The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate ad 661-750

party which had previously supported the claims of Abu Hashim and
transformed it into one supporting themselves, and it is difficult to
see how this could have happened unless the ‘Abbasids had
managed to convince the leaders of the party that Abu Hashim had
transferred his claims to them.
10
The movement which brought the ‘Abbasids into the caliphate
was known as the Hashimiyya. As we have seen, the descendants of
Hashim b. ‘Abd Manaf, the Banu Hashim, numbered among them
the ‘Abbasids as well as the Prophet Muhammad, ‘Ali and their
descendants. For some time, therefore, it was thought that the
Hashimiyya was a sect which supported the religious and political
claims of the descendants of Hashim, the most prominent of whom
were the family of ‘Ali. The ‘Abbasids, more obscure descendants
of Hashim, it was thought, somehow got control of this sect and used
it to obtain power themselves although most of those supporting it
assumed that they were working on behalf of an ‘Alid. It now seems,
though, that the name may not have been used in this sense until
some time after the ‘Abbasids had attained the caliphate and that
originally it referred to the party which had supported the claims to

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The Overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate
111
the imamate of Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya’s son, Abu Hashim.
After the failure of Mukhtar’s revolt and the subsequent death of
Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya, it seems that some of those who had
supported the imamate of Ibn al-Hanafiyya continued to support the
claims of his son, and some Muslim writers on the sects of early
Islam refer to this party as the Hashimiyya. The view that it was this
sect which was taken over by the ‘Abbasids is supported not only by
the tradition of Abu Hashim’s will in favour of Muhammad b. ‘Ali
the ‘Abbasid, but also by some continuity of ideas and terminology
between the movement led by Mukhtar and that which brought the
‘Abbasids to power.
11
From a later point of view it might seem odd that the ‘Abbasids
claimed power as the leaders of a movement which had begun as the