Abbasid Revolution
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The Abbasid Revolution (
The revolution essentially marked the end of the Arab exclusive Islamic Caliphate and the beginning of a more inclusive, multiethnic state in the Middle East.[4] Remembered as one of the most well-organized revolutions during its period in history, it reoriented the focus of the Muslim world to the east.[5]
Background
By the 740s, the Umayyad Empire found itself in critical condition. A
Nasr ibn Sayyar was appointed governor of Khorasan 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.[6]
Khorasan'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 into Persia. This was in contrast to the rest of the Umayyad provinces, where Arabs tended to seclude themselves in fortresses to avoid interacting with the locals.[7] Arab settlers in Khorasan left their traditional lifestyle and settled among the native Iranian peoples.[6] While intermarriage with non-Arabs elsewhere in the Empire was discouraged or even banned,[8][9] 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 gradually eroded.[10]
Causes
Support for the Abbasid Revolution came from people of diverse backgrounds, with almost all levels of society supporting armed opposition to Umayyad rule.
Discontent among Shia Muslims
Following the Battle of Karbala, which led to the massacre of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad, 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.[20]
The Hashimiyya movement (a sub-sect of the
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.
According to certain traditions, Abd-Allah died in 717 in
Discontent among non-Arab Sunni Muslims
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.
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.[14][34] The non-Arab would be "adopted" by an Arab tribe,[35] 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.[14][37]
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.[13] Gradually, the non-Arab Muslims outnumbered the Arab Muslims, causing alarm among the Arab nobility.[32] Socially, this posed a problem as the Umayyads viewed Islam as the property of the aristocratic Arab families.[38][39] 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.[40]
Even as the Arab governors adopted the more sophisticated Iranian methods of governmental administration, non-Arabs were still prevented from holding such positions.]
Repression of Iranian culture
The early
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.[46] The Abbasids were aware of this discontent, and made efforts to balance both its Muslim character as well as its partially non-Muslim constituency.[47]
The non-Muslim aristocracy around Merv supported the Abbasids, and thus retained their status as a privileged governing class regardless of religious belief.[15]
Events
Buildup
Beginning around 719, Hashimiyya missions began to seek adherents in Khurasan. Their campaign was framed as one of proselytism. They sought support for "a member of the House of the Prophet who shall be pleasing to everyone",[48] without making explicit mention of the Abbasids.[27][49] 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[34][50] and Third Fitna.[51]
At this time
Revolt of Ibn Surayj
In 746, Ibn Surayj began his revolt at
Persian phase
On 9 June 747 (Ramadan 25, 129AH), Abu Muslim successfully initiated an open revolt against Umayyad rule,[13][56] which was carried out under the sign of the Black Standard.[52][57][58] Close to 10,000 soldiers were under Abu Muslim's command when the hostilities officially began in Merv.[5] On 14 February 748 he established control of Merv,[55] expelling Nasr ibn Sayyar less than a year after the latter had put down Ibn Surayj's revolt, and dispatched an army westwards.[52][57][59]
Newly commissioned Abbasid officer
At Nahavand 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.[60] 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.[60] 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 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.[60] 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
The Abbasids wasted no time in continuing from Persia into Mesopotamia. In August 749, Umayyad commander
Concurrently with the siege in 749, the Abbasids crossed the
Just as quickly as Qahtaba's forces marched from Khorosan to Kufa, so did the forces of
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 (the brother of Abdallah ibn Ali) and killed in Egypt.[14][34][52][58][64] 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.[13][22]
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 Turks 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.[56] This greatly diminished tribal and ethnic solidarity and replaced both concepts with a sense of shared interests among individuals.[56]
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.[5] The Abbasids – their leaders descended from Muhammad's uncle Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib – held vivid historical reenactments of the murder of Muhammad's grandson Husayn ibn Ali by the army of the second Umayyad ruler Yazid I, followed by promises of retribution.[5] Focus was carefully placed on the legacy of Muhammad's family while details of how the Abbasids actually intended to rule were not mentioned.[65] 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.[65]
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.[66]
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.[50][67] 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.[11]
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.[66] 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.[52] Abu Muslim himself discouraged inquiries about his origins, emphasizing that his religion and place of residence were all that mattered.[66]
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.[23] These networks proved essential, as the officers garrisoned along the Silk Road had spent years fighting the ferocious Turkic tribes of Central Asia and were experienced and respected tacticians and warriors.[59]
Aftermath
The victors desecrated the tombs of the Umayyads in
In the immediate aftermath, the Abbasids moved to consolidate their power against former allies now seen as rivals.[11] Five years after the revolution succeeded, Abu Muslim was accused of heresy and treason by the second Abbasid caliph al-Mansur. 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,[18][22][59] 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.[22][69]
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.[12][15] On the other hand, non-Muslims regained the government posts they had lost under the Umayyads.[12] Jews, Nestorian Christians, Zoroastrians and even Buddhists were re-integrated into a more cosmopolitan empire centered around the new, ethnically and religiously diverse city of Baghdad.[5][35][47]
The Abbasids were essentially puppets of secular rulers starting from 945,
One grandson of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, Abd ar-Rahman I, survived and established a kingdom in Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberia) after five years of travel westward.[13][14][34] Over the course of thirty years, he ousted the ruling Fihrids and resisted Abbasid incursions to establish the Emirate of Córdoba.[71][72] This is considered an extension of the Umayyad Dynasty, and ruled from Cordoba from 756 until 1031.[12][32]
Legacy
The Abbasid Revolution has been of great interest to both Western and Muslim historians.[57] 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.[4] Frequently, early European historians viewed the conflict solely as a non-Arab uprising against Arabs. Bernard Lewis, professor emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, 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.[57]
The revolution led to the enfranchisement of non-Arab people who had converted to Islam, granting them social and spiritual equality with Arabs.[74] With social restrictions removed, Islam changed from an Arab ethnic empire to a universal world religion.[35] This led to a great cultural and scientific exchange known as the Islamic Golden Age, 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.[16][35][47] 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.[74]
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.[15] Rulers became increasingly autocratic, at times claiming divine right in defense of their actions.[15]
Conclusion
An accurate and comprehensive history of the revolution has proven difficult to compile for a number of reasons. There are no contemporary accounts known to have survived, and most sources were written more than a century after the revolution.[75][76] Because most historical sources were written under Abbasid rule, the description of the Umayyads must be taken with a grain of salt;[75][77] such sources describe the Umayyads, at best, as merely placeholders between the Rashidun and Abbasid Caliphates.[78]
The historiography of the revolution is especially significant due to Abbasid dominance of most early Muslim historical narratives;[76][79] it was during their rule that history was established in the Muslim world as an independent field separate from writing in general.[80] 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.[70] 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.[citation needed] 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.[81]
See also
References
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Further reading
- Agha, Saleh Said (2003). The Revolution which Toppled the Umayyads: Neither Arab nor ʿAbbāsid. Leiden and Boston: Brill. ISBN 90-04-12994-4.
- ISBN 978-0-7914-1827-7.
- ISBN 0-88297-025-9.
- History of the Arab Peoples
- ISBN 978-0-367-36690-2.
- Shaban, M. A. (1979). The ʿAbbāsid Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-29534-3.
- Sharon, Moshe (1990). Revolt: the social and military aspects of the ʿAbbāsid revolution. Jerusalem: Graph Press Ltd. ISBN 965-223-388-9.