj for at least four of the six years he was in office, with al-Walid's son Umar leading it in 707 and al-Walid leading it in 710, the only time he left Syria during his caliphate. Umar provided safe haven to Iraqis evading the persecution of al-Hajjaj. Umar informed al-Walid of al-Hajjaj's abuses, while al-Hajjaj advised the caliph to dismiss Umar for hosting Iraqi rebels. Al-Walid, wary of the Hejaz once again developing into a center of anti-Umayyad activity as it had during the Second Muslim Civil War, dismissed Umar in 712. He split the governorship of the Hejaz, appointing al-Hajjaj's nominees
Khalid ibn Abdallah al-Qasri to Mecca and
Uthman ibn Hayyan al-Murri to Medina. Neither was ever appointed to lead the Hajj, al-Walid reserving that office for Maslama and his own sons.
Balancing of tribal factions As a result of the
Battle of Marj Rahit, which inaugurated Marwan's reign in 684, a sharp division developed among the Syrian Arab tribes, who formed the core of the Umayyad army. The loyalist tribes that supported Marwan formed the
Yaman confederation, alluding to ancestral roots in
Yemen (South Arabia), while the
Qays, or northern Arab tribes, largely supported Ibn al-Zubayr. Abd al-Malik reconciled with the Qays in 691, but competition for influence between the two factions intensified as the Syrian army was increasingly empowered and deployed to the provinces, where they replaced or supplemented Iraqi and other garrisons. Al-Walid maintained his father's policy of balancing the power of the two factions in the military and administration. According to the historian
Hugh N. Kennedy, it is "possible that the caliph kept it [the rivalry] on the boil so that one faction [would] not acquire a monopoly of power". Al-Walid's mother genealogically belonged to the Qays and he accorded Qaysi officials certain advantages. However, Wellhausen doubts that al-Walid preferred one faction over the other, "for he had no need to do so, and it is not reported" by the medieval historians. The Qays–Yaman division intensified under al-Walid's successors, who did not maintain his balancing act. The feud was a major contributor to the Umayyad regime's demise in 750.
Public works and social welfare , founded by al-Walid I in modern-day
Lebanon From the beginning of his rule, al-Walid inaugurated public works and social welfare programs on a scale unprecedented in the caliphate's history. The efforts were financed by treasure accrued from the conquests and tax revenue. He and his brothers and sons built way-stations and dug wells along the roads in Syria and installed street lighting in the cities. They invested in land reclamation projects, entailing irrigation networks and canals, which boosted agricultural production. Al-Hajjaj also carried out irrigation and canal projects in Iraq during this period, in a bid to restore its agricultural infrastructure, damaged by years of warfare, and to find employment for its demobilized inhabitants. Al-Walid or his son al-Abbas founded the city of
Anjar, between Damascus and
Beirut, in 714. It included a mosque, palace, and residential, commercial, and administrative structures. According to the art historian
Robert Hillenbrand, Anjar "has the best claim of any Islamic foundation datable before 750 ... to be a city", though it was probably abandoned within forty years of its construction. In the Hejaz, al-Walid attempted to redress the hardships of pilgrims making the trek to Mecca by having water wells dug throughout the province, improving access through the mountain passes, and building a drinking fountain in Mecca. The historian M. A. Shaban theorizes that while al-Walid's projects in the cities of Syria and the Hejaz had a "utilitarian purpose", they were mainly intended to provide employment, in the form of cheap labor, for the growing non-Arab populations in the cities. Welfare programs included financial relief for the poor and servants to assist the handicapped, though this initiative was limited to Syria, and only to the Arab Muslims there. As such, Shaban considered it "a special state subsidy to the ruling class". He is sometimes credited with establishing the first
bimaristan (hospital) in the Islamic world in Damascus in 707, but this has been disputed among historians. The claim is largely based on the writings of later medieval historians such as
al-Tabari (d. 923) and
al-Maqrizi (d. 1442). Modern historians Michael W. Dols and
Douglas Morton Dunlop concluded that some of the early historical sources suggest that al-Walid I created something like a
leprosarium (a segregated hospice for
lepers) rather than a hospital, consistent with contemporary Byzantine practices. and this view was accepted by multiple other historians, including
Peregine Horden and Peter E. Pormann. More recently, Ahmed Ragab argued that there is no evidence that al-Walid's foundation resembled the later bimaristans of the Islamic world, which were more sophisticated medical institutions, but that there is evidence he would have established charitable institutions offering shelter for lepers, the blind, and the handicapped. These likely continued or competed with existing Byzantine charitable institutions of the era and may have formed a precedent that was continued by later Muslim institutions.
