Part 16

Siqadenj in the province of Merv. Then, on the 1st Shawwal (15th June 747), the first solemn meeting took place and the black flags were unfolded. On that occasion Suleiman b. Kathir was still leader, but by the end of the year Abu Moslim, whom the majority believed to belong himself to the family of the Prophet, was the acknowledged head of a strong army. Meantime, Nasr had moved from Nishapur to Merv, and here the two Arabic armies confronted each other. Then, at last, the true significance of Abu Moslim's work was recognized. Nasr warned the Arabs against their common enemy, "who preaches a religion that does not come from the Envoy of God, and whose chief aim is the extirpation of the Arabs." In vain he had entreated Merwan and Ibn Hobaira to send him troops before it should be too late. When at last it was possible to them to fulfil his wish, it was in fact too late. For a moment it seemed as though the rival Arab factions, realizing their common peril, would turn their combined forces against the Shi'ites. But Abu Moslim contrived to re-awaken their mutual distrust and jealousy, and, taking advantage of the opportunity, made himself master of Merv, in Rabia II. A.H. 130 (December 747). Nasr escaped only by a headlong flight to Nishapur. This was the end of the Arabic dominion in the East. Many Arab chiefs were killed, partly by order of Abu Moslim, partly by their clients. The latter, however, was strictly forbidden by Abu Moslim. So severe indeed was the discipline he exercised, that one of the chief missionaries, who by a secret warning had rendered possible the escape of Nasr from Merv, paid for it with his life.

As soon as Abu Moslim had consolidated his authority, he sent his chief general Qahtaba against Nishapur. Nasr's son Tamim was vanquished and killed, and Nasr retreated to Kumis (Qumis) on the boundary of Jorjan, whither also advanced from the other side Nobata at the head of an army sent by Merwan. Qahtaba detached his son Hasan against Nasr and went himself to meet Nobata, whom he beat on the 1st of Dhu'l-hijja 130 (6th August 748). Nasr could not further resist. He reached Sawa in the vicinity of Hamadan, where he died quite exhausted, at the age of eighty-five years. Rei and Hamadan were taken without serious difficulty. Near Nehawend, Ibn Dobara, at the head of a large army, encountered Qahtaba, but was defeated and killed. In the month of Dhu'l-qa'da 131 (June 749) Nehawend (Nehavend) surrendered, and thereby the way to Irak lay open to Qahtaba. Ibn Hobaira was overtaken and compelled to retire to Wasit. Qahtaba himself perished in the combat, but his son Hasan entered Kufa without any resistance on the 2nd of September 740.

Merwan had at last discovered who was the real chief of the movement in Khorasan, and had seized upon Ibrahim the Imam and imprisoned him at Harran. There he died, probably from the plague, though Merwan was accused of having killed him. When the other Abbasids left Homaima is not certain. But they arrived at Kufa in the latter half of September 749, where in the meantime the head of the propaganda, Abu Salama, called the wazir of the family of Mahomet, had previously undertaken the government. This Abu Salama seems to have had scruples against recognizing Abu'l-Abbas as the successor of his brother Ibrahim, and to have expected that the Mahdi, whom he looked for from Medina, would not be slow in making his appearance, little thinking that an Abbasid would present himself as such. But Abu Jahm, on the instructions of Abu Moslim, declared to the chief officers of the Khorasanian army that the Mahdi was in their midst, and brought them to Abu'l-Abbas, to whom they swore allegiance. Abu Salama also was constrained to take the oath. On Friday, the 12th Rabia II. A.H. 132 (28th November 749) Abu'l-Abbas was solemnly proclaimed caliph in the principal mosque of Kufa. The trick had been carried out admirably. On the point of gathering the ripe fruit, the Alids were suddenly pushed aside, and the fruit was snatched away by the Abbasids. The latter gained the throne and they took good care never to be deprived of it.

