It succeeded the Rashidun Caliphate, of which the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, was also a member of the Umayyad clan. Syria remained the Umayyads' core power base thereafter, with Damascus as their capital. At its greatest extent, the Umayyad Caliphate covered an area of 11,100,000 km2 (4,300,000 sq mi) making it one of the largest empires in history in terms of geographical size. The dynasty was overthrown by the Abbasids in 750. Survivors of the Umayyad dynasty established an emirate and then a caliphate in al-Andalus with its capital at Cordoba, which became a major centre of science, medicine, philosophy and invention during the Islamic Golden Age. The Umayyad Caliphate ruled over a vast multiethnic and multicultural population. Christians, who still constituted a majority of the caliphate's population, and Jews were allowed to practice their own religion in exchange for the payment of jizya (poll tax), from which Muslims were exempt. Muslims were required to pay the zakat, which was explicitly collected for the purposes of charity and for the benefit of Muslims or Muslim converts. Under the early Umayyad caliphs, prominent positions were held by Christians, some of whom belonged to families that had served under the Byzantines. The Umayyad era is often considered the formative period of Islamic art.
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