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Modern Muslims are searching for political policies that are based on the Umayyad role model, which was so successful that poverty had been eliminated and not a single individual could be found to accept the zakat - the alms. According to Muslim tradition, the Umayyad leaders of the early caliphates were among the families that had originally followed Prophet Muhammad. Hence, the question whether or not and when the Umayyads had indeed converted to Islam seems of paramount importance in modern Muslim socio-economics. This is the focus of this paper.
Unless the suggestions of inadmissible traditions, contemporary external evidence, and the Koran itself are ignored, the first conclusions from this article are that the origin of Islam is by no means Pagan but rests on like Arian Christianity - pre-Nicean Christology in its Arian branches merged with an adaptation of Nestorianism and Judeo-Messianism - and on professional Judaic insiders rather than on an amateurish chance construct. In other words, much of the content in the Koran rests on very old dogmas rather than on new ones. The target groups were many nonTrinitarian Judaic sects. The final composition of the Koran needs to be freed from the assumption of having been revealed to a single prophet or even to a single sect.
Given the inclusion of the Umayyads in the linage of the Quraysh and in the Islamic version of history (but without implying an early conversion to Islam), they must have either been part of rewriting their past at some point before they were ousted, or that they had come to a lineage arrangement under a prototype agreement that may have had nothing to do with a new faith. But where is the evidence of when the Umayyads converted to Islam? It seems that a possible faith orientation of the Umayyads toward Melkite Christianity leans on rather slim evidence, albeit multiple, near contemporary, and also in later inadmissible traditions. However, the here selected lop-sided traditions and external sources seem to be in agreement that the leading members of the clan were unwavering (Melkite) Christians and opponents of the Muhammadean throne and maybe also of the Koran. The outcome remains unchanged even upon eliminating the traditions. On the other hand, a conversion from any preexisting faith to early Islam rests not only on guesswork and exclusively on inadmissible traditions from long after the fact but also on simply ignoring the archaeological and primary evidence.
There is not a dot of historic or archaeological evidence in Syria of the much touted missionary efforts of a new religion from Muhammad almost to the last decade of the seventh century. Instead, the order of events presents a continuum and a deepening of Judaic sectarian conflicts from hundreds of years before. If the Umayyads were indeed adherents to any differing creed other than Islam, then the economic dreams of modern Muslims rest on the premises of another faith. It may help explaining why Muslim doctrines seem unable to address global systemic poverty, of which countries under the influence of Islam absorb the bulk.
