116
The Overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate
and when he returned to Merv it appears that Abu Muslim willingly
accepted the appointment. Qahtaba and his son al-Hasan were to
lead the campaigns which overthrew the Umayyads. They were
Yemenis like many, but not all, of
the Arabs prominent in the
Khurasani army.
19
By the end of June 748, Nasr b. Sayyar, having failed to repulse
the Khurasani army, had to abandon Nishapur and withdraw west to
Qumis on the border between Khurasan and Jurjan. Here he was
joined, at last, by an Umayyad army sent from Iraq on the orders of
the caliph Marwan II himself, but there was insufficient cooperation
between the commander of the reinforcements and Nasr, and, at the
beginning
of August, Qahtaba defeated the newly arrived army and
killed its commander. Nasr, who had been successfully holding out
in Qumis against Qahtaba’s son al-Hasan now had to abandon the
area, fleeing west to Hamadan. It was there, by now an old and
defeated man, that the last Umayyad governor of Khurasan died.
Meanwhile, Abu Muslim had definitively asserted his superiority
over the Yemenis of Merv. For a time he had worked, it seems, in
uneasy alliance with ‘Ali b. Juday‘ al-Kirmani, and ‘Ali’s
brother
‘Uthman was sent to Balkh as governor while the new regime was
struggling to assert itself in Transoxania. Apparently ‘Uthman did
not have much success in this role and the man eventually
responsible for nullifying opposition in Transoxania was Abu
Muslim’s close associate, an Arab of Rabi‘a, Abu Da’ud al-Bakri.
Now, while Qahtaba was driving Nasr b. Sayyar from Nishapur, Abu
Muslim, evidently regarding the alliance as having served its
purpose, had ‘Ali al-Kirmani and his brother killed.
From Qumis, Qahtaba moved west, taking Rayy and Hamadan
without difficulty. At Nihawand, however, the
Umayyad forces from
Hamadan, together with those which had followed Nasr b. Sayyar,
made a stand and were besieged by Qahtaba’s son. A relieving
Syrian army was defeated by Qahtaba and the siege continued for
two or three months until finally the Syrians in the town agreed to
make terms with the Hashimiyya forces, leaving the Khurasani
followers of Nasr to be put to death.
The way to Iraq was now open. Qahtaba, heading for Kufa,
avoided the army of the governor Yazid b. ‘Umar b. Hubayra, but
when Ibn Hubayra finally caught up with him the Khurasanis
mounted a surprise night attack and the Iraqi governor and his men
were forced to take refuge in Wasit. Bottled up there, they were
effectively out of action and could be left
to be dealt with when the
The Overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate
117
opportunity arose. In the night attack, however, Qahtaba had lost his
life. This was in August 749.
Command of the Khurasanis now passed to al-Hasan b. Qahtaba
and it was he who, taking advantage of a pro-‘Abbasid rebellion in
Kufa when Muhammad b. Khalid al-Qasri seized the citadel with
Yemeni support, entered the Iraqi garrison town on 2 September.
Abu Salama, the head of the
da‘wa
there, now appears to have
attempted to take control of affairs into his own hands. The
Khurasanis were camped at Hammam A‘yan outside Kufa and Abu
Salama joined them there. In the turmoil
of the preceding months
the imam Ibrahim had been imprisoned in Harran by Marwan II and
seems to have been killed there, although the circumstances are
obscure. It is said that he named his brother Abu’l-‘Abbas as his
successor and, on the fall of Kufa, he and other leading members of
the family made his way there. Abu Salama now, however, was
reluctant to recognise the authority of any of the members of the
‘Abbasid family and intended to recognize an ‘Alid as imam. To this
end he kept the arrival of the ‘Abbasids in Kufa secret. Abu
Muslim’s representative with the army was a certain Abu Jahm and
he, it seems, got wind of what was
happening and informed the
Khurasanis. Thereupon twelve of the army leaders rode into Kufa,
sought out Abu’l-‘Abbas and gave him the
bay‘a
as caliph. Abu
Salama, out on a limb, could not refuse to do likewise. On the
following day, Friday 28 November 749, Abu’l-‘Abbas was publicly
recognised as caliph in the mosque of Kufa.
Following the fall of Nihawand, Qahtaba had sent Abu ‘Awn al-
Azdi to establish control over the area around Mosul. There he was
joined by the ‘Abbasid ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Ali who effectively took
command. The Umayyad caliph Marwan II was now drawn into
battle from Harran. With an army of Mesopotamians and Syrians he
advanced to met the ‘Abbasid force but in January 750, at what is
known as
the battle of the Greater Zab, a tributary of the Tigris on its
left bank, Marwan was defeated and his army destroyed. All he
could do was to flee with the ‘Abbasid forces in hot pursuit. Moving
south through Syria, he could find no refuge and had to retire to
Egypt. Behind him the Syrian towns submitted to the ‘Abbasids,
only Damascus offering much resistance. When it fell in April 750
‘Abd Allah b. ‘Ali sent his brother Salih together with Abu ‘Awn and
a small force to Egypt to track Marwan down. At Busir in Egypt he
was at last caught with his small group of remaining supporters,
118
The Overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate
killed, and his head sent back to Abu’l-‘Abbas. This was in August
750.
It remained only to put the seal on the ‘Abbasid victory. Ibn
Hubayra in Wasit surrendered on terms when news of Marwan’s
death arrived, but the terms were dishonoured and he and the
Mudaris in the garrison were all killed.
In Syria the tombs of the
Umayyads, with the exception of ‘Umar II, were violated, with
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