After the conquest of Nehawend, Qahtaba had detached one of his captains, Abu 'Aun, to Shahrazur, where he defeated the Syrian army which was stationed there. Thereupon Abu 'Aun occupied the land of Mosul, where he obtained reinforcements from Kufa, headed by Abdallah b. Ali, an uncle of Abu'l-Abbas, who was to have the supreme command. Merwan advanced to meet him, and was completely defeated near the Greater Zab, an affluent of the Tigris, in a battle which lasted eleven days. Merwan retreated to Harran, thence to Damascus, and finally to Egypt, where he fell in a last struggle towards the end of 132 (August 750). His head was cut off and sent to Kufa.[26] Abu Aun, who had been the real leader of the campaign against Merwan, remained in Egypt as its governor. Ibn Hobaira, who had been besieged in Wasit for eleven months, then consented to a capitulation, which was sanctioned by Abu'l-Abbas. Immediately after the surrender, Ibn Hobaira and his principal officers were treacherously murdered. In Syria, the Omayyads were persecuted with the utmost rigour. Even their graves were violated, and the bodies crucified and destroyed. In order that no members of the family should escape, Abdallah b. Ali pretended to grant an amnesty to all Omayyads who should come in to him at Abu Fotros (Antipatris) and acknowledge the new caliph, and even promised them the restitution of all their property. Ninety men allowed themselves to be entrapped, and Abdallah invited them to a banquet. When they were all collected, a body of executioners rushed into the hall and slew them with clubs. He then ordered leathern covers to be thrown upon the dying men, and had the banquet served upon them. In Medina and Mecca Da'ud b. Ali, another uncle of Abu'l-Abbas, conducted the persecution; in Basra, Suleiman b. Ali. Abu'l-Abbas himself killed those he could lay his hands on in Hira and Kufa, amongst them Suleiman b. Hisham, who had been the bitterest enemy of Merwan. Only a few Omayyads escaped the massacre, several of whom were murdered later. A grandson of Hisham, Abdarrahman, son of his most beloved son Moawiya, reached Africa and founded in Spain the Omayyad dynasty of Cordova.

With the dynasty of the Omayyads the hegemony passes finally from Syria to Irak. At the same time the supremacy of the Arabs came to an end. Thenceforth it is not the contingents of the Arabic tribes which compose the army, and on whom the government depends; the new dynasty relies on a standing army, consisting for the greater part of non-Arabic soldiers. The barrier that separated the Arabs from the conquered nations begins to crumble away. Only the Arabic religion, the Arabic language and the Arabic civilization maintain themselves, and spread more and more over the whole empire.

C.--THE ABBASIDS

We now enter upon the history of the new dynasty, under which the power of Islam reached its highest point.

1. Abu'l-Abbas inaugurated his Caliphate by a harangue in which he announced the era of concord and happiness which was to begin now that the House of the Prophet had been restored to its right. He asserted that the Abbasids were the real heirs of the Prophet, as the descendants of his oldest uncle Abbas. Addressing the Kufians, he said, "Inhabitants of Kufa, ye are those whose affection towards us has ever been constant and true; ye have never changed your mind, nor swerved from it, notwithstanding all the pressure of the unjust upon you. At last our time has come, and God has brought you the new era. Ye are the happiest of men through us, and the dearest to us. I increase your pensions with 100 dirhems; make now your preparations, for I am the lavish shedder of blood[27] and the avenger of blood."

Notwithstanding these fine words, Abu'l-Abbas did not trust the Kufians. He resided outside the town with the Khorasanian troops, and with them went first to Hira, then to Hashimiya, which he caused to be built in the neighbourhood of Anbar. For their real sympathies, he knew, were with the house of Ali, and Abu Salama their leader, who had reluctantly taken the oath of allegiance, did not conceal his disappointment. Abu Jahm, the vizier (q.v.; also MAHOMMEDAN INSTITUTIONS), or "helper," of Abu Moslim, advised that Abu Ja'far, the caliph's brother, should be sent to Khorasan to consult Abu Moslim. The result was that Abu Salama was assassinated, and at the same time Suleiman b. Kathir, who had been the head of the propaganda in Khorasan, and had also expected that the Mahdi would belong to the house of Ali. It is said that Abu Ja'far, whilst in Khorasan, was so impressed by the unlimited power of Abu Moslim, and saw so clearly that, though he called his brother and himself his masters, he considered them as his creatures, that he vowed his death at the first opportunity.

