About The Abbasid Caliphate

The Abbasid caliphate or, more simply, the Abbasids was the third of the Islamic caliphates. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphs from all but Al Andalus.

The Abbasid caliphate was founded by the descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad's youngest uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, in Harran in 750 CE and shifted its capital in 762 to Baghdad. It flourished for two centuries, but slowly went into decline with the rise to power of the Turkish army it had created, the Mamluks. Within 150 years of gaining control of Persia, the caliphs were forced to cede power to local dynastic emirs who only nominally acknowledged their authority. The caliphate also lost the Western provinces of Al Andalus, Maghreb and Ifriqiya to an Umayyad prince, the Aghlabids and the Fatimids, respectively.

The Abbasids' rule was briefly ended for three years in 1258, when Hulagu Khan, the Mongol khan, sacked Baghdad, resuming in Mamluk Egypt in 1261, from where they continued to claim authority in religious matters until 1519, when power was formally transferred to the Ottomans and the capital relocated to Istanbul.

The Abbasid caliphs descended from Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566 – 662), one of the youngest uncles of Muhammad, because of which they considered themselves as the true successor of Muhammad as opposed to the Umayyads. The Umayyads were descended from Umayya, and were a clan separate from Muhammad's in the Quraish tribe. They won backing of Shiites (i.e. the Hashimiyya sub-sect of the Kaysanites Shia) against the Umayyads by temporarily converting to Shia Islam[citation needed] and joining their fight against the unjust Umayyad rule.

Coin of the Abbasids, Baghdad, Iraq, 765.

The Abbasids also distinguished themselves from the Umayyads by attacking their moral character and administration in general. According to Ira Lapidus, "The Abbasid revolt was supported largely by Arabs, mainly the aggrieved settlers of Marw with the addition of the Yemeni faction and their Mawali".[2] The Abbasids also appealed to non-Arab Muslims, known as mawali, who remained outside the kinship-based society of the Arabs and were perceived of as a lower class within the Umayyad empire. Muhammad ibn 'Ali, a great-grandson of Abbas, began to campaign for the return of power to the family of Muhammad, the Hashimites, in Persia during the reign of Umar II, Muhammad ibn Ali.

During the reign of Marwan II, this opposition culminated in the rebellion of Ibrahim the Imam, the fourth in descent from Abbas. Supported by the province of Khorasan, Iran, he achieved considerable successes, but was captured in the year 747 and died in prison; some hold that he was assassinated. The quarrel was taken up by his brother Abdallah, known by the name of Abu al-'Abbas as-Saffah, who, with victory on the Greater Zab River (750), defeated the Umayyads and was proclaimed caliph.

Immediately after their victory Abu al-'Abbas as-Saffah sent his forces to North Africa and Central Asia, where his forces fought against Tang expansion during the Battle of Talas (the zealous Abbasids were known to their opponents as the: "Black robed ones"). After the battle many captive Chinese craftsmen introduced the world's first recorded paper mill in Baghdad, thus beginning a new era of intellectual rebirth in the Abbasid domain. Within 10 years the Abbasids built another renowned paper mill in the Umayyad capital of Córdoba in Spain.