The Abbasid Revolution, also called the Movement of the Men of the Black Raiment, was the overthrow of the

Umayyad Caliphate The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by th ...

(661–750 CE), the second of the four major

Caliphate A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...

s in early Islamic history, by the third, the

Abbasid Caliphate The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...

(750–1517 CE). Coming to power three decades after the death of the Islamic prophet

Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mo ...

and immediately after the Rashidun Caliphate, the Umayyads were an

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

Empire ruling over a population which was overwhelmingly non-Arab. Non-Arabs were treated as

second-class citizen A second-class citizen is a person who is systematically and actively discriminated against within a state or other political jurisdiction, despite their nominal status as a citizen or a legal resident there. While not necessarily slaves, o ...

s regardless of whether or not they converted to Islam, and this discontent cutting across faiths and ethnicities ultimately led to the Umayyads' overthrow. The Abbasid family claimed to have descended from al-Abbas, an uncle of Muhammad. The revolution essentially marked the end of the Arab empire and the beginning of a more inclusive, multiethnic state in the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

. Saïd Amir Arjomand
Abd Allah Ibn al-Muqaffa and the Abbasid Revolution

Iranian Studies Iranian studies ( fa, ايران‌شناسی '), also referred to as Iranology and Iranistics, is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the research and study of the civilization, history, literature, art and culture of Iranian peoples. It ...

, vol. 27, Nos. 1–4.

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...

, 1994. Remembered as one of the most well-organized revolutions during its period in history, it reoriented the focus of the

Muslim world The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...

to the east.Hala Mundhir Fattah
A Brief History of Iraq
p. 77. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009.

Background

By the 740s, the Umayyad Empire found itself in critical condition. A succession crisis in 744 led to the

Third Fitna The Third Fitna ( ar, الفتنة الثاﻟﺜـة, al-Fitna al-thālitha), was a series of civil wars and uprisings against the Umayyad Caliphate beginning with the overthrow of Caliph al-Walid II in 744 and ending with the victory of Marwan ...

, which raged across the Middle East for three years. The very next year, al-Dahhak ibn Qays al-Shaybani initiated a Kharijite rebellion that would continue until 746. Concurrent with this, a rebellion broke out in reaction to Marwan II's decision to move the capital from Damascus to

Harran Harran (), historically known as Carrhae ( el, Kάρραι, Kárrhai), is a rural town and district of the Şanlıurfa Province in southeastern Turkey, approximately 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Urfa and 20 kilometers from the border cr ...

, resulting in the destruction of Homs – also in 746. It was not until 747 that Marwan II was able to pacify the provinces; the Abbasid Revolution began within months. G. R. Hawting
The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661–750
p. 105. London: Routledge, 2002. Nasr ibn Sayyar was appointed governor of Khurusan by Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik in 738. He held on to his post throughout the war of succession, being confirmed as governor by Marwan II in the aftermath. Khurusan's expansive size and low population density meant that the Arab denizens – both military and civilian – lived largely outside of the garrisons built during the spread of Islam. This was in contrast to the rest of the Umayyad provinces, where Arabs tended to seclude themselves in fortresses and avoided interaction with the locals. Peter Stearns, Michael Adas, Stuart Schwartz and Marc Jason Gilbert."The Umayyad Imperium." Taken from ''World Civilizations:The Global Experience'', combined volume. 7th ed. Zug: Pearson Education, 2014. Arab settlers in Khorasan left their traditional lifestyle and settled among the native

Iranian peoples The Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse grouping of Indo-European peoples who are identified by their usage of the Iranian languages and other cultural similarities. The Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a separat ...

. While intermarriage with non-Arabs elsewhere in the Empire was discouraged or even banned, Patrick Clawson, ''Eternal Iran'', p. 17. Basingstoke:

Palgrave Macmillan Palgrave Macmillan is a British academic and trade publishing company headquartered in the London Borough of Camden. Its programme includes textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. It maintains off ...

, 2005.

Al-Baladhuri ʾAḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Jābir al-Balādhurī ( ar, أحمد بن يحيى بن جابر البلاذري) was a 9th-century Muslim historian. One of the eminent Middle Eastern historians of his age, he spent most of his life in Baghdad and e ...

, Futuh al-Buldan, p. 417. it slowly became a habit within eastern Khorasan; and the Arabs began adopting Persian dress and as the two languages influenced one another, the ethnic barriers came down.

Causes

Support for the Abbasid Revolution came from people of diverse backgrounds, with almost all levels of society supporting armed opposition to Umayyad rule.The Oxford History of Islam
p. 25. Ed. John Esposito. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. This was especially pronounced among Muslims of non-Arab descent,Donald Lee Berry, ''Pictures of Islam'', p. 80. Macon:

Mercer University Press Mercer University Press, established in 1979, is a university press operated by Mercer University Mercer University is a private research university with its main campus in Macon, Georgia. Founded in 1833 as Mercer Institute and gaining un ...

