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

The Army
Opposition to the government among the civilian population would
not have been decisive in itself. It was only when it became linked
with the factionalism in the army that the conditions for a
successful revolt came into existence. The third civil war, with its
intensification of the divisions within the army between
‘northerners’ and ‘southerners’, had its repercussions in Khurasan
too. Marwan II had come to power as the leader of a Qaysi army,
having overthrown the predominantly Kalbi regime introduced by
Yazid III. The suspicion of the new government among the
Yemenis (Azd and Rabi‘a) of Khurasan came to a head in a dispute
with Nasr b. Sayyar over the allocation of pay, and this was
followed by a revolt of the Azd, led by Juday‘ al-Kirmani, against
the government. The development of the factional division in the
army under the Marwanids is illustrated in the slogan of the rebels,
‘revenge for Banu Muhallab’, a sign that the memory of past
rivalries was not dead. The governor of Iraq who had overturned
the regime of the Azdi Muhallabids in the time of Yazid II was, of
course, ‘Umar b. Hubayra, and now the new governor of Iraq for
Marwan II was to be Yazid b. ‘Umar b. Hubayra. Nasr b. Sayyar
imprisoned al-Kirmani in Merv, but in the summer of 744 he
escaped and gathered round him an army of Yemenis in opposition
to the Umayyad governor.
At this stage al-Harith b. Surayj
6
 appeared on the scene again.
Following the failure of his rising in the caliphate of Hisham, Ibn
Surayj had survived by taking refuge with the Turks. It now seems
that Nasr b. Sayyar regarded the rebel as a possible ally against
Juday‘ al-Kirmani. In the earlier fighting against Ibn Surayj, al-
Kirmani had played a prominent part, and a number of the former’s
followers who had fallen into his hands had been severely treated.
Furthermore, Ibn Surayj, although supported by forces from
various tribal backgrounds, was himself a Tamimi (Mudar), and

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The Overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate
might be expected to oppose the Azd. Nasr, therefore, invited him
to come to Merv. When he arrived in 746, however, Ibn Surayj,
who had been joined by a number of his fellow Tamimis, attempted
to take the town. He was not successful at first (his secretary, Jahm
b. Safwan, being killed in the fighting), but he subsequently joined
forces with al-Kirmani and together they forced the Umayyad
governor to abandon Merv and flee westwards to Nishapur, a
centre of the Qays (Mudar).
However, not surprisingly, the alliance between Ibn Surayj and
al-Kirmani did not last. Some of the former’s Tamimi supporters
regretted that their backing for al-Kirmani’s Yemeni rebels had
resulted in the expulsion of the governor and his predominantly
Mudari supporters. They soon, therefore, seceded from the alliance
and were followed in this by Ibn Surayj himself. Fighting between
the two former allies now took place, in the course of it Ibn Surayj
was killed, and the Azd with al-Kirmani at their head emerged
victorious.
With western Iran still controlled by Ibn Mu‘awiya and the
Kharijites, and Marwan II still struggling to establish his authority
over Iraq, Nasr b. Sayyar’s appeals for Syrian reinforcements went
unheeded. Nevertheless, he decided to try to retake Merv with his
own forces strengthened by the Qaysis from Nishapur. Returning
to the eastern garrison town in the summer of 747, he and al-
Kirmani camped facing one another outside Merv, each
constructing defensive trenches. However, the preparations for
conflict were hastily put aside when word was received that a
revolt of a different kind had broken out in the villages nearby—
this was the start of the rising of the Hashimiyya. Faced with this
new threat, Nasr b. Sayyar entered into negotiations with al-
Kirmani, but these were cut off when a son of al-Harith b. Surayj
who was with the Umayyad governor decided to take vengeance
for the death of his father by assassinating al-Kirmani. In spite of
this, al-Kirmani’s son and successor eventually concluded an
agreement with Nasr, and in August the governor was again able to
enter his provincial capital.
Abu Muslim, the leader of the Hashimiyya rising, now took
action to turn the situation to his own advantage. We are told that
he persuaded al-Kirmani’s son ‘Ali that Nasr b. Sayyar himself had
had a hand in the murder of his father, and thus instigated ‘Ali with
the Azd who followed him to begin the armed struggle again. Both
the Mudaris and the Yemenis now appealed to Abu Muslim for

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The Overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate
109
support. He gave it to the Yemen and when, early in 748, he
marched into Merv with his Hashimi followers, Nasr again had to
abandon the town and flee westwards. This time he was not to
return.
7
These circumstances help to explain the predominance of
Yemenis in the movement which overthrew the Umayyads. It was
not that the movement was a revolt of the Yemen against the
government, or that the Yemenis had grievances not shared by
others. But the fact that the area around Merv had been settled
predominantly by Azd and other Yemenis meant that the activity of
the Hashimiyya in the area was bound to attract a majority of
Yemeni supporters, and when the revolt became entangled with the
fighting between the Arab factions, it was the Yemeni opponents of
the Umayyad governor who were eventually harnessed to provide
support for the Hashimiyya in driving Nasr out of Merv. There was
in fact Mudari participation both in the early agitation of the
Hashimiyya and in the final revolt, but the location of the rising and
local political circumstances gave both an overwhelmingly Yemeni
colouring.