Episode 40: The Abbasid revolution

The Abbasid path to power required stealth, deceit, and most of all patience. The Hashemite family managed to unseat the Umayyads through cultivating a secret movement that benefitted from all the social tensions which plagued the umma. They drew on Hashemite support by calling for the rights of the prophet’s clan, they championed the southern or Yemeni side of the tribal feud, and they were deeply anti-Umayyad. Their success would have been unlikely in Hisham’s age, but times had changed in the few years since then.

Glossary

• Abu Muslim il Khurasani: the Abbasid agent sent to the East to first invigorate the da’wa in Khurasan. He did an amazing job, and seems to have remained in the province to run the East of the new Abbasid caliphate, despite the existence of several accounts which claim his presence in other places. He quickly goes from a mysterious figure to a controversial one, and it’ll become more clear why in the coming episode or two.
• Qahtaba bin Shabib al Ta’i: the military commander sent to lead the da’wa’s rebellion West from Khurasan was one of the Abbasid project’s twelve main principles. Most sources say he was one of the leaders of the Hashimiyya movement, which would make him one of the pro-mawali Arabs from the region. He either defeated two larger Umayyad armies, or just the one under the Iraqi governor Yazid ibn Hubayra. 
• Hasan ibn Qahtaba: Qahtaba’s son was his father’s second in command, and after Qahtaba was killed during the night raid he had ordered on the Umayyad forces, he slipped into his role seamlessly. He led the Abbasid forces to Kufa, where they had an easy time as a Qahtani rebellion had seized the city soon after Yazid left it undefended. 
• Abdullah ibn il Abbas: the son of Abbas was the original Abbasid in a sense. Cousin to the prophet, he came to islam a little late, but he was a confidant to both Omar ibn il Khattab and Ali bin Abi Talib, making him one of the deepest insiders of the prophet’s generation. He died in Ta’if during or right after the second fitna.
• Ali bin Abdullah: he’s the one the Abbasids claim started the da’wa, though there isn’t much proof of activity. He moved to Humayma with his clan when al Walid wanted to keep the Qurayshi’s close. The son of Mohammad ibn il Hanafiya supposedly came during his time and passed the rights to claim leadership of the umma to Ali’s son Mohammad.
• Mohammad ibn Ali: he’s the one we’re told was pledged to by the descendent of ibn il Hanafiya, and it’s under him that the da’wa was a secret project which slowly grew more powerful while hidden from the caliph’s agents. 
• Ibrahim ibn Mohammad: he inherited leadership of the clan and the da’wa after his father’s death in the mid 740’s, and he pushed for the acceleration of the project. He sent Abu Muslim East to Khurasan, and after his success Ibrahim was less and less discreet with his actions, and was eventually caught by Marwan after his police intercepted a letter he had sent.
• Abdallah ibn Mohammad Al Saffah: Ibrahim’s brother led the clan secretly to Kufa after the jig was up, and within months triumphant armies from Khurasan had arrived ready to champion his cause and defend his claim. He replaced his brother as the head of the clan and the da’wa after news of Ibrahim’s demise in Marwan’s dungeons reached the Abbasids.