Patronage of great mosques of
Damascus, which has maintained much of its original form since its founding by al-Walid Al-Walid turned the example of his father's construction of the
Dome of the Rock in
Jerusalem into a wide-scale building program. His patronage of
great mosques in Damascus, Jerusalem and Medina underlined his political legitimacy and religious credentials. The mosque he founded in Damascus, later known as the
Umayyad Mosque, was the greatest architectural achievement of his rule. Under his predecessors, Muslim residents had worshipped in a small (prayer room) attached to the 4th-century Christian cathedral of
John the Baptist. By al-Walid's reign, the could not cope with the fast-growing Muslim community and no sufficient free spaces were available in Damascus for a large congregational mosque. In 705, al-Walid had the cathedral converted into a mosque, compensating local Christians with other properties in the city. Most of the structure was demolished. Al-Walid's architects replaced the demolished space with a large prayer hall and a courtyard bordered on all sides by a closed portico with double arcades. The mosque was completed in 711. The army of Damascus, numbering some 45,000 soldiers, were taxed a quarter of their salaries for nine years to pay for its construction. The scale and grandeur of the great mosque made it a "symbol of the political supremacy and moral prestige of Islam", according to the historian Nikita Elisséeff. Noting al-Walid's awareness of architecture's propaganda value, Hillenbrand calls the mosque a "victory monument" intended as a "visible statement of Muslim supremacy and permanence". The mosque has maintained its original form until the present day. and the southern wall of the
Temple Mount. These unfinished buildings and the al-Aqsa Mosque are generally attributed to al-Walid, though the mosque has been substantially altered since al-Walid's reign. In Jerusalem, al-Walid continued his father's works on the
Temple Mount. There is disagreement as to whether the
al-Aqsa Mosque, which was built on the same axis of the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, was originally built by Abd al-Malik or al-Walid. Several architectural historians hold that Abd al-Malik commissioned the project and that al-Walid finished or expanded it. The earliest source indicating al-Walid's work on the mosque is the
Aphrodito Papyri, which contain letters from December 708 – June 711 between his governor of Egypt, Qurra ibn Sharik, and an official in
Upper Egypt discussing the dispatch of Egyptian laborers and craftsmen to help build the "Mosque of Jerusalem". It is likely that the unfinished administrative and residential structures that were built opposite the southern and eastern walls of the Temple Mount, next to the mosque, date to the era of al-Walid, who died before they could be completed. In 706 or 707, al-Walid instructed Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz to significantly enlarge the
Prophet's Mosque in Medina. Its redevelopment entailed the demolition of the living quarters of Muhammad's wives and the incorporation of the graves of Muhammad and the first two caliphs,
Abu Bakr () and Umar. The vocal opposition to the demolition of Muhammad's home from local religious circles was dismissed by al-Walid. He lavished large sums for the reconstruction and supplied mosaics and Greek and Coptic (Egyptian) craftsmen. According to Hillenbrand, the building of a large-scale mosque in Medina, the original center of the caliphate, was an "acknowledgement" by al-Walid of "his own roots and those of Islam itself" and possibly an attempt to appease Medinan resentment at the loss of the city's political importance to Syria under the Umayyads. In the words of McMillan, the mosque and the works benefitting the pilgrims to the holy cities "were a form of reconciliation ... a constructive counterweight to the political damage" caused by the Umayyad
sieges of Mecca in 683 and
692 and
assault on Medina during the civil war. Other mosques that al-Walid is credited for expanding in the Hejaz include the
Masjid Al-Haram around the
Kaaba in Mecca which saw its fourth expansion, and the mosque of
Ta'if. in addition to the reconstructions of the
mosque of Amr ibn al-As in
Fustat (Cairo) and the
Great Mosque of Sanaa. ==Death and succession==