Signs from Allah: History, Science and the Soul in Islam
12. The Abbasid Revolution, Part 1
By Prof DrNazeer Ahmed, PhD
Concord, CA
The Abbasid revolution was the first major military-political upheaval in the Muslim world, which resulted in the destruction of one dynasty and its replacement by another. The lessons from that revolution are as valid today as they were in the year 750.
Civilizations decay from within. External factors are mere occasions that provide the coup de grace for a civilization. Islamic civilization is no exception. The primary causes for the marginalization of Muslims in world history are internal. If one were alive in the year 740, one would see a Muslim empire extending from Paris to Lahore. Yet, within this enormous edifice, mighty forces were gathering momentum that would shake the empire to its very foundation. The question before a student of history is: what destroyed the internal cohesion of the Muslims?
In the historical context, faith embraces all human activity, including religious beliefs, economics, sociology, politics, statecraft, administration, science, art and culture. It is this all-embracing aspect of Islamic faith that is called Tawhid and a civilization that is based upon it is a Tawhidic civilization. Most Muslims today have reduced Tawhid to a single dimension—namely, belief in God—and have largely neglected its all-embracing dimensions.
The Omayyads fell from grace because they had departed from the Tawhidic civilization as it was founded by the Prophet and practiced by the first four Caliphs. The Omayyads were able soldiers, some were consummate politicians (Muawiya, Waleed I), one was pious and noble (Omar bin Abdul Aziz) but most were ruthless, impious and cruel. We catalogue the most obvious of the deficiencies in their rule.
1. The Omayyads were unsuccessful in establishing the legitimacy of their rule. The issue of succession and legitimacy of rule arose immediately after the death of the Prophet. Elsewhere in these series, we have shown how Abu Bakr (r) was elected the Caliph after the Prophet, and also the turbulent circumstances surrounding the election of Ali ibn Abu Talib (r) to the Caliphate after the assassination of Uthman (r). By the year 740, there emerged multiple positions on the issue of succession after the Prophet. It is necessary to understand the more important of these because such understanding puts the rise of the Abbasids in perspective. More importantly, it helps us understand the historical context for some of the divisions that have rocked the Muslim world through the centuries and continue to rock it today. The issues are complex and what we present is but a brief summary.
2. The election of Abu Bakr (r) to the Caliphate was not unanimous. Ibn Khaldun records a conversation between Ibn Abbas and Abu Bakr (r), which clearly shows that the former believed Ali ibn Abu Talib (r) to be the rightful heir to the Prophet. The differences appear in greater clarity after the assassination of Omar ibn al Khattab (r) and at the meeting of the Shura committee constituted by Omar (r) to elect a successor. The majority view accepted not only the Qur’an and the Sunnah, but also the ijma (consensus) of the Companions. This was the opinion adopted by supporters of Uthman (r). The supporters of Ali (r) held that the chain of authority flowed from the Qur’an, Sunnah of the Prophet and by delegation from the Prophet to Ali ibn Abu Talib (r).
From an internal Arab perspective, the differences arose from the conflicting claims of BaniHashim and BanuUmayyah to the leadership of the community. Ali (r), a cousin of the Prophet, belonged to BaniHashim. Muawiya as well as his progeny belonged to BanuUmayyah. After the Battle of Siffin and the tragedy of Karbala, there was no love lost between these two tribes. The Umayyads kept a close watch on the leadership of BaniHashim and at times treated them with harshness, indeed cruelty.
The majority opinion which accepted the chain of political authority from the Qur’an, the Sunnah of the Prophet and the ijma (consensus) of the Companions, later crystallized into the orthodox Sunni position. Politically, this implies acceptance of the Caliphates of Abu Bakr (r), Omar (r), Uthman (r) and Ali (r) as a legitimate expression of the collective will of the Companions. This view was championed through the centuries by the Turks, the Moghuls and by successive dynasties in Spain, Malaysia and Indonesia. The position is accepted today by approximately eighty-five percent of Muslims in the world. The minority opinion, which accepted the chain of authority from the Qur’an, the Sunnah of the Prophet and by delegation from the Prophet to Ali ibn Abu Talib (r) and his successor Imams was championed by the Safavids of Persia (1500-1720) and is designated the Shi’a position. About fifteen percent of the Muslims today subscribe to this position.
By the year 750, the Shi’a position had undergone further divisions. After the martyrdom of Hussain at Karbala, the mantle of leadership fell to his son Zainul Abedin, also known as Ali ibn Hussain. Repression from the Omayyads was heavy. Therefore, Zainul Abedin turned his attention to spiritual matters and to building the community from within. The absence of political activism was unacceptable to some of his followers who looked for a more activist leader. Zainul Abedin’s son Zaid took up the challenge. Encouraged by a promise of help from the people of Kufa, he took on the Omayyads in battle. True to their historical perfidy, the Kufans abandoned Zaid and he fell in battle. His martyrdom created the Zaidi branch among Shi’a Muslims. The Zaidis believe in the Caliphate of Abu Bakr (r), Omar (r) and Ali (r) and in the Imamate of Hassan, Hussain, Zainul Abedin and Zaid. They reject the Caliphate of Uthman (r). In history, their primary contribution was the spread of Islam from Oman to East Africa and their resistance to Portuguese incursions in the 16th century.