, 2007.

Richard Bulliet Richard W. Bulliet (born 1940) is a professor of history at Columbia University who specializes in the history of Islamic society and institutions, the history of technology, and the history of the role of animals in human society. Early life ...

, Pamela Kyle Crossley, Daniel Headrick, Steven Hirsch and Lyman Johnson
The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History
vol. A, p. 251.

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

: Cengage Learning, 2014. James Wynbrandt
A Brief History of Saudi Arabia
p. 58. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2010. though even Arab Muslims resented Umayyad rule and centralized authority over their nomadic lifestyles. Bryan S. Turner, ''Weber and Islam'', vol. 7, p. 86. London: Routledge, 1998. Both Sunnis and Shias supported efforts to overthrow the Umayyads,Islamic Art
p. 20.

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...

, 1991. G.R. Hawting, ''The First Dynasty of Islam'', p. 106. as did non-Muslim subjects of the empire who resented religious discrimination. Richard Foltz
Religions of Iran: From Prehistory to the Present
p. 160. London:

Oneworld Publications Oneworld Publications is a British independent publishing firm founded in 1986 by Novin Doostdar and Juliet Mabey originally to publish accessible non-fiction by experts and academics for the general market. Following the

Battle of Karbala The Battle of Karbala ( ar, مَعْرَكَة كَرْبَلَاء) was fought on 10 October 680 (10 Muharram in the year 61 AH of the Islamic calendar) between the army of the second Umayyad Caliph Yazid I and a small army led by Husayn ...

which led to the massacre of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of

, and his kin and companions by the Umayyad army in 680 CE, the Shias used this event as a rallying cry of opposition against the Umayyads. The Abbasids also used the memory of Karbala extensively to gain popular support against the Umayyads. The Hashimiyya movement (a sub-sect of the Kaysanites Shia) was largely responsible for starting the final efforts against the Umayyad dynasty, initially with the goal of replacing the Umayyads with an Alid ruling family.H. Dizadji
Journey from Tehran to Chicago: My Life in Iran and the United States, and a Brief History of Iran
p. 50. Bloomington:

Trafford Publishing Trafford Publishing is a company for self-publishing using print-on-demand technology, formerly based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and now based in Bloomington, Indiana, USA. History The company was founded in 1995, by Bruce and Mar ...

, 2010. To an extent, rebellion against the Umayyads bore an early association with Shi'ite ideas.Matthew Gordon
The Rise of Islam
p. 46. Westport:

Greenwood Publishing Group Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Gr ...

, 2005. A number of Shi'ite revolts against Umayyad rule had already taken place, though they were open about their desire for an Alid ruler. Zayd ibn Ali fought the Umayyads in Iraq, while Abdallah ibn Mu'awiya even established temporary rule over Persia. Their murder not only increased anti-Umayyad sentiment among the Shia, but also gave both Shias and Sunnis in Iraq and Persia a common rallying cry. At the same time, the capture and murder of the primary Shi'ite opposition figures rendered the Abbasids as the only realistic contenders for the void that would be left by the Umayyads.G.R. Hawting, ''The First Dynasty of Islam'', p. 113. The Abbasids kept quiet about their identity, simply stating that they wanted a ruler from the descendant of Muhammad upon whose choice as caliph the Muslim community would agree. Many Shi'ites naturally assumed that this meant an Alid ruler, a belief which the Abbasids tacitly encouraged to gain Shi'ite support.''The Oxford History of Islam'', pp. 24–25. Though the Abbasids were members of the Banu Hashim clan, rivals of the Umayyads, the word "Hashimiyya" seems to refer specifically to Abd-Allah ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah, a grandson of Ali and son of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah. According to certain traditions, Abd-Allah died in 717 in Humeima in the house of Mohammad ibn Ali Abbasi, the head of the Abbasid family, and before dying named Muhammad ibn Ali as his successor.Hala Mundhir Fattah, ''A Brief History of Iraq'', p. 76. Although the anecdote is considered a fabrication, at the time it allowed the Abbasids to rally the supporters of the failed revolt of Mukhtar al-Thaqafi, who had represented themselves as the supporters of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya. By the time the revolution was in full swing, most Kaysanite Shia had either transferred their allegiance to the Abbasid dynasty (in the case of the Hashimiyya), or had converted to other branches of Shi'ism and the Kaysanites ceased to exist.

Discontent among Sunni Muslims who were non-Arab

The Umayyad state is remembered as an Arab-centric state, being run by and for the benefit of those who were ethnically Arab though Muslim in creed.Ivan Hrbek
Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century
p. 26. Melton: James Currey, 1992. The non-Arab Muslims resented their marginal social position and were easily drawn into Abbasid opposition to Umayyad rule. Arabs dominated the bureaucracy and military, and were housed in fortresses separate from the local population outside of Arabia. Even after converting to Islam, non-Arabs or ''

Mawali Mawlā ( ar, مَوْلَى, plural ''mawālī'' ()), is a polysemous Arabic word, whose meaning varied in different periods and contexts.A.J. Wensinck, Encyclopedia of Islam 2nd ed, Brill. "Mawlā", vol. 6, p. 874. Before the Islamic prophet ...

