Such was the beginning of the celebrated “Mission” or “Propaganda” (da'wa) of the 'Abbásids, which, working silently but surely on the abundant elements of disaffection which already existed, undermined the Umayyad power, and within thirty years overthrew the tottering edifice of their dynasty. The agents of this propaganda (dá'í, plural du'ât)— able, self-devoted men, who, though avoiding any premature outbreak, were at any moment ready to sacrifice their lives for the cause—worked especially on the ferment of discontent which leavened the Persian province of Khurásán, where, as Dínawarí tells us (p. 335)—
“They invited the people to swear allegiance to Muḥammad b. 'Alí, and sought to disgust them with the rule of the Umayyads by Dínawarí cited. reason of their evil conduct and their grievous tyranny. Many in Khurásán responded to their call, but somewhat of their doings becoming known and bruited abroad reached the ears of Sa'íd [b. 'Abdu'l-'Azíz b. al-Ḥakam b. Abu'l-'Áṣ, the governor of Khurásán].* So he sent for them, and when they were brought before him said, ‘Who are ye?’ ‘Merchants,’ they replied. ‘And what,’ said he, ‘is this which is currently reported concerning you?’ ‘What may that be?’ they asked. ‘We are informed,’ said he, ‘that ye be come as propagandists for the house of 'Abbás.’ ‘O Amír,’ they answered, ‘we have sufficient concern for ourselves and our own business to keep us from such doings!’ So he let them go; and they went out from before him, and, departing from Merv, began to journey through the province of Khurásán and the villages thereof in the guise of merchants, summoning men unto the Imám Muḥammad b. 'Alí. Thus they continued to do for two years, when they returned to the Imám Muḥammad b. 'Alí in the land of Syria, and informed him that they had planted in Birth of Abu'l'Abbás. Khurásán a tree which they hoped would bear fruit in due season. And they found that there had been born unto him his son Abu'l-'Abbás,* whom he commanded to be brought forth unto them, saying, ‘This is your master;’ and they kissed his limbs all over.”
On the support of the oppressed and slighted Persians especially the propagandists could reckon, for these were a Persian support of 'Abbásid pretensions. wise and capable people with a great past, reduced to misery and treated with contempt by a merely martial race, inferior to them in almost every respect save personal valour and love of independence. Mukhtár and his general, Ibráhím ibnu'l-Ashtar, had already proved the worth of the Persians, from whom, as we have seen, Worth of thePersians appreciated by Mukhtár and Ibnu'l-Ashtar. their ranks were largely, indeed chiefly, recruited.* When Furát and 'Umayr, officers in the Syrian army sent by the Caliph 'Abdu'l-Malik against Mukhtár, visited Ibnu'l-Ashtar in his camp, they complained that from the time they entered his lines until they reached his presence they had scarcely heard a word of Arabic, and asked him how with such an army he could hope to withstand the picked troops of Syria.
“By God!” replied Ibnu'l-Ashtar, “did I find none but ants [as my allies], yet would I assuredly give battle to the Syrians therewith; how then in the actual circumstances? For there is no people endowed with greater discernment wherewith to combat them than these whom thou seest with me, who are none other than the children of the knights and satraps of the Persians.” Mukhtár also “promoted those of Persian descent, and assigned gifts to them and their children, and set them in high places, withdrawing from the Arabs, and putting them at a distance, and disappointing them. Thereat were they angered, and their nobles assembled, and came in unto him, and reproached him. But he answered, “May God be remote from none but yourselves! I honoured you, and you turned up your noses, I gave you authority, and you destroyed the revenues; but these Persians are more obedient to me than you, and more faithful and swift in the performance of my desire.”
There was, however, another party whose support was needed for the success of the 'Abbásid propaganda, namely, the Shí'ites. These, holding in general the same views as to the rights of the Family of the Prophet, yet differed in detail as to which candidate of that house had the better claim. Broadly speaking, they became divided, on the death of al-Ḥusayn, into two parties, of which the one supported his younger half-brother, Muḥammad ibnu'l-Ḥanafiyya, and the other his son 'Alí, better known as Zaynu'l-'Ábidín.
