Lesson 7: Third Fitna Flashcards
Marwan ibn Muhammad ibn Marwan (Marwan II)
was an Umayyad caliph who ruled from 744 until 750 when he was killed. Much of his reign was dominated by the Third Fitna, and he was the last Umayyad ruler to rule the united Caliphate before the Abbasid Revolution toppled the Umayyad dynasty. When Yazid III persisted in overthrowing al-Walid II, Marwan at first opposed him, then rendered allegiance to him. On Yazid’s early death, Marwan renewed his ambitions, ignored Yazid’s named successor Ibrahim and became caliph. Ibrahim initially hid, then requested Marwan give him assurances of personal safety. This Marwan granted and Ibrahim even accompanied the new caliph to Hisham’s residence of Rusafah.
Marwan named his two sons Ubaydillah and Abdullah heirs. He appointed governors and proceeded to assert his authority by force. However, anti-Umayyad feeling was very prevalent, especially in Iran and Iraq. The Abbasids had gained much support. As such, Marwan’s reign as caliph was almost entirely devoted to trying to keep the Umayyad empire together. Was called Marwan the Donkey due to his stubbornness. Was a great general and fighter.
Abd-Allah ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah
known as Abu Hashim (d. 776 CE), after Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya died, his son Abu Hashim claimed the imamate. He was the grandson of Ali. After Abu Hashim’s death, the Abbasids claimed that on his deathbed Abu Hashim had nominated his distant cousin Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Abdullah ibn Abbas ibn Abdu’l-Muttalib ibn Hashim as the imam. His son Abu’l-Abbas Abdullah as-Saffah became the first Abbasid caliph, repudiating Shi’ism, which effectively extinguished the sect that had recognized Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah as an imam.
Hashimiyya
Following the death of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah, the bulk of the Kaysanites acknowledged the Imamate of Abd-Allah ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah (a.k.a. Abu Hashim, the eldest son of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah, d. 716). This sub-sect (a.k.a. Hashimiyya, named after Abu Hashim), which comprised the majority of the Kaysanites was the earliest Shi’ite group whose teachings and revolutionary stance were disseminated in Persia, especially in Greater Khorasan, where it found adherents among the Mawalis and Arab settlers.
By the end of the Umayyad period the majority of the Hashimiyya, transferred their allegiance to the Abbasid family and they played an important role in the propaganda campaign that eventually led to the successful Abbasid revolution.
Al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib
was paternal uncle and Sahabi (companion) of Muhammad, just three years older than his nephew. A wealthy merchant, during the early years of Islam he protected Muhammad while he was in Mecca, but only became a convert after the Battle of Badr in 624 CE (2 AH). His descendants founded the Abbasid Caliphate in 750. The Abbasid dynasty founded in 750 by Abu al-Abbās Abdu’llāh as-Saffāh claimed the title of caliph (literally “successor”) through their descent from Abbas’s son Abdullah.
Abd Allah ibn Abbas
He was the son of Al-‘Abbas ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib, an uncle of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and a nephew of the Maymunah bint al-Harith, who later became Muhammad’s wife. He was one of Muhammad’s cousins and one of the early Qur’an scholars.
During the early struggles for the caliphate, he supported Ali, and was made governor of Basra. He withdrew to Mecca shortly afterwards. During the reign of Muawiyah I, he lived in Hejaz and traveled to Damascus often. After Muawiyah I died he fled to at-Ta’if, where he died in around 687 CE.
Da‘wah
In Islamic theology, the purpose of da‘wah is to invite people, Muslims and non-Muslims, to understand the worship of God as expressed in the Qur’an and the sunnah of the prophet Muhammad and to inform them about Muhammad. Da’wa came into wider usage almost a hundred years after Muhammad’s death, in the wake of ‘Abbasid propaganda against the then ruling Umayyad clan in the 720s. However, the ‘Abbasid da’wa ceased as soon as the ‘Abbasids were in power—a fact that attests to its political nature.
Dawla
Invented in the 10th century for senior statesmen of the Abbasid Caliphate, such titles soon spread throughout the Islamic world. The term dawla originally meant “cycle, time, period of rule”. It was particularly often used by the early Abbasid caliphs to signify their “time of success”, i.e. reign, and soon came to be particularly associated with the reigning house and acquire the connotation of “dynasty”. Circular thing, as something that turns. The idea represented by the term ‘doula’ Is that the entire rise or fall of a dynasty or government is determined by the decrees of Allah. According to this idea, Dola is the right and good way
The returning of the Muslim nation to the straight path as in the days of the prophet.