'' could not live in these garrison cities. The non-Arabs were not allowed to work for the government nor could they hold officer positions in the Umayyad military and they still had to pay the jizya tax for non-Muslims.The Umayyads: The Rise of Islamic Art
p. 40. Museum with No Frontiers, 2000. Philip Adler and Randall Pouwels
World Civilizations
p. 214. Boston: Cengage Learning, 2014. Non-Muslims under Umayyad rule were subject to these same injunctions. Racial intermarriage between Arabs and non Arabs was rare. When it did occur, it was only allowed between an Arab man and a non-Arab woman while non-Arab men were generally not free to marry Arab women. Conversion to Islam occurred gradually. If a non-Arab wished to convert to Islam, they not only had to give up their own names but also had to remain a second-class citizen. The non-Arab would be "adopted" by an Arab tribe, though they would not actually adopt the tribe's name as that would risk pollution of perceived Arab racial purity. Rather, the non-Arab would take the last name of " freedman of al-(tribe's name)", even if they were not a slave prior to conversion. This essentially meant they were subservient to the tribe who sponsored their conversion. Although converts to Islam made up roughly 10% of the native population – most of the people living under Umayyad rule were not Muslim – this percent was significant due to the very small number of Arabs. Gradually, the non-Arab Muslims outnumbered the Arab Muslims, causing alarm among the Arab nobility. Socially, this posed a problem as the Umayyads viewed Islam as the property of the aristocratic Arab families. There was a rather large financial problem posed to the Umayyad system as well. If the new converts to Islam from non-Arab peoples stopped paying the jizya tax stipulated by the Qur'an for non-Muslims, the empire would go bankrupt. This lack of civil and political rights eventually led the non-Arab Muslims to support the Abbasids, despite the latter also being Arab. Even as the Arab governors adopted the more sophisticated Iranian methods of governmental administration, non-Arabs were still prevented from holding such positions. Non-Arabs were not even allowed to wear Arabian style clothing, so strong were the feelings of Arab racial superiority cultivated by the Umayyads. Much of the discontent this caused led to the

Shu'ubiyya ''Shu'ubiyya'' ( ar, الشعوبية) was a literary-political movement which opposed the privileged status of Arabs within the Muslim community. The vast majority of the Shu'ubis were Persian. Terminology The name of the movement is derived fr ...

movement, an assertion of non-Arab racial and cultural equality with Arabs. The movement gained support among Egyptians, Arameans and Berber people, though this movement was most pronounced among Iranian people.

Repression of Iranian culture

First Umayyad gold dinar, Caliph Abd al-Malik, 695 CE

The early

Muslim conquest of Persia The Muslim conquest of Persia, also known as the Arab conquest of Iran, was carried out by the Rashidun Caliphate from 633 to 654 AD and led to the fall of the Sasanian Empire as well as the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion. Th ...

was coupled with an anti-Iranian Arabization policy which led to much discontent. The controversial Umayyad governor Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf was upset at the usage of

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

as the court language in the eastern Islamic empire, and ordered all written and spoken Persian to be suppressed in both government and even among the general public, by force if necessary. Contemporary historians record that al-Hajjaj contributed to the death of the Khwarezmian language, closely related to Persian. Once the Umayyads expanded into Khwarezm, a stronghold of east Iranian civilization, al-Hajjaj ordered the execution of anyone who could read or write the language, to the point that only the illiterate remained. Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī,

The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries ''The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries'' ( ar, کتاب الآثار الباقية عن القرون الخالية ', also known as ''Chronology of Ancient Nations'' or ''Vestiges of the Past'', after the translation published by Eduard Sachau ...

, pp. 35–36 and 48.

Discontent among non-Muslims

Support for the Abbasid Revolution was an early example of people of different faiths aligning with a common cause. This was due in large part to policies of the Umayyads which were regarded as particularly oppressive to anyone following a faith other than Islam. In 741, the Umayyads decreed that non-Muslims could not serve in government posts. The Abbasids were aware of this discontent, and made efforts to balance both its Muslim character as well as its partially non-Muslim constituency. Ira M. Lapidus

p. 58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Persecution of Zoroastrians The persecution of Zoroastrians has been recorded throughout the history of Zoroastrianism, an Iranian religion. The notably large-scale persecution of Zoroastrians began after the rise of Islam in the 7th century CE; both during and after ...

was part of state policy during the Umayyad era. Al-Hajjaj allegedly killed all Zoroastrian clergy upon the conquest of east Iranian lands, burning all Zoroastrian literature and destroying most religious buildings. The non-Muslim aristocracy around

Merv Merv ( tk, Merw, ', مرو; fa, مرو, ''Marv''), also known as the Merve Oasis, formerly known as Alexandria ( grc-gre, Ἀλεξάνδρεια), Antiochia in Margiana ( grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐν τῇ Μαργιανῇ) and ...

supported the Abbasids, and thus retained their status as a privileged governing class regardless of religious belief.

Events

Buildup

Beginning around 719, Hashimiyya missions began to seek adherents in Khurasan. Their campaign was framed as one of

proselytism Proselytism () is the policy of attempting to convert people's religious or political beliefs. Proselytism is illegal in some countries. Some draw distinctions between ''evangelism'' or '' Da‘wah'' and proselytism regarding proselytism as invol ...

. They sought support for "a member of the House of the Prophet who shall be pleasing to everyone", without making explicit mention of the Abbasids.ABBASID CALIPHATE

Encyclopædia Iranica ''Encyclopædia Iranica'' is a project whose goal is to create a comprehensive and authoritative English language encyclopedia about the history, culture, and civilization of Iranian peoples from prehistory to modern times. Scope The ''Encyc ...

. Retrieved 8 November 2014. These missions met with success both among Arabs and non-Arabs, although the latter may have played a particularly important role in the growth of the movement. A number of Shi'ite rebellions – by Kaysanites, Hashimiyya and mainstream Shi'ites – took place in the final years of Umayyad rule, just around the same time that tempers were flaring among the Syrian contingents of the Umayyad army regarding alliances and wrongdoings during the Second''The Oxford History of Islam'', p. 24 only. and

. At this time

Kufa Kufa ( ar, الْكُوفَة ), also spelled Kufah, is a city in Iraq, about south of Baghdad, and northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000. Currently, Kufa and Najaf a ...

was the center for the opposition to Umayyad rule, particularly Ali's supporters and Shias. In 741–42 Abu Muslim made his first contact with Abbasid agents there, and eventually he was introduced to the head of Abbasids, Imam Ibrahim, in

Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow ...

. Around 746, Abu Muslim assumed leadership of the Hashimiyya in Khurasan.ABŪ MOSLEM ḴORĀSĀNĪ

. Retrieved 30 April 2014. Unlike the Alid revolts which were open and straightforward about their demands, the Abbasids along with the Hashimite allies slowly built up an underground resistance movement to Umayyad rule. Secret networks were used to build a power base of support in the eastern Muslim lands to ensure the revolution's success. This buildup not only took place right on the heels of the Zaydi Revolt in Iraq, but also concurrently with the

Berber Revolt The Berber Revolt of 740–743 AD (122–125 AH in the Islamic calendar) took place during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and marked the first successful secession from the Arab caliphate (ruled from Damascus). Fired up b ...

Iberia The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...

and

Maghreb The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...

, the

Ibadi The Ibadi movement or Ibadism ( ar, الإباضية, al-Ibāḍiyyah) is a school of Islam. The followers of Ibadism are known as the Ibadis. Ibadism emerged around 60 years after the Islamic prophet Muhammad's death in 632 AD as a moderate sc ...

rebellion in

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

and Hijaz, and the

in the

Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...

, with the revolt of al-Harith ibn Surayj in Khurasan and

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

occurring concurrently with the revolution itself. The Abbasids spent their preparation time watching as the Umayyad Empire was besieged from within itself in all four cardinal directions, and

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury a ...

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

Emeritus G. R. Hawting has asserted that even if the Umayyad rulers had been aware of the Abbasids' preparations, it would not have been possible to mobilize against them.

Revolt of Ibn Surayj

In 746, Ibn Surayj began his revolt at

without success at first, even losing his secretary

Jahm bin Safwan Jahm bin Safwan () was an Islamic theologian who attached himself to Al-Harith ibn Surayj, a dissident in Khurasan towards the end of the Umayyad period, and who was put to death in 745 by Salm ibn Ahwaz. Biography Jahm was a client of the B ...

.G.R. Hawting, ''The First Dynasty of Islam'', p. 108. After joining forces with other rebel factions, Ibn Surayj drove Umayyad governor Nasr ibn Sayyar and his forces to Nishapur; the two factions double-crossed each other shortly thereafter, with Ibn Surayj's faction being crushed. Western Khorasan was controlled by Abdallah ibn Mu'awiya at the time, cutting Ibn Sayyar in the east off from Marwan II. In the summer of 747, Ibn Sayyar sued for peace, which was accepted by the remaining rebels. The rebel leader was assassinated by a son of Ibn Surayj in a revenge attack while at the same time, another Shi'ite revolt had begun in the villages. The son of the remaining rebels signed the peace accord and Ibn Sayyar returned to his post in Merv in August of 747 – just after Abu Muslim initiated a revolt of his own.

