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

particular seem to emerge. The first is that the 
da‘wa
 used general
and vague terms, and rarely, if ever, openly proclaimed that it was
working for an ‘Abbasid imamate. Typically the propaganda
appealed for support for a member of ‘the family’ 
(ahl al-bayt)
 or
‘the acceptable one of the family of Muhammad’ 
(al-rid
a
 min 
a
l
Muhammad);
 both expressions emphasised the importance of
membership of the Prophet’s family, and would be equally
acceptable to supporters of the ‘Alids and those with a more
extensive idea of the membership of the family. The head of the
movement in Kufa came to bear the title 
waz
i
r 
a
l Muhammad
(‘helper of the family of Muhammad’), while Abu Muslim, the
leader in Khurasan, was 
amin 
a
l Muhammad
 (‘trustee of the family
of Muhammad’), both echoing titles used in the revolt of Mukhtar.
The possible ambiguity of the name al-Hashimiyya has already been
noted too.
Secondly, from the lists of names of missionaries and supporters
of the movement it seems that 
mawali
 played a prominent part, but

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The Overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate
113
alongside Arabs, not exclusive of them. The significance of this is
that some earlier European scholars saw the “Abbasid revolution’ as
almost completely a movement of non-Arabs attempting to
overthrow Arab rule, or even as a revolt of the Aryan Iranians
against the Semites. The evidence now, however, seems to show that
this interpretation, which can be supported by reference to some
Muslim sources, cannot be sustained. Rather we see a movement in
which Arabs and 
mawali
 both participated. In fact, Arabs tend to be
in the leading positions. The explanation for this participation of
both Arabs and 
mawali
 is, as already suggested, that the Hashimiyya
originally found support generally not among the soldiers but
among the civilian population where the divide between Arabs and
non-Arabs was breaking down.
14
One other notable feature of the way in which the Hashimiyya
operated is connected with the prominence in it of the names of
mawali
—the importance of names indicating that the bearer carried
out a particular trade or at least belonged to a family involved in a
trade. Frequently we meet individuals called ‘saddlemaker’,
‘arrowmaker’, ‘druggist’, and so on. Individuals with such names
are nearly always 
mawali,
 and it seems that the movement was well
aware of, and exploited, the ability of such men to move around
unnoticed for the purposes of the 
da‘wa
. We have at least one report
describing how a prominent member of the movement equipped
himself with merchandise and took care to establish his 
bona fides
as a merchant while his real aim was to work on behalf of the
movement. In this way, as in others, we gain the impression of a
cleverly organised and clear-sighted group, aware of the need for
secrecy and the importance of winning as many different sources of
support as possible for the cause.
15
Following the affair of Khidash, leadership of the Hashimiyya in
Khurasan was assumed by a Yemeni Arab of Khuza‘a, Sulayman b.
Kathir. He, it seems, was chosen by the movement in Khurasan and
not appointed either by the imam Muhammad b. ‘Ali or by the head
of the Hashimiyya in Kufa. For some time he continued to maintain
the independence of the Khurasani Hashimiyya, and it was only
gradually that the movement there came to accept ‘Abbasid tutelage.
It may be that the decisive event was the capture and execution of
the ‘Alid Yahya b. Zayd by Nasr b. Sayyar in 743, which may have
illustrated that the ‘Abbasids were the only realistic contenders for
power. In the same year Muhammad b. ‘Ali died and was succeeded
as putative imam by his son Ibrahim, and shortly afterwards control

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