The ruin of the Omayyad empire and the rise of the new dynasty did not take place without mighty convulsions. In Bathaniya and the Hauran, in the north of Syria, in Mesopotamia and Irak Khorasan insurrections had to be put down with fire and sword. The new caliph then distributed the provinces among the principal members of his family and his generals. To his brother Abu Ja'far he gave Mesopotamia, Azerbaijan and Armenia; to his uncle Abdallah b. Ali, Syria; to his uncle Da'ud, Hejaz, Yemen and Yamama (Yemama); to his cousin 'Isa b. Musa, the province of Kufa. Another uncle, Suleiman b. Ali, received the government of Basra with Bahrein and Oman; Isma 'il b. Ali that of Ahwaz; Abu Moslim, Khorasan and Transoxiana; Mahommed b. Ash'ath, Fars; Abu 'Aun, Egypt. In Sind the Omayyad governor, Mansur b. Jomhur, had succeeded in maintaining himself, but was defeated by an army sent against him under Musa b. Ka'b, and the black standard of the Abbasids was raised over the city of Mansura. Africa and Spain are omitted from this catalogue, because the Abbasids never gained any real footing in Spain, while Africa remained, at least in the first years, in only nominal subjection to the new dynasty. In 754 Abu Moslim came to Irak to visit Abu'l-Abbas and to ask his permission to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. He was received with great honour, but the caliph said that he was sorry not to be able to give him the leadership of the pilgrimage, which he had already purposely entrusted to his brother, Abu Ja'far.

Abu'l-Abbas died on the 13th of Dhu'l-hijja 136 (5th June 754). He seems to have been a man of limited capacity, and had very little share in the achievements accomplished in his name. He initiated practically nothing without the consent of Abu Jahm, who was thus the real ruler. In the few cases where he had to decide, he acted under the influence of his brother Abu Ja'far.

2. _Reign of Mansur._--Abu'l-Abbas had designated as his successors first Abu Ja'far, surnamed al-Mansur (the victorious), and after him his cousin 'Isa b. Musa. Abu Ja'far was, according to the historians, older than Abu'l-Abbas, but while the mother of the latter belonged to the powerful Yemenite tribe of al-Harith b. Ka'b, the mother of Abu Ja'far was a Berber slave-girl. But he was a son of Mahommed b. Ali, and was therefore preferred by Abu Moslim to his uncles and cousins. Abu'l-Abbas, however, had promised the succession to his uncle Abdallah b. Ali, when he marched against Merwan. When the news of the death of Abu'l-Abbas reached Abdallah, who at the head of a numerous army was on the point of renewing the Byzantine war, he came to Harran, furious at his exclusion, and proclaimed himself caliph. Abu Moslim marched against him, and the two armies met at Nisibis, where, after a number of skirmishes, a decisive engagement took place (28th November 754). Abdallah was defeated and escaped to Basra, where he found a refuge with his brother Suleiman. A year later he asked for pardon, and took the oath of allegiance to Mansur. The caliph spared his life for a time, but he did not forget. In 764 Abdallah met his death by the collapse of his house, which had been deliberately undermined.

The first care of Mansur was now to get rid of the powerful Abu Moslim, who had thus by another brilliant service strengthened his great reputation. On pretence of conferring with him on important business of state, Mansur induced him, in spite of the warnings of his best general, Abu Nasr, to come to Madain (Ctesiphon), and in the most perfidious manner caused him to be murdered by his guards. Thus miserably perished the real founder of the Abbasid dynasty, the _Sahib addaula_, as he is commonly called, the _Amin_ (trustee) of the House of the Prophet. A witty man, being asked his opinion about Abu Ja'far (Mansur) and Abu Moslim, said, alluding to the Koran 21, verse 22, "if there were two Gods, the universe would be ruined." The Khorasanian chiefs were bribed into submission, and order was at last re-established by Mansur's general Khazim b. Khozaima in Mesopotamia, and by Abu Da'ud, the governor of Khorasan in the east.