Persian phase

On 9 June 747 (Ramadan 25, 129AH), Abu Muslim successfully initiated an open revolt against Umayyad rule,

The Cambridge History of Iran ''The Cambridge History of Iran'' is a multi-volume survey of Iranian history published in the United Kingdom by Cambridge University Press. The seven volumes cover "the history and historical geography of the land which is present-day Iran, as w ...

p. 62
Ed. Richard N. Frye. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975. which was carried out under the sign of the Black Standard.Bernard Lewis, ''The Middle East'', Introduction, first page on the Abbasid Caliphate.The Cambridge History of Islam
vol. 1A, p. 102. Eds. Peter M. Holt, Ann K.S. Lambton and Bernard Lewis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Close to 10,000 soldiers were under Abu Muslim's command when the hostilities officially began in

. On 14 February 748 he established control of Merv, expelling Nasr ibn Sayyar less than a year after the latter had put down Ibn Surayj's revolt, and dispatched an army westwards.Matthew Gordon, ''The Rise of Islam'', p. 47. Newly commissioned Abbasid officer Qahtaba ibn Shabib al-Ta'i, along with his sons

Al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba Al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba ibn Shabib al-Ta'i () was a senior military leader in the early Abbasid Caliphate. Biography He was the son of Qahtaba ibn Shabib al-Ta'i, who along with Abu Muslim led the Abbasid Revolution that toppled the Umayyad Caliphat ...

and Humayd ibn Qahtaba, pursued Ibn Sayyar to Nishapur and then pushed him further west to Qumis, in western Persia.G.R. Hawting, ''The First Dynasty of Islam'', p. 116. That August, al-Ta'i defeated an Umayyad force of 10,000 at

Gorgan Gorgan ( fa, گرگان ; also romanized as ''Gorgān'', ''Gurgān'', and ''Gurgan''), formerly Esterabad ( ; also romanized as ''Astarābād'', ''Asterabad'', and ''Esterābād''), is the capital city of Golestan Province, Iran. It lies appro ...

, South East of Caspian Sea. Ibn Sayyar regrouped with reinforcements from the Caliph at Rey near today's Capital "Tehran", only for that city to fall as well as the Caliph's commander; once again, Ibn Sayyar fled west and died on 9 December 748 while trying to reach

Hamedan Hamadan () or Hamedan ( fa, همدان, ''Hamedān'') (Old Persian: Haŋgmetana, Ecbatana) is the capital city of Hamadan Province of Iran. At the 2019 census, its population was 783,300 in 230,775 families. The majority of people living in Ham ...

in south Western Persia. Al-Ta'i rolled west through Khorasan, defeating a 50,000 strong Umayyad force at Isfahan in Central Persia in March 749. At

Nahavand Nahavand ( fa, نهاوند, translit=Nahāvand / Nehāvend) is a city in Hamadan Province, Iran. It is the capital of Nahavand County. At the time of the 2006 census, its population was 72,218, in 19,419 families. It is located south of the ci ...

south western Persia, the Umayyads attempted to make their last stand in Persia. Umayyad forces fleeing Hamedan and the remainder of Ibn Sayyar's men joined with those already garrisoned. Qahtaba defeated an Umayyad relief contingent from Syria while his son al-Hasan laid siege to Nahavand for more than two months. The Umayyad military units from Syria within the garrison cut a deal with the Abbasids, saving their own lives by selling out the Umayyad units from Khorasan who were all put to death. After almost ninety years, Umayyad rule in Khorasan had finally come to an end. At the same time that al-Ta'i took Nishapur Located in North Eastern Khorasan, Abu Muslim was strengthening the Abbasid grip on the Muslim North East. Abbasid governors were appointed over

Transoxiana Transoxiana or Transoxania (Land beyond the Oxus) is the Latin name for a region and civilization located in lower Central Asia roughly corresponding to modern-day eastern Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, parts of southern Kazakhstan, parts of Tu ...

and Bactria (Parts of today's Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan), while the rebels who had signed a peace accord with Nasr ibn Sayyar were also offered a peace deal by Abu Muslim only to be double crossed and wiped out. With the pacification of any rebel elements in the east and the surrender of Nahavand in the west, the Abbasids were the undisputed rulers of Khorasan.