Al Ridha min Ahl al Bayt
the call and motto raised by Abu Muslim and the abassids in the East. The intention is that the ruler l will be religiously desirable by both God and believers too. Translates as “desired from the Prophet’s family” represents the argument that the Caliph should be from the family of the Prophet and righteous. He should also represent a kind of Mahdi that will bring with him the period for which believers have wished since the death of
Prophet Muhammad. In the early stages of the revolution, the Imam’s identity is still secret.
Abu Muslim Abd al-Rahman ibn Muslim al-Khurasani
was a Persian general in service of the Abbasid dynasty, who led the Abbasid Revolution that toppled the Umayyad dynasty. He was introduced to the head of the Abbasid clan, Ibrahim ibn Muhammad, who in 745/6 sent him to direct the missionary/millitant effort in Khurasan.
Khurasan, and the Iranian eastern half of the Caliphate in general, offered fertile ground for the Abbasids’ missionary activities. Far from the Umayyad metropolitan province of Syria, Khurasan had a distinct identity. It was home to a large Arab settler community, which in turn had resulted in a large number of native converts, as well as intermarriage between Arabs and Iranians.As a frontier province exposed to constant warfare, the local Muslims were militarily experienced, and the common struggle had helped further unify the Arab and native Muslims of Khurasan, with a common dislike towards the centralizing tendencies of Damascus and the exactions of the Syrian governors.[8] According to later accounts, already in 718/9 the Abbasids had dispatched twelve naqāb into the province, but modern scholars are sceptical of such claims, and it appears that only after the failure of the Revolt of Zayd ibn Ali in 740 did the Abbasid missionary movement begin to make headway in Khurasan. In 745, the Khurasani Qahtaba ibn Shabib al-Ta’i travelled west to swear allegiance to Ibrahim ibn Muhammad, and it was with him that Abu Muslim was sent east to assume control. He took Merv in December 747 (or January 748), defeating the Umayyad governor Nasr ibn Sayyar, as well as Shayban al-Khariji, a Kharijite aspirant to the caliphate. He became the de facto governor of Khorasan, and gained fame as a general in the late 740s in defeating the rebellion of Bihafarid, the leader of a syncretic Persian sect that was Mazdaist. Abu Muslim received support in suppressing the rebellion both from purist Muslims and Zoroastrians. In 750, Abu Muslim became leader of the Abbasid army and defeated the Umayyads at Battle of the Zab.
Abu al-‘Abbās ‘Abdu’llāh ibn Muhammad al-Saffāḥ (Abul `Abbas as-Saffaḥ)
was the first caliph of the Abbasid caliphate. Reigned 750-754.
Abu al-`Abbās, supported by Shi’as and the residents of Khurasān, led his forces to victory over the Umayyads and The civil war was marked by millennial prophecies encouraged by the beliefs of some Shi’as that As-Saffāḥ was the mahdi. In Shi’ite works such as the Al-Jafr faithful Muslims were told that the brutal civil war was the great conflict between good and evil.
n early October 749 (132 AH), Abu al-‘Abbās as-Saffāh’s rebel army entered Kufa, a major Muslim center in Southern Iraq, and as-Saffah was not yet declared caliph. One of his priorities was to eliminate his Umayyad rival, caliph Marwan II. The latter was defeated in February 750 at a battle on the (Great) Zab river north of Baghdad, effectively ending the Umayyad caliphate, which had ruled since 661 AD. Marwan II fled back to Damascus, which didn’t welcome him, and was ultimately killed on the run in Egypt that August.[1]
In one far-reaching, historic decision, as-Saffāh established Kufa as the new capital of the caliphate, ending the dominance of Damascus in the Islamic political world, and Iraq would now become the seat of ‘Abbassid power for many centuries.
Al-Mansur or Abu Ja’far Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Mansur
was the second Abbasid Caliph reigning from 754 AD – 775 AD and succeeding his brother Abu al-‘Abbas al-Saffah. Al-Mansur is generally regarded as the real founder of the Abbasid Caliphate, one of the largest polities in world history, for his role in stabilