The commercial empire of the Turkic Khazars, centered in the southeastern section of modern European Russia, adopts Judaism in about 740 and continues its alliance with Constantinople against the Muslim Arabs.

The Fragmentation of the Arab Caliphate and the Rise of Independent Muslim States

Throughout this period, the Arab Caliphate, predominantly ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, is fractured by a series of civil wars, one of which leads to the split of Islam into three major branches:

• Sunnites,
• Kharijites, and
• Shi'ites.

This internal strife ultimately shatters unified Islamic rule. In 750 CE, the Abbasids overthrow the Umayyads, seizing control of the Caliphate. However, a cadet branch of the Umayyads escapes to Muslim Spain, where they establish the Emirate of Córdoba, marking the beginning of an independent Islamic state in Al-Andalus.

Elsewhere, other independent Muslim states emerge, including:

• Idrisid Morocco, and
• Aghlabid Ifriqiya (modern Tunisia, eastern Algeria, and western Libya).

These developments mark the transition from a unified Arab Empire to a diverse Islamic world, ruled by multiple, competing dynasties.

The rapid expansion of Islam from the Middle East to Spain in the seventh and eighth centuries brings a significant portion of the Jewish people under Muslim rule.

Jews, tolerated by Muslims as People of the Book, with a common ancestor in Abraham, regain religious autonomy and, as long as they pay tribute to the rulers, see to the affairs of their communities.

In 711 CE, Muslim Arab and Berber forces launch an invasion of Visigothic Spain from North Africa, swiftly defeating the Visigothic kingdom. Within a few years, they conquer nearly all of the Iberian Peninsula, except for the northernmost regions, where Christian resistance endures.

Their expansion also extends into Septimania in southern Gaul, further consolidating Muslim rule in Western Europeand marking the beginning of Al-Andalus, a new Islamic domain in Iberia.

Hisham has been able to stem the Umayyad decline temporarily.

As the empire is reaching the limits of expansion, frontier defenses, manned by Syrian troops, are organized to meet the challenge of Turks in Central Asia and Berbers in North Africa.

In the aftermath of the Battle of the Defile and other similar disasters, the need to reinforce the buckling frontiers is stretching the military and financial resources of the Caliphate.

This is especially the case with the powerful Syrian army (the ahl al-Sham), the main pillar of the Umayyad regime, which is parceled out to distant provinces.

Eventually, this weakening of the Syrian army will be the major factor in the fall of the Umayyad dynasty during the civil wars of the 740s and the Abbasid Revolution that follows them.

Like his late brother al-Walid I, Hisham is a great patron of the arts, and he has again encouraged arts in the empire.

He has also encouraged the growth of education by building more schools, and perhaps most importantly, by overseeing the translation of numerous literary and scientific masterpieces into Arabic.

He has returned to a stricter interpretation of the Sharia as Umar had, and enforced it, even upon his own family.

His ability to stand up to the Umayyad clan may be an important factor in his success, and may point to why his brother Yazid had been ineffective.