Mesopotamia phase

Balami - Tarikhnama - Abu'l-'Abbas al-Saffah is proclaimed the first 'Abbasid Caliph (cropped)

The Abbasids wasted no time in continuing from Persia into Mesopotamia. In August 749, Umayyad commander Yazid ibn Umar al-Fazari attempted to meet the forces of al-Ta'i before they could reach

. Not to be outdone, the Abbasids launched a nighttime raid on al-Fazari's forces before they had a chance to prepare. During the raid, al-Ta'i himself was finally killed in battle. Despite the loss, al-Fazari was routed and fled with his forces to Wasit. The Siege of Wasit took place from that August until July 750. Although a respected military commander had been lost, a large portion of the Umayyad forces were essentially trapped inside Wasit and could be left in their virtual prison while more offensive military actions were made.G.R. Hawting, ''The First Dynasty of Islam'', p. 117. Concurrently with the siege in 749, the Abbasids crossed the

Euphrates The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers''). Originating in Turkey, the Eup ...

and took Kufa. The son of

Khalid al-Qasri Khālid ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Qasrī (; died 743) was an Arab who served the Umayyad Caliphate as governor of Mecca in the 8th century and of Iraq from 724 until 738. The latter post, entailing as it did control over the entire eastern Caliphate, mad ...

– a disgraced Umayyad official who had been tortured to death a few years prior – began a pro-Abbasid riot starting at the city's citadel. On 2 September 749, al-Hasan bin Qahtaba essentially just walked right in to the city and set up shop. Some confusion followed when

Abu Salama Abū Salamah ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Asad ( ar, أَبُو سَلَمَة عَبْد ٱلله ٱبْن عَبْد ٱلْأَسَد ) was one of the Companians of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was also a cousin and a foster-brother of Muha ...

, an Abbasid officer, pushed for an Alid leader. Abu Muslim's confidante Abu Jahm reported what was happening, and the Abbasids acted preemptively. On Friday, 28 November 749, before the siege of Wasit had even finished,

As-Saffah Abū al-ʿAbbās ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Saffāḥ ( ar, أبو العباس عبد الله بن محمد السفّاح‎; 721/722 – 8 June 754, al-Anbar) usually known as Abūʾl-ʿAbbās as-Saffāḥ or simply by his laqab As ...

, the great-grandson of Muhammad's uncle, al-Abbas, was recognized as the new caliph in the mosque at Kufa. Abu Salama, who witnessed twelve military commanders from the revolution pledging allegiance, was embarrassed into following suit. Just as quickly as Qahtaba's forces marched from Khorosan to Kufa, so did the forces of

Abdallah ibn Ali Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī (; – 764 CE) was a member of the Abbasid dynasty, and played a leading role in its rise to power during the Abbasid Revolution. As governor of Syria, he consolidated Abbasid control over the province, eli ...

and Abu Awn Abd al-Malik ibn Yazid march on

Mosul Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second larg ...

(in today's Northern Iraq). At this point Marwan II mobilized his troops from

(Today's South Central Turkey) and advanced toward Mesopotamia. On 16 January 750 the two forces met on the left bank of a tributary of the Tigris in the Battle of the Zab, and nine days later Marwan II was defeated and his army was completely destroyed.Bertold Spuler
The Muslim World a Historical Survey
Part 1: the Age of the Caliphs, p. 49. 2nd ed. Leiden: Brill Archive, 1968. The battle is regarded as what finally sealed the fate of the Umayyads. All Marwan II could do was flee through Syria and into Egypt, with each Umayyad town surrendering to the Abbasids as they swept through in pursuit. Damascus fell to the Abbasids in April, and in August Marwan II and his family were tracked down by a small force led by Abu Awn and

Salih ibn Ali Ṣāliḥ ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-ʿAbbās () (711–769) was a member of the Banu Abbas who served as general and governor in Syria and Egypt. Life Salih and his brother Abd Allah were among the van of the Abbasid forces which ove ...

(the brother of Abdallah ibn Ali) and killed in Egypt. Al-Fazari, the Umayyad commander at Wasit, held out even after the defeat of Marwan II in January. The Abbasids promised him amnesty in July, but immediately after he exited the fortress they executed him instead. After almost exactly three years of rebellion, the Umayyad state came to an end.

Tactics

Ethnic equality

Militarily, the unit organization of the Abbasids was designed with the goal of ethnic and racial equality among supporters. When Abu Muslim recruited mixed Arab and Iranian officers along the Silk Road, he registered them based not on their tribal or ethno-national affiliations but on their current places of residence. This greatly diminished tribal and ethnic solidarity and replaced both concepts with a sense of shared interests among individuals.

Propaganda

The Abbasid Revolution provides an early medieval example of the effectiveness of propaganda. The Black Standard unfurled at the start of the revolution's open phase carried messianic overtones due to past failed rebellions by members of Muhammad's family, with marked eschatological and millennial slants. The Abbasids – their leaders descended from Muhammad's uncle

Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib Al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib ( ar, ٱلْعَبَّاسُبْنُ عَبْدِ ٱلْمُطَّلِبِ, al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib; CE) was a paternal uncle and Sahabi (companion) of Muhammad, just three years older than his ...

