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... for the caliphate. In 644 CE a member of a Meccan Umayyad family named Uthman was elected caliph. The Umayyad house was one of the major clans of the Quraysh tribe. Technically, Uthman, the third "Righteous Caliph", was the first Umayyad caliph. A coexisting theme throughout the Umayyad period was the division of the ummah into various groups, each supporting their own claims to the caliphate. The significance of the Umayyad dynasty for early Islam was that it was unable to achieve popular legitimacy. The Umayyads were able to change the caliphate from an elected position to one that was in effect of a hereditary position. With the Umayyad dynasty, the political center of Islam shifted from Medina to Syria. The Umayyad capital was at Damascus. The dynasty survived roughly a century until overthrown by the Abbasids in 750 CE. In order to understand the political fragmentation that ...