Abbasid Revolution
The Abbasid Revolution (Arabic: الثورة العباسية, romanized: ath-thawra al-ʿAbbāsiyya), also called the Movement of the Men of the Black Raiment (حركة رجال الثياب السوداء ḥaraka rijāl ath-thiyāb as-sawdāʾ),[2] was the overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE), the second of the four major Caliphates in Islamic history, by the third, the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1517 CE). Coming to power three decades after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and immediately after the Rashidun Caliphate, the Umayyads were an Arab empire ruling over a population which was overwhelmingly non-Arab. Non-Arabs were treated as second-class citizens regardless of whether or not they converted to Islam, and this discontent cutting across faiths and ethnicities ultimately led to the Umayyads' overthrow.[3] The Abbasid family claimed paternal-male descent from al-Abbas, an uncle of Muhammad.
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[edit]
By the 740s, the Umayyad Empire found itself in critical condition. A succession crisis in 744 led to the Third Fitna, 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, 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.[6]
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]
Tactics[edit]
Ethnic equality[edit]
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[edit]
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[edit]
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]
Conclusion[edit]
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. 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]