– held vivid historical reenactments of the murder of Muhammad's grandson Husayn ibn Ali by the army of the second Umayyad ruler

Yazid I Yazid ibn Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan ( ar, يزيد بن معاوية بن أبي سفيان, Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiya ibn ʾAbī Sufyān; 64611 November 683), commonly known as Yazid I, was the second caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate. He ruled from ...

, followed by promises of retribution. Focus was carefully placed on the legacy of Muhammad's family while details of how the Abbasids actually intended to rule were not mentioned.Bertold Spuler, ''The Muslim World a Historical Survey'', p. 48. While the Umayyads had primarily spent their energy on wiping out the Alid line of the prophetic family, the Abbasids carefully revised Muslim chronicles to put a heavier emphasis on the relationship between Muhammad and his uncle. The Abbasids spent more than a year preparing their propaganda drive against the Umayyads. There were a total of seventy propagandists throughout the province of Khorasan, operating under twelve central officials.G.R. Hawting, ''The Final Dynasty of Islam'', p. 114.

Secrecy

The Abbasid Revolution was distinguished by a number of tactics which were absent in the other, unsuccessful anti-Umayyad rebellions at the time. Chief among them was secrecy. While the Shi'ite and other rebellions at the time were all led by publicly known leaders making clear and well-defined demands, the Abbasids hid not only their identities but also their preparation and mere existence. As-Saffah would go on to become the first Abbasid caliph, but he did not come forward to receive the pledge of allegiance from the people until after the Umayyad caliph and a large number of his princes were already killed. Abu Muslim al-Khorasani, who was the primary Abbasid military commander, was especially mysterious; even his name, which literally means "father of a Muslim from the large, flat area of the eastern Muslim empire" gave no meaningful information about him personally. Even today, although scholars are sure he was one real, consistent individual, there is broad agreement that all concrete suggestions of his actual identity are doubtful. Abu Muslim himself discouraged inquiries about his origins, emphasizing that his religion and place of residence were all that mattered. Whoever he was, Abu Muslim built a secret network of pro-Abbasid sentiment based among the mixed Arab and Iranian military officers along the Silk Road garrison cities. Through this networking, Abu Muslim ensured armed support for the Abbasids from a multi-ethnic force years before the revolution even came out in the open. These networks proved essential, as the officers garrisoned along the Silk Road had spent years fighting the ferocious Turkic tribes of

and were experienced and respected tacticians and warriors.

Aftermath

The victors desecrated the tombs of the Umayyads in Syria, sparing only that of Umar II, and most of the remaining members of the Umayyad family were tracked down and killed. When Abbasids declared amnesty for members of the Umayyad family, eighty gathered in Jaffa to receive pardons and all were massacred.Michael A. Palmer
The Last Crusade: Americanism and the Islamic Reformation
p. 40.

Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincol ...

Potomac Books The University of Nebraska Press, also known as UNP, was founded in 1941 and is an academic publisher of scholarly and general-interest books. The press is under the auspices of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the main campus of the Univers ...

, 2007. In the immediate aftermath, the Abbasids moved to consolidate their power against former allies now seen as rivals. Five years after the revolution succeeded, Abu Muslim was accused of heresy and treason by the second Abbasid caliph

al-Mansur Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Manṣūr (; ar, أبو جعفر عبد الله بن محمد المنصور‎; 95 AH – 158 AH/714 CE – 6 October 775 CE) usually known simply as by his laqab Al-Manṣūr (المنصور) w ...

. Abu Muslim was executed at the palace in 755 despite his reminding al-Mansur that it was he (Abu Muslim) who got the Abbasids into power, and his travel companions were bribed into silence. Displeasure over the caliph's brutality as well as admiration for Abu Muslim led to rebellions against the Abbasid Dynasty itself throughout Khorasan and

Kurdistan Kurdistan ( ku, کوردستان ,Kurdistan ; lit. "land of the Kurds") or Greater Kurdistan is a roughly defined geo-cultural territory in Western Asia wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, languages ...

. Although Shi'ites were key to the revolution's success, Abbasid attempts to claim orthodoxy in light of Umayyad material excess led to continued persecution of Shi'ites. On the other hand, non-Muslims regained the government posts they had lost under the Umayyads. Jews,

Nestorian Christians Nestorianism is a term used in Christian theology and Church history to refer to several mutually related but doctrinarily distinct sets of teachings. The first meaning of the term is related to the original teachings of Christian theologian N ...

