​This research examines the iconographic dialogue between the Umayyads and the Byzantines and its ideological and political connotations. It works within a framework based on the history of representations, which subjects the symbolic and the collective imagination to historical interpretation. The first section explores the hypothesis that the idea of Umayyad religious iconography was committed to the memory of the Prophet, and its connection among the Byzantines to the Christian theological debate about the nature of Christ. The second section traces the iconographic debate during the reign of Caliph Abd al-Malik through the models of the Dome of the Rock and Arab coins, demonstrating that Umayyad discourse focused on the idea of abstraction to undermine the orthodox faith of the Byzantine Emperor, and to express the imperial status of the caliphate. The final section investigates the relationship of the Byzantine Emperor Leon III’s movement to destroy religious images with the ideological and political discourse of the two Caliphs Omar II and Yazid II and to determine its political connotations. The research also explores the unspoken role of Caliph Omar II in the history of the war on Byzantine icons.