At `Ali’s death Mu`awiya became Khalif and founded the Umayyad dynasty which ruled from 41 to 132 A.H. During the whole of this period the official Khalifate was Arab first and Muslim only in the second place. This forms the second period of the history of Islam when the religion of the Prophet was allowed to sink into the background and the Arab regarded himself as the conqueror ruling over a subject population. There was no forcible conversion of a subject population, indeed, save in the reign of `Umar II (A.H. 99-101) conversions were rather discouraged as detrimental to the poll tax levied on non-Muslims. There was no attempt to force the Arabic language: until the reign of `Abdu l-Mâlik (65-86), who started an Arabic coinage, the public records were kept and official business transacted in Greek, Persian, or Coptic, as local requirements demanded, and the change to Arabic seems to have been suggested by the non-Muslim clerks. When Arabic became the official medium of public business then, of course, motives of convenience and self-interest caused its general adoption. Hitherto it had been used in prayer by those who had become Muslim, but now it had to be learned more accurately by all who had to do with the collection of the revenue or the administration of justice. Incidentally this became a matter of great importance, as it provided a common medium for the exchange of thought throughout the whole Muslim world. As rulers in Syria, the Arabs were in contact with a fully developed culture which was brought to bear upon them in various ways, in the structure of society and in social order generally, in the arts and crafts, and in intellectual life. The Greek influence was nearest at hand, but there was also a very strong Persian element in close contact with them. The provincial officials of Syria, all trained in the methods of the Byzantine Empire, continued in their employ, and, as Syria was the seat of the `Umayyad government, the state came under Greek influence. Yet, for all this, even in `Umayyad times, the Persian influence seems to have been very strong in political organization. The governments already existing in Egypt and Syria were provincial, dependent upon and subordinate to, the central government at Byzantium, and constantly recruited by Byzantine officials, at least in their upper grades. The Persian government, on the other hand, was a self-contained one, fully organised throughout and including the supreme and central authority. Until the fall of the `Umayyads, after which Persian influence became supreme, the political structure of the Muslim state was somewhat experimental; apparently the rulers left the details altogether to the subordinate officials who adapted to the needs of the state such elements as they could use from the old provincial administration.