1. Al-Walid I was the eldest son of his predecessor, Caliph Abd al-Malik.
23 Facts About Al-Walid I
1. 2.
Al-Walid I became heir apparent in, after the death of the designated successor, Abd al-Malik's brother Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan.
3.
Al-Walid I heavily depended on al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, his father's powerful viceroy over the eastern half of the caliphate.
4.
Al-Walid I was the first caliph to institute programs for social welfare, aiding the poor and handicapped among the Muslim Arabs of Syria, who held him in high esteem.
5.
Al-Walid I's mother, Wallada bint al-Abbas ibn al-Jaz, was a descendant of Zuhayr ibn Jadhima, a famous 6th-century chief of the Banu Abs tribe.
6.
Al-Walid I led the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca in 698.
7.
Al-Walid I's patronage is attested by an inscription naming him as "the emir al-Walid, son of the commander of the faithful".
8.
Al-Walid I essentially continued his father's policies of centralization and expansion.
9.
Al-Walid I appointed his half-brother Maslama as governor of the Jazira and charged him with leading the war effort against Byzantium.
10.
Al-Walid I did not lead any of the annual or bi-annual campaigns, but his eldest son al-Abbas fought reputably alongside Maslama.
11.
Al-Walid I died in 715 and the siege was carried out under his successors, ending in 718 as a disaster for the Arabs.
12.
Al-Walid I 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.
13.
Al-Walid I maintained his father's policy of balancing the power of the two factions in the military and administration.
14.
Al-Walid I turned the example of his father's construction of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem into a wide-scale building program.
15.
Al-Walid I'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.
16.
Al-Walid I lavished large sums for the reconstruction and supplied mosaics and Greek and Coptic craftsmen.
17.
Al-Walid I unsuccessfully attempted to nominate his son Abd al-Aziz as his successor and void the arrangements set by his father, in which Sulayman was to succeed al-Walid.
18.
Al-Walid I embraced the formal trappings of monarchy in a manner unprecedented among earlier caliphs.
19.
Al-Walid I resided at several palaces, including in Khunasira in northern Syria and Dayr Murran.
20.
Al-Walid I married two of Ali's great-granddaughters, Nafisa bint Zayd ibn al-Hasan and Zaynab bint al-Hasan ibn al-Hasan.
21.
Al-Walid I married Sa'id's daughter, Amina, whose brother al-Ashdaq had been removed from the line of succession by Marwan and was killed in an attempt to topple Abd al-Malik.
22.
Al-Walid I married Umm Abd Allah's niece, Izza bint Abd al-Aziz, whom he divorced.
23.
Al-Walid I had been taken captive in the conquest of Transoxiana and was gifted to al-Walid by al-Hajjaj.