A second schism took place amongst Shi’ Aan e Ali after the sixth Imam, Ja’afar as Saadiq. His eldest son Ismail predeceased him. Therefore, Imam Ja’afar appointed his second son Musa Kazim as the Imam. But a section among the Shi’as refused to accept the Imamate of Musa Kazim and insisted on the Imamate of Ismail. This group is called the Ismailis. They are also referred to as Fatimids because of their lineage from Fatima (r), beloved daughter of the Prophet. The Fatimids played a pivotal part in Islamic history in the 9th and 10th centuries when they occupied Egypt, North Africa, Hejaz and Palestine. It was the Fatimids who made a serious attempt to conquer Italy in the 10th century and it was they who bore the first brunt of Crusader attacks on Jerusalem in the 11th century. It was their military challenge that strengthened the Omayyad rule in Spain in the 10th century and brought the Seljuk Turks to the defense of the orthodox Caliphate in Baghdad (10th, 11th and 12th centuries). They were finally displaced by SalahuddinAyyubi towards the end of the 12th century.
For clarity, we summarize here the spectrum of beliefs among Muslims. The Sunnis believe in the Qur’an, the Sunnah of the Prophet and accept the ijma of the Companions. This means acceptance of the first four Caliphs namely, Abu Bakr (r), Omar (r), Uthman (r) and Ali (r) as the rightly guided Caliphs (Khulfa-e-Rashidoon). The Ithna-Asharis believe in the Qur’an, the Sunnah of the Prophet and accept the Imamate of twelve Imams, namely, Ali (r), Hassan, Hussain, Zainul Abedin, Muhammed Baqir, Ja’afar as Saadiq, Musa Kazim, Ali Rada, JawwadRazi, Ali Naqi Hadi, Hasan Askari and Muhammed Mahdi. The Sabayees (seveners) believe in the first seven Imams. The Fatimids believe in the Imamate of the first six Imams and of Ismail. The Ithna-Ashari, the Fatimids and the Sabayees are collectively referred to as Shi’a. Some historians also refer to them as Alavis. The Zaidis are intermediate in their beliefs between the Sunnis and the Shi’as. They believe in the Imamate of the first four Imams and of Zaid bin Ali and also in the Caliphate of Abu Bakr (r) and Omar (r) but not of Uthman (r). We must emphasize that all Muslims believe in the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet and disagree only in the historical unfolding of Islam in the matrix of human affairs. Like the branches of a mighty tree, the various schools of Fiqh shade the Muslim Ummah and Islamic history would not be the same without any of them.
During the time of Imam Ja’afar, yet another schism took place, which had a profound and lasting impact on Islamic history. Not satisfied with the political quietude of Imam Ja’afar, some supporters of BaniHashim looked elsewhere for leadership. They found a leader in Muhammed bin Hanafia, a son of Ali ibn Abu Talib (r) from one of his marriages after the death of Fatima(r). This is the beginning of the non-Fatimid branch of the Alavis. After Muhammed bin Hanafia, his son Abu Sulaiman Abdullah became the Imam but he was poisoned by the Omayyad Caliph Sulaiman. As he lay dying, Abdullah looked around for someone from his family to pass on the Imamate. As no one from his immediate family was available, he found a Hashimite, Muhammed bin Ali Abbas, in a nearby town. Muhammed bin Ali Abbas was a grandson of Abbas, uncle of the Prophet. Thus, through a twist of historical circumstance, one branch of the Imamate passed from children of Ali ibn Abu Talib (r) to the children of Abbas. This branch is referred to as the Abbasids. It was the Abbasids who established their Caliphate in the year 750 and ruled from Baghdad the vast Islamic Empire for more than five hundred years until the Mongols destroyed Baghdad in 1258.
Muhammed bin Ali Abbas was a tireless worker for the Abbasid cause and established a network of supporters throughout Iraq, Persia, Khorasan and in areas that today lie in the Central Asian republics of Turkmen, Kyrgyz, Tadzig and Uzbek peoples. After Muhammed, his son Ibrahim became the Imam. As the Abbasid movement, centered on the claim that the Caliphate belonged to BaniHashim of which the Abbasids were a branch, gained momentum, so did the repression from the Omayyads. The Omayyad Caliph Marwan had Ibrahim arrested, put in jail and finally killed by forcing his head into a sack of boiling lime. Before his death, Ibrahim managed to communicate with his brother Abul Abbas Abdullah and appointed him the Imam. Abul Abbas vowed to take revenge on the Omayyads for the cruel death of his brother and he accomplished that with a vengeance.
The ideological basis for Abbasid rule was not provided until a generation after they gained power. It was Caliph Mansur, who provided this ideological basis in 770 in response to a question from a Kharijite. According to this position, since the Prophet left no sons and lineage passes from father to son, the children of Fatima(r) had no claim to succession. Accordingly, succession had to be through the male progeny of the Prophet’s uncle Abbas.
There was yet another position on the Caliphate which was politically important at the time of the Abbasid revolution but which lost its vigor in later centuries. That was the position taken by the Kharijites who maintained that the Caliphate should be open to all Muslims, whether Arab or non-Arab and should not be the privilege only of Omayyads or Hashemites. This position always remained at the fringe of the Muslim body politic because of the violent and cruel ways of the Kharijites and their extremist demands.
Thus it was that in the year 740, as the storms gathered on the horizon for a revolution, the body politic of the Muslims was rent asunder by conflicting claims to the Caliphate and Imamate. The BanuOmayya were in power but that power was increasingly challenged by BaniHashim through the Abbasids. The Abbasids had inherited their legitimacy from the Alavis (or Shi’ Aan e Ali) through an accident of history. But the Alavis were themselves divided between Zaidis, Sabayees (seveners) and the Ithna-Asharis (Twelvers).
Back to Pakistanlink Homepage