, Zoroastrians and even Buddhists were re-integrated into a more cosmopolitan empire centered around the new, ethnically and religiously diverse city of Baghdad. The Abbasids were essentially puppets of secular rulers starting from 945, though their rule over

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...

and its surroundings continued until 1258 when the Mongols sacked Baghdad, while their lineage as nominal caliphs lasted until 1517, when the Ottomans conquered Egypt (the seat of the Abbasid caliphate after 1258) and claimed the caliphate for themselves. The period of actual, direct rule by the Abbasids lasted almost exactly two-hundred years.Andrew Marsham

p. 16. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. One grandson of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, Abd al-Rahman I, Abd ar-Rahman I, survived and established a kingdom in Al-Andalus ( Moorish

) after five years of travel westward. Over the course of thirty years, he ousted the ruling

Fihrids The Fihrids (), also known as Banu Fihr (), were an Arab family and clan, prominent in North Africa and Al-Andalus in the 8th century. The Fihrids were from the Arabian clan of Banu Fihr, part of the Quraysh, the tribe of the Prophet. Probably th ...

and resisted Abbasid incursions to establish the Emirate of Córdoba. This is considered an extension of the Umayyad Dynasty, and ruled from Cordoba from 756 until 1031.

Legacy

The Abbasid Revolution has been of great interest to both Western and Muslim historians. According to State University of New York professor of sociology Saïd Amir Arjomand, analytical interpretations of the revolution are rare, with most discussions simply lining up behind either the Iranic or Arabic interpretation of events. Frequently, early European historians viewed the conflict solely as a non-Arab uprising against Arabs.

Bernard Lewis Bernard Lewis, (31 May 1916 – 19 May 2018) was a British American historian specialized in Oriental studies. He was also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near ...

, professor emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, points out that while the revolution has often been characterized as a Persian victory and Arab defeat, the caliph was still Arab, the language of administration was still Arabic and Arab nobility was not forced to give up its land holdings; rather, the Arabs were merely forced to share the fruits of the empire equally with other races. Al-Ukhaidir Fortress-Iraq-حصن الأخيضر

C.W. Previté-Orton argues that the reasons for the decline of the Umayyads was the rapid expansion of Islam. During the Umayyad period, mass conversions brought Iranians, Berbers, Copts, and Assyrians to Islam. These "clients," as the Arabs referred to them, were often better educated and more civilised than their Arab masters. The new converts, on the basis of equality of all Muslims, transformed the political landscape. Previté-Orton also argues that the feud between the Arabs in Syria and the Arabs in Mesopotamia further weakened the empire. The revolution led to the enfranchisement of non-Arab people who had converted to Islam, granting them social and spiritual equality with Arabs.Fred Astren, ''Karaite Judaism and Historical Understanding'', p. 34. With social restrictions removed, Islam changed from an Arab ethnic empire to a universal world religion. This led to a great cultural and scientific exchange known as the

Islamic Golden Age The Islamic Golden Age was a period of cultural, economic, and scientific flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 14th century. This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign ...

, with most achievements taking place under the Abbasids. What was later known as Islamic civilization and culture was defined by the Abbasids, rather than the earlier Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates. New ideas in all areas of society were accepted regardless of their geographic origin, and the emergence of societal institutions that were Islamic rather than Arab began. Though a class of Muslim clergy was absent for the first century of Islam, it was with the Abbasid Revolution and after that the Ulama appeared as a force in society, positioning themselves as the arbiters of justice and orthodoxy. With the eastward movement of the capital from Damascus to Baghdad, the Abbasid Empire eventually took on a distinctly Persian character, as opposed to the Arab character of the Umayyads. Rulers became increasingly autocratic, at times claiming divine right in defense of their actions.

Conclusion

An accurate and comprehensive history of the revolution has proven difficult to compile for a number of reasons. There are no contemporary accounts, and most sources were written more than a century after the revolution.''The Umayyads: The Rise of Islamic Art'', p. 41.Kathryn Babayan
Mystics, Monarchs, and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of Early Modern Iran
p. 150. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 2002. Because most historical sources were written under Abbasid rule, the description of the Umayyads must be taken with a grain of salt; such sources describe the Umayyads, at best, as merely placeholders between the Rashidun and Abbasid Caliphates. The historiography of the revolution is especially significant due to Abbasid dominance of most early Muslim historical narratives;Muhammad Qasim Zaman
Religion and Politics Under the Early ʻAbbāsids: The Emergence of the Proto-Sunnī Elite
p. 6. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1997. it was during their rule that history was established in the Muslim world as an independent field separate from writing in general. The initial two-hundred year period when the Abbasids actually held de facto power over the Muslim world coincided with the first composition of Muslim history. Another point of note is that while the Abbasid Revolution carried religious undertones against the irreligious and almost secular Umayyads, a separation of mosque and state occurred under the Abbasids as well. Historiographical surveys often focus on the solidifying of Muslim thought and rites under the Abbasids, with the conflicts between separated classes of rulers and clerics giving rise to the empire's eventual separation of religion and politics.Muhammad Qasim Zaman, ''Religion and Politics Under the Early ʻAbbāsids'', p. 7.

References

External links

Abbasid Calipahte Bibliography
at Oxford Bibliographies
The Rise and Spread of Islam
{{Abbasid Caliphate topics 740s conflicts 750s conflicts 740s in the Umayyad Caliphate 8th-century rebellions