The former party, on the death of Ibnu'l-Ḥanafiyya, transferred
their allegiance to his son Abú Háshim (whence they
The Háshimiyya
received the name of Háshimiyya), who, as Van
Vloten thinks,*
was the first to organise a propaganda,
and to encourage the feelings of adoration with which the
Shí'ites were from the first disposed to regard their Imáms and
the belief in an esoteric doctrine whereof the keys were committed
to his keeping. This Abú Háshim died (poisoned, it is
said, by the Umayyad Caliph Sulaymán)*
in A.H. 98 (A.D. 716-
The second party of the Shí'a, or Imámiyya, were less easily attached to the 'Abbásid cause, since in their view the The Imámiyya. Imám must be of the descendants of 'Alí and Fáṭima, their actual Imám at this time being 'Alí Zaynu'l-'Ábidín, the son of al-Ḥusayn, who died in A.H. 99 or 100 (A.D. 718).* To secure the support of these, the 'Abbásid propaganda was carried on in the name of Háshim, the common ancestor of both 'Abbásids and 'Alids, and only at the last, when success was achieved, was it made clear, to the bitter disappointment of 'Alí's partisans, that the House of 'Abbás was to profit by their labours to the exclusion of the House of 'Alí.
So the propaganda continued actively but silently. Sometimes the propagandists would be taken and put to death by the Government, as happened to Abú 'Ikrima and Ḥayyán, in whose place, however, five others were immediately despatched to Khurásán, with orders to be cautious and prudent, and to disclose nothing until they had put a binding oath on the inquirer.* During the reign of Hishám, while Khálid was governor of 'Iráq, several strange and serious outbreaks of Khárijites and Shí'ites occurred, the leaders of which were in several cases burned to death.* In Khurásán, on the other hand, a somewhat unwise leniency was shown by the Caliph, in spite of the warnings of his governor, towards the 'Abbásid propagandists,* whose movements were controlled and directed by a council of twelve naqíbs and a Senate of seventy subordinate chiefs.* Now and then, however, some dá'í would break loose from control and preach the wildest doctrines of the extreme Shí'ites (al-Ghulát), as happened in the case of al-Khaddásh, who was put to death in A.D. 736. For further information concerning him and the Ráwandís and Khurramís we must refer the reader to Van Vloten's masterly study (pp. 47-51), and to ch. ix. infra.
About A.D. 743, Muḥammad b. 'Alí the 'Abbásid died, after nominating as his successors first his son Ibráhím, and after Death of Muḥammad b. 'Alí. him his other sons Abu'l-'Abbás and Abú Ja'far, of whom the first was put to death by Marwán II, the last Umayyad Caliph, about A.D. 747-748, while the two others lived to enjoy the fruits of the long and arduous labours of the 'Abbásid propaganda, and to inaugurate the 'Abbásid Caliphate. About the same time, too, appeared on the scene that remarkable man, Abú Muslim who, having Abú Muslim. contributed more than any one else to the overthrow of the Umayyads and the victory of the 'Abbásids, himself at last fell a victim to the jealousy of those who owed him so great a debt of gratitude.
Everything now portended that the final struggle was at
hand. Marwán II, nicknamed “the Ass” (al-Ḥimár) on
account of his endurance in battle, succeeded to the throne in
A.D. 745, and men remembered the prophecy that in the
“Year of the Ass” deliverance should come, and that 'Ayn the
son of 'Ayn the son of 'Ayn ('Abdu'lláh b. 'Alí b. 'Abdu'lláh, i.e.,
Abu'l-'Abbás, afterwards known as aṣ-Ṣaffáḥ) would kill Mím the
son of Mím the son of Mím (Marwán the son of Muḥammad the
son of Marwán, the last Umayyad Caliph).*
Such dark sayings
were widely current and greedily absorbed, while the apocryphal
books of the Jews and Christians, prophetic poems (maláḥim),
and the like were eagerly studied by the long-suffering subject-