About the same time Africa[28] and Spain escaped from the dominion of the eastern Caliphate; the former for a season, the latter permanently. The cause of the revolt of Africa was as follows. Mansur had written to Abdarrahman, announcing the death of Abu'l-Abbas, and requiring him to take the oath of allegiance. Abdarrahman sent in his adhesion, together with a few presents of little value. The caliph replied by a threatening letter which angered Abdarrahman. He called the people together at the hour of prayer, publicly cursed Mansur from the pulpit and declared him deposed. He next caused a circular letter, commanding all Maghribins to refuse obedience to the caliph, to be read from the pulpit throughout the whole extent of the Maghrib (western North Africa). A brother of Abdarrahman, Ilyas, saw in this revolt an opportunity of obtaining the government of Africa for himself. Seconded by many of the inhabitants of Kairawan, who had remained faithful to the cause of the Abbasids, he attacked his brother, slew him, and proclaimed himself governor in his stead. This revolution in favour of the Abbasids was, however, not of long duration. Habib, the eldest son of Abdarrahman, who had fled in the night of his father's murder, was captured, but the vessel which was to convey him to Spain having been detained by stress of weather, his

## partisans took arms and rescued him. Ilyas was marching against them,

when the idea occurred to Habib of challenging him to single combat. Ilyas hesitated, but his own soldiers compelled him to accept the challenge. He measured arms with Habib, and was slain. The party of independence thus triumphed, but in the year 144 (761) Mahommed b. Ash'ath, the Abbasid general, entered Kairawan and regained possession of Africa in the name of the eastern caliph. From the year 800, it must be added, Africa only nominally belonged to the Abbasids; for, under the reign of Harun al-Rashid, Ibrahim b. al-Aghlab, who was invested with the government of Africa, founded in that province a distinct dynasty, that of the Aghlabites.

At the same time as the revolt in Africa, the independent Caliphate of the western Omayyads was founded in Spain. The long dissensions which had preceded the fall of that dynasty in the East had already prepared the way for the independence of a province so distant from the centre of the empire. Every petty amir then tried to seize sovereign power for himself, and the people groaned under the consequent anarchy. Weary of these commotions, the Arabs of Spain at last came to an understanding among themselves for the election of a caliph, and their choice fell upon one of the last survivors of the Omayyads, Abdarrahman b. Moawiya, grandson of the caliph Hisham. This prince was wandering in the deserts of Africa, pursued by his implacable enemies, but everywhere protected and concealed by the desert tribes, who pitied his misfortunes and respected his illustrious origin. A deputation from Spain sought him out in Africa and offered him the Caliphate, which he accepted with joy. On the 1st Rabia I. 138 (14th August 755) Abdarrahman landed in the Iberian peninsula, where he was universally welcomed, and speedily founded at Cordova the Western Omayyad Caliphate (see SPAIN: _History_).

While Mansur was thus losing Africa and Spain, he was trying to redeem the losses the empire had sustained on the northern frontier by the Byzantines. In 750-751 the emperor Constantine V. (Copronymus) had unsuccessfully blockaded Malatia; but five years later he took it by force and razed its wall to the ground. Mansur now sent in 757 an army of 70,000 men under the command of his cousin Abdalwahhab, the son of Ibrahim the Imam, whom he had made governor of Mesopotamia, the real chief being Hasan b. Qahtaba. They rebuilt all that the emperor had destroyed, and made this key of Asia Minor stronger than ever before. The Moslems then made a raid by the pass of Hadath (Adata) and invaded the land of the Byzantines. Two aunts of the caliph took part in this expedition, having made a vow that if the dominion of the Omayyads were ended they would wage war in the path of God. Constantine advanced with a numerous army, but was afraid of attacking the invaders. The Moslems also rebuilt Mopsuestia. But from 758 till 763 Mansur was so occupied with his own affairs that he could not think of further raids.

