The Abbasid Revolution had its origins and first successes in the easterly region of Khurasan, far from the Levantine center of Umayyad influence. The Abbasids first centered their government in Kufa, Iraq, but in 762 the second caliph al-Mansur founded the city of Baghdad and made it the capital. Baghdad became a center of science, culture, arts, and invention, ushering in what became known as the Golden Age of Islam.
It hosted several key academic institutions, such as the House of Wisdom, as well as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious population, which made the city famous as a centre of learning across the world. The Abbasid period was marked by the use of bureaucrats in government, including the vizier, as well as a growing inclusion of non-Arab Muslims in the ummah (Muslim community) and among the political elites.
The height of Abbasid power and prestige is traditionally associated with the reign of Harun al-Rashid (r. 786โ809). After his death, a civil war brought new divisions and was followed by significant changes to the character of the state, including the creation of a new professional army recruited mainly from Turkic slaves and the construction of a new capital, Samarra, in 836.
The 9th century also saw many provinces becoming increasingly autonomous, giving rise to local dynasties that controlled different regions of the empire, such as the Aghlabids, Tahirids, Samanids, Saffarids, and Tulunids. After a period of turmoil in the 860s, the caliphate regained some stability and its seat returned to Baghdad in 892.
During the 10th century, the caliphs were reduced to mere figureheads, with real political and military power resting in the hands of the Iranian Buyids and the Seljuq Turks, who took control of Baghdad in 945 and 1055, respectively. The Abbasids eventually regained control of Iraq during the reign of Caliph al-Muqtafi (r. 1136โ1160) and extended their rule into Iran during the reign of Caliph al-Nasir (r. 1180โ1225).
This revival ended in 1258 with the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols under Hulagu Khan and the execution of Caliph al-Musta'sim, marking the effective end of the Abbasid Caliphate. A surviving branch of the Abbasid dynasty was formally reinstated in 1261 by the Mamluk sultans in Cairo, but it lacked any political power.
The dynasty continued to claim symbolic authority until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, the last Abbasid caliph being al-Mutawakkil III.
History
Abbasid Revolution (747โ750)
The Abbasid caliphs descended from Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, one of the youngest uncles of Muhammad and of the same Banu Hashim clan. This family relation to Muhammad made them appealing to those who were discontented with the rule of the Umayyad caliphs (661โ750), who did not descend from the same family. Over the course of their rule, the Umayyads even suppressed several rebellions that attempted to bring other members of Muhammad's family to power.
One of the claims that the Abbasids made in the early years of their political movement was that Abu Hashim, the son of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya and grandson of Ali, had formally transferred the Imamate (imฤmah) to Muhammad ibn Ali (the great-grandson of Abbas) and thus to the Abbasid family.
Muhammad ibn Ali began to campaign in Persia for the return of power to the family of Muhammad, the Hashemites, which may have started during the reign of Umar II. Later, after they had attained power and needed to broaden their support among Muslims, the Abbasids supplemented this claim with other claims to justify their legitimacy.
The Abbasids also distinguished themselves from the Umayyads by attacking their moral character and administration in general. The Abbasids also appealed to non-Arab Muslims, known as mawali, who remained outside the kinship-based society of the Arabs and were perceived as a lower class within the Umayyad empire.
The eventual launching point of the revolution was Khurasan (roughly northeastern Iran), a strategic province that was distant from the caliphate's centres of power and had enjoyed a degree of autonomy and local identity since the pre-Islamic Sasanian period. Despite being on the frontier of the Islamic world, it encompassed a relatively large Muslim population made up of both Arab settlers and local converts who were relatively well-integrated with each other.
This population resented Umayyad rule, which was seen as foreign and oppressive, and local political tensions had simmered for years. According to Ira Lapidus, "The Abbasid revolt was supported largely by Arabs, mainly the aggrieved settlers of Merv with the addition of the Yemeni faction and their Mawali".
Support for the Abbasids spread through Khurasan during the 740s. In 744 or 745, some of its local leaders, including Qahtaba ibn Shabib, traveled to Mecca for the hajj pilgrimage and met there with the head of the Abbasid family, Ibrahim al-Imam (fourth in descent from Abbas). They pledged allegiance to Ibrahim and returned to Khurasan accompanied by one of Ibrahim's freedmen, a Persian known as Abu Muslim.
During the reign of the Umayyad caliph Marwan II, this opposition culminated in a rebellion that began on 9 June 747 (15 Ramadan 129 AH). Abu Muslim, rising from Khurasan, initiated an open revolt against Umayyad rule under the sign of the Black Standard. Close to 10,000 soldiers were under Abu Muslim's command when the hostilities officially began in Merv.
The rebellion's main initial support came from Khurasan, despite the opposition of the local Umayyad governor there, Nasr ibn Sayyar, as well as from Shi'i Arabs. Qahtaba, now one of Abu Muslim's generals, defeated Nasr ibn Sayyar and pursued him west, where he defeated the Umayyads at the Battle of Gorgan, the Battle of Nahavand and finally in the Battle of Karbala, all in the year 748.
Ibrahim had remained in Humayma (in present-day Jordan) and his identity was not revealed to most of the movement's supporters, who knew only that they supported someone from the family of Muhammad to replace the Umayyads. When Marwan learned of the Abbasid involvement in the uprising, he had Ibrahim arrested and thrown into prison, where he died or was executed in 749.
The rebels pressed on to capture the important city of Kufa in Iraq that same year, although Qahtaba died on the way. To pre-empt any attempt by the Alids (those descended from Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, Ali) to put forth their own candidate for the caliphate, Abu Muslim and the Abbasids rushed to declare Ibrahim's brother, Abu al-'Abbas al-Saffah, as the new caliph in Kufa.
After this declaration, the Abbasids sent armies west for a final confrontation with Marwan, while also recruiting new allies from this region to supplement their Khurasani supporters. They met the Umayyad army in a battle near the Great Zab river in early 750, where Marwan was defeated, marking the end of Umayyad power.
After this loss, Marwan fled to Egypt, where he was subsequently killed. The remainder of his family were also eliminated, barring one male who escaped (the future Abd al-Rahman I).
Establishment and consolidation (750โ775)
Al-Saffah's reign (r. 750โ754) was spent consolidating Abbasid rule over the Muslim community. In addition to the caliph himself, most of the real power at this time was in the hands of a triumvirate including the revolutionary leader Abu Muslim, al-Saffah's older brother Abu Ja'far (the future caliph al-Mansur) and al-Saffah's uncle Abdallah ibn Ali (the commander at the battle at the Great Zab).
Soon after the victory of 750, Abu Muslim sent forces to Central Asia to confront an army from Tang China led by Gao Xianzhi. Gao Xianzhi and his army were defeated in 751 at the Battle of Talas, near present-day Tashkent, by the Abbasid army under Ziyad ibn Salih. This defeat marked the end of Tang influence in Transoxiana and halted Tang westward expansion.
The Abbasids then consolidated their rule in Transoxania. Elsewhere, the Abbasids focused on putting down numerous rebellions in Syria and Iraq. The Byzantines conducted raids during these early distractions.
One of the first major changes effected by Abbasid rule was the move of the caliphate's center of power from Syria to Iraq. This was closer to the Persian mawali support base of the Abbasids and the move addressed their demand for reduced Arab dominance in the empire. However, no definitive capital was yet selected.
In these early Abbasid years, Kufa generally served as the administrative capital, but the caliphs were wary of the Alid sympathies in the city and did not always reside here. In 752, al-Saffah built a new city called al-Hashimiyya, at an uncertain location, most likely near Kufa. Later that same year, he moved to Anbar, where he built a new settlement for his Khurasani soldiers and a palace for himself.
It was al-Saffah's successor, Abu Ja'far al-Mansur (r. 754โ775) who firmly consolidated Abbasid rule and faced down internal challenges. His uncle, Abdallah ibn Ali, the victor over the Umayyads at the Battle of the Zab, was the most serious potential rival for leadership and al-Mansur sent Abu Muslim, the Khurasani revolutionary commander, against him in 754.
After Abu Muslim successfully defeated him, al-Mansur then turned to eliminate Abu Muslim himself. He arranged to have him arrested and executed in 755.
On the western frontier, the Abbasids were unable to re-assert caliphal control over the western and central Maghreb, which the Umayyads had lost in the 740s. One member of the Umayyad dynasty, Abd al-Rahman, also managed to escape the purge of his family and established independent rule in al-Andalus (present-day Spain and Portugal) in 756, founding the Umayyad emirate of Cรณrdoba.
In 756, al-Mansur had also sent over 4,000 Arab mercenaries to assist the Tang dynasty against the rebel leader An Lushan. The Abbasids, or "Black Flags" as they were commonly called, were known in Tang dynasty chronicles as the hฤiyฤซ Dร shรญ, "The Black-robed Tazi" (้ป่กฃๅคง้ฃ) ("Tazi" being a borrowing from Persian Tฤzฤซ, the word for "Arab").
Later, Caliph Harun al-Rashid sent embassies to China and established good relations with the Tang emperors. After the war,[clarification needed] these embassies remained in China and al-Rashid established an alliance with China.
Several embassies from the Abbasid caliphs to the Chinese court have been recorded in the Old Book of Tang, the most important being those of al-Saffah, al-Mansur, and Harun al-Rashid.[citation needed]
In 762, al-Mansur suppressed a rebellion in the Hejaz led by al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, a descendant of Ali, whose challenge to the Abbasid claim to leadership was based on his Alid lineage and thus presented a serious political threat. He was defeated by an Abbasid army led by Isa ibn Musa. It was after this victory, in 762, that al-Mansur finally established a proper Abbasid capital, Baghdad โ officially called Madinat al-Salam ('City of Peace') โ located on the Tigris River, near the former ancient capital city of Ctesiphon.
Prior to this, he had continued to consider multiple sites for a capital, including al-Hashimiyya, which he used as a capital for a while, and al-Rumiyya (near the ruins of Ctesiphon), which he used for a few months. Various other sites in the region also appear to have served as "capitals" under either al-Saffah or al-Mansur prior to the founding of Baghdad.
Al-Mansur centralised the judicial administration and, later, Harun al-Rashid established the institution of Great Qadi to oversee it. The Umayyad empire was mostly Arab; however, the Abbasids progressively became made up of more and more converted Muslims in which the Arabs were only one of many ethnicities. The Abbasids had depended heavily on the support of Persians in their overthrow of the Umayyads.
Al-Mansur welcomed non-Arab Muslims to his court. While this helped integrate Arab and Persian cultures, it alienated many of their Arab supporters, particularly the Khurasani Arabs who had supported them in their battles against the Umayyads.[citation needed]
Golden age (775โ861)
The Abbasid leadership had to work hard in the last half of the 8th century (750โ800) under several competent caliphs and their viziers to usher in the administrative changes needed to keep order of the political challenges created by the far-flung nature of the empire, and the limited communication across it. It was also during this early period of the dynasty, in particular during the rule of al-Mansur, Harun al-Rashid, and al-Ma'mun, that its reputation and power were created.
The position of wazir (vizier) developed in this period. It was initially akin to a secretary, but under the tenure of the Barmakids, an Iranian family close to the Abbasids, the position became powerful and Harun al-Rashid delegated state affairs to them for many years. This resulted in a more ceremonial role for many Abbasid caliphs compared with caliphal rule under the Umayyads; the viziers began to exert greater influence, and the role of the caliph's aristocracy was slowly replaced by a Barmakid bureaucracy.
At the western end of the empire, Harun al-Rashid agreed to grant the province of Ifriqiya (centered in present-day Tunisia) as a hereditary emirate to Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab, who founded the Aghlabid dynasty there.
Under Harun al-Rashid's reign (r. 786โ809), the Abbasid Empire reached its peak. His father, al-Mahdi (r. 775โ785), restarted the fighting with the Byzantines, and his sons continued the conflict until Empress Irene pushed for peace.
After several years of peace, Nikephoros I broke the treaty, then fended off multiple incursions during the first decade of the 9th century. These Abbasid attacks pushed into the Taurus Mountains, culminating with a victory at the Battle of Krasos and the massive invasion of 806, led by al-Rashid himself. Harun al-Rashid's navy also proved successful, taking Cyprus. Al-Rashid then focused on the rebellion of Rafi ibn al-Layth in Khurasan and died while there.
Domestically, al-Rashid pursued policies similar to those of his father al-Mahdi. He released many of the Umayyads and Alids his brother al-Hadi (r. 785โ786) had imprisoned and declared amnesty for all political groups of the Quraysh. While Baghdad remained the official capital, al-Rashid chose to reside in Raqqa from 796 until the end of his reign.
In 802, he established an unusual succession plan which decreed that his son al-Amin would inherit the title of Caliph and have control of Iraq and the western empire while his other son al-Ma'mun would rule Khurasan and most eastern parts of the empire. In 803, he turned on and imprisoned or killed most of the Barmakids, who had wielded administrative power on his behalf.
The reasons for this sudden and ruthless move remain unclear and have been the subject of much discussion by contemporary writers and later historians.
Al-Rashid's decision to split the succession proved to be damaging to the longevity of the empire. After his death in 809, his succession pact eventually collapsed and the empire was split by a civil war between al-Amin in Iraq and al-Ma'mun in Khurasan. This ended with a successful siege of Baghdad by al-Ma'mun's forces.
When the city fell in 813, al-Amin was captured and executed on the orders of al-Ma'mun's general, Tahir ibn Husayn. This marked the first time that an Abbasid ruler was publicly executed and it irrevocably damaged the prestige of the caliphate.
Al-Ma'mun became caliph and ruled until his death in 833. He initially ruled the empire from his established base in Merv, Khurasan, where his main support was found, but this prolonged the discontent and instability in Iraq and triggered further fighting in the years following his victory. In 817, he officially declared an Alid, 'Ali al-Rida, as his heir, instead of an Abbasid family member, perhaps hoping to promote Muslim unity, but the move backfired.
Eventually, he was compelled to step back from these policies and move his court to Baghdad, where he arrived in August 819. After this, the rest of his reign was relatively peaceful. Exceptions included a rebellion in Azerbaijan by the Khurramites, supported by the Byzantines, which continued until 837. He also repulsed a Byzantine attack on Syria around 829, followed by counter-attacks into Anatolia, and suppressed a rebellion in Egypt in 832.
The later years of al-Ma'mun's reign are known for his intellectual interests and patronage. The so-called "translation movement" โ the state-sponsored translation of scientific and literary works of antiquity into Arabic โ that had begun under his predecessors was pushed even further during this time and al-Ma'mun shifted its focus to ancient Greek works of science and philosophy.
In matters of religion, his interest in philosophy spurred him to endorse Mu'tazilism, the rationalist school of Islamic thought. Under its influence, he officially endorsed the doctrine of createdness of the Qur'an in 827. In 833, he went further and forcibly imposed it on the ulama, the Sunni religious scholars.
This controversial policy, known as the Mihna, was eventually abandoned in 848. Ultimately, it failed to convince the Sunni ulama and instead contributed to the emergence of the latter as a more cohesive social class whose views and interests did not always align with the caliph.
Following the civil war between al-Amin and al-Ma'mun, the traditional mainstay of the Abbasid army, the Khurasaniyya and 'Abna al-dawla, were no longer seen as reliable and the caliphs sought to recruit a new type of army whose loyalty could be better assured. This process began under al-Ma'mun but it is his brother and successor, al-Mu'tasim (r. 833โ842), who is known for its more radical implementation.
Soldiers were recruited from several new sources, but the most important, especially under al-Mu'tasim, were the group referred to by Arabic chronicles as "Turks" (atrฤk), who appear to have been mainly Turkic people from Central Asia. Some modern scholars refer to them as Mamluks, marking them as the antecedent of the later slave-soldiers known by that term, but their exact legal status has been a subject of scholarly debate.
Many, perhaps the majority, were originally purchased or captured slaves, but they were paid regular salaries and thus likely manumitted. In any case, these outsiders did not have political ties among the traditional elites and thus their loyalty was to the caliph alone.
These troops were likely the first standing army of the caliphate and provided the caliph with a strong base of military support. However, the influx of new foreign troops into the capital created tensions with its inhabitants and with older elites. This was one of the main reasons why, in 836, al-Mu'tasim decided to found a new capital, Samarra, on an open site to the north of Baghdad.
The new capital housed the caliph's army, allowed for the unhindered construction of massive new palaces, and became the focus of an even more elaborate courtly culture.
Al-Mu'tasim's reign marked the end of the strong caliphs. He strengthened his personal army with the Mamluks and promptly restarted the war with the Byzantines. Though his attempt to seize Constantinople failed when his fleet was destroyed by a storm, his military excursions were generally successful, culminating with a resounding victory in the Sack of Amorium.
Political fragmentation (861โ945)
From the ninth century onward, the Abbasids found they could no longer keep together a centralized polity from Baghdad, which had grown larger than that of Rome. As mentioned, Harun al-Rashid had already granted the province of Ifriqiya to the Aghlabids, who ruled this region as an autonomous vassal state until its fall to the Fatimids in 909.
In al-Ma'mun's reign, Tahir ibn Husayn (al-Ma'mun's general in the civil war) was appointed viceroy of Iran and most of the eastern regions of the empire from 821 onward. His descendants, the Tahirids, continued to govern in this position with significant autonomy until 873, although they remained loyal to the caliph and used only the title of amir.
From their capital at Nishapur, they were important patrons of Arabic literature and Sunni religious scholarship, in addition to making major improvements to agriculture. In Transoxiana, the Persian Samanids of Bukhara and Samarkand ruled as local governors, initially under the Tahirids. They oversaw the development of the region's cities into major trade centers, profiting from long-distance trade between China, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East.
The reign of al-Mutawakkil (r. 847โ861) was characterized by the caliph's extravagant spending, his attempts to further consolidate power within the state, and his replacement of the Mihna policy with support for more orthodox Sunni scholars, in particular the Hanbali school. In 853, the Byzantines sacked Damietta in Egypt, and the caliph responded by sending troops into Anatolia, who sacked and marauded until they were eventually annihilated in 863.
Al-Mutawakkil's lifestyle and spending weakened his support among the military. In 861, he was murdered at a party by a group of Turkish soldiers. This was the first time the Abbasid military intervened so directly and violently at court and it set a precedent for further coups. The following period, sometimes known as the "Anarchy at Samarra" (861โ870), saw four different caliphs come and go.
While they each attempted to reassert their authority, they were at the mercy of military and political factions. Tax collection lapsed and, along with al-Mutawakkil's previous spending, this left the state short on funds, which exacerbated the infighting. In 865, the Turkish soldiers of Samarra even besieged Baghdad to overthrow the caliph al-Musta'in and, when the city fell the following year, they replaced him with al-Mu'tazz.
The latter was overthrown by the same faction in 869 and replaced by al-Muhtadi, who was similarly overthrown in 870. Al-Muhtadi was succeeded by al-Mu'tamid, who was finally able to restore some order, in large part thanks to the help of his brother al-Muwaffaq, who kept the military under control and ran most government affairs.
The restoration was hampered by the Zanj rebellion, which erupted in 869 and threatened the center of Abbasid control in Iraq. This major threat was not brought under control until a determined campaign was launched in 879.
