# The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall/Chapter 59

CHAPTER LIX
REMAINDER OF MERWĀN'S REIGN. ʿABBĀSID RISING IN THE EAST UNDER ABU MUSLIM AND ḲAḤṬABA. RECOGNITION OF ʿABBĀSID CALIPH. BATTLE OF THE ZĀB. DEFEAT AND DEATH OF MERWĀN.
130–132 A.H. 728–750 A.D.
Growth of ʿAbbāsid influence in the East.The progress of recent events in the East has been kept for separate treatment. The same causes were there at work as elsewhere,—Khāriji risings and tribal jealousies. But there were special elements of weakness besides. The authority of the Court was felt less in Khorāsān than elsewhere, and, in fact, was fast disappearing altogether. Hāshimi treason, long secretly hatching its disloyal brood, was now coming to an open head: and powerful clubs in support of the ʿAbbāsid rising were appearing fearlessly everywhere. The body politic was falling to pieces; and the specious claim of the Prophet's house as against the ungodly Umeiyads, paved an easy way for the great change now looming in the future.
Critical position of Umeiyads in Khorāsān, 126–128 A.H. 743–745 A.D.The position of Naṣr, Viceroy in Khorāsān, had become in the last degree critical. Al-Kirmāni, as already stated, had drawn to his standard the Yemeni faction,—that, namely, hostile to Naṣr. Put in prison as a dangerous agitator, e effected his escape, and kept up an armed opposition. To increase the disorder, Al-Ḥārith, for whom Naṣr had obtained amnesty from the Court, turned against him; and, confederate as he had been of the pagan Turk, assumed now a high religious profession, and raising the black flag, demanded a reform of government in accordance with "the Book of the Lord." After many fruitless negotiations, Naṣr offered to help him if he would again ​depart and fight beyond the Oxus, but he preferred to remain and do battle, now on the side of Al-Kirmāni, and now against him.Events in Khorāsān. In one of these engagements he was killed: Al-Kirmāni maintained his ground against Naṣr, who had retired to Nīsābūr. It was still the endless quarrel of Moḍar and the Yemen pitted one against the other, with no decisive result other than that Khorāsān was left with hardly even the form of government.
The Arabs of Khorāsān were almost more Persian than Arab. Their fathers had married Persian wives, and the sons spoke Persian rather than Arabic, drank wine, wore trousers, and kept the Persian holidays. The Persians, on the other hand, were probably better off after the Arab conquest than before. Heathenism was tolerated, and when they did go over to Islām, it was from social, not religious motives. They then joined an Arab tribe and assumed Arabic names, and in time became more sincere believers than the Arabs themselves. The latter always regarded them, however, with suspicion. In the army, which offered the readiest gate to Islām, the Mawāli fought on foot, the Arabs on horseback. They shared in the spoil, but were not on the pension-list, and still paid the subject-tax. It was Islām itself which taught them their equality with their masters. This was acknowledged by the Khawārij, the Murjīya, but most of all by the Shīʿa. The Shīʿa was of two kinds, the merely political, which wished to keep the succession in the line of Moḥammad, and the theosophic, which found incarnations of the Divine in Ibn al-Ḥanefīya, his son Abu Hāshim, and others.
Abu Muslim agent of the ʿAbbāsids,Just then, towards the end of 129 A.H. the great black standard of the ʿAbbāsids was unfurled in Khorāsān by Abu Muslim. The origin of this famous man who, though still young, was already the hero of the new dynasty, is obscure. He certainly was no Arab. Amidst much that is discordant, we may assume that he was born a slave. In the year 125 A.H. (743 A.D.) Moḥammad, head of the ʿAbbāsid house, with a party of his adherents, visited Mecca; ​and anticipating decease (he died the same year) bade his followers in that event to take his son Ibrahim as successor. At the same time he purchased Abu Muslim, then not twenty years of age, as a likely agent for the service of the House. Abu Muslim fulfilling thus the office of confidential agent, was kept going to and fro between Khorāsān and Al-Ḥomeima (the village in south Palestine where the family lived) to promote the cause, and to report its progress. At last, in 129 A.H., he gave so promising an account of the zeal of his adherents, of the impotence of Umeiyad rule in Khorāsān, and of the distractions there, that he received from Ibrāhīm command to delay no longer, but raise at once the banner of the new Dynasty.raises black standard in the East, ix. 129 A.H. May, 747 A.D. In the month of Ramaḍān accordingly, Abu Muslim proceeding to the far East, sent forth his emissaries in all directions with instructions when and how the rising was to take place. Before the month was over, contingents had begun to pour in from every quarter. In one night there arrived no fewer than sixty from as many different places. The first religious service took place on Friday, 1 x. 129 A.H. (June 15, 747 A.D.), at the breaking of the great fast. The Imam was Suleimān ibn Kethīr of Khozāʿa, who was still nominal head of the movement. The Umeiyad garrisons were expelled from Herāt and other cities in the far East. Elsewhere, Abu Muslim's agents sought to win over the Moḍar by abuse of the Yemeni tribes; and the Yemen by abuse of the Moḍar. He came in person to Merv and succeeded in detaching the Azd from the Arab alliance, but in such a way as not to offend Moḍar. Even Naṣr and Al-Kirmāni were tampered with; but the latter was assassinated by a son of Al-Ḥārith ibn Sureij. Then Abu Muslim, persuading them that Nasr had instigated the murder, was joined by the son of that chief with the Azd who followed him, drove Naṣr out of Merv,Takes Merv, and took possession of the Citadel. But this success at last united the Syrians of either party against the Hāshimi rebellion; and if the Caliph had only ​Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/456 ​Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/457 ​Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/458 ​Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/459 ​Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/460 ​Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/461 ​Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/462
* ↑ Black may have been chosen because that was the colour of Moḥammad's banner, or because it was that of Al-Ḥārith ibn Sureij, and so liked by the Mawāli, or because it is the colour of Vengeance. Umeiyads and ʿAlīds in contrast had white; the Khawārij red.
* ↑ The two sons of Al-Kirmāni were, however, found by Abu Muslim, probably from their Syrian associations, to be inconvenient allies, and were, with their attendants, treacherously put to death. Abu Muslim made no scruple of assassinating by any underhand means those whom he found in his way.