In 758 (others say in 753 or 754) a body of 600 sectaries, called Rawendis (q.v.), went to Hashimiya, the residence of the caliph, not far from Kufa. They believed that the caliph was their lord, to whom they owed their daily bread, and came to pay him divine honours. They began by marching in solemn procession round the palace, as if it had been the Ka'ba. Mansur being told of it said: "I would rather they went to hell in obedience to us, than to heaven in disobedience." But as they grew tumultuous, and he saw that this impious homage gave offence to his men, he caused the principal leaders to be seized and thrown into prison. The Rawendis immediately rose in revolt, broke the prison doors, rescued their chiefs, and returned to the palace. The unfortunate fanatics were hunted down and massacred to the last man, and thereby the ties that bound the Abbasids to the ultra-Shi'ites were severed. From that time forward the Abbasid caliphs became the maintainers of orthodox Islam, just as the Omayyads had been. The name of Hashimiya, which the reigning family still retained, was henceforward derived not from Abu Hashim, but from Hashim, the grandfather of Abbas, the great-grandfather of the Prophet.

A much greater danger now threatened Mansur. In the last days of the Omayyads, the Shi'ites had chosen as caliph, Mahommed b. Abdallah b. Hasan, whom they called the Mahdi and the "pure soul," and Mansur had been among those who pledged themselves to him by oath. Not unnaturally, the Alids in Medina were indignant at being supplanted by the Abbasids, and Mansur's chief concern was to get Mahommed into his power. Immediately after his occupying the throne, he named Ziyad b. Obaidallah governor of Medina, with orders to lay hands on Mahommed and his brother Ibrahim, who, warned betimes, took refuge in flight. In 758 Mansur, informed that a revolt was in preparation, came himself to Medina and ordered Abdallah to tell him where his sons were. As he could not or would not tell, he together with all his brothers and some other relatives were seized and transported to Irak, where Abdallah and his brother Ali were beheaded and the others imprisoned. Notwithstanding all these precautions, a vast conspiracy was formed. On the same day Mahommed was to raise the standard of revolt in Medina, Ibrahim in Basra. But the Alids, though not devoid of personal courage, never excelled in politics or in tactics. In A.D. 762 Mahommed took Medina and had himself proclaimed caliph. The governor of Kufa, 'Isa b. Musa, received orders to march against him, entered Arabia, and captured Medina, which, fortified by Mahommed by the same means as the Prophet had employed against the besieging Meccans, could not hold out against the well-trained Khorasanians. Mahommed was defeated and slain. His head was cut off and sent to Mansur. When on the point of death, Mahommed gave the famous sword of the Prophet called Dhu'l-Fiqar to a merchant to whom he owed 400 dinars. It came later into the possession of Harun al-Rashid. In the meanwhile Ibrahim had not only gained possession of Basra, Ahwaz and Fars, but had even occupied Wasit. The empire of the Abbasids was in great jeopardy. For fifty days Mansur stayed in his room, neither changing his clothes nor allowing himself a moment's repose. The greater part of his troops were in Rei with his son al-Mahdi, who had conquered Tabaristan, in Africa, with Mahommed b. Ash'ath, and in Arabia with 'Isa b. Musa. Had Ibrahim marched at once against Kufa he might have crushed Mansur, but he let slip the opportunity. A terrible conflict took place at Ba-Khamra, 48 m. from Kufa. Homaid b. Qahtaba, the commander of Mansur's army, was defeated, only a small division under 'Isa b. Musa holding its ground. At that moment Salm, the son of the famous Qotaiba b. Moslim, came to the rescue by attacking the rear of Ibrahim. Homaid rallied his troops, and Ibrahim was overpowered. At last he fell, pierced by an arrow, and, in spite of the desperate efforts of his followers, his body remained in the hands of the enemy. His head was cut off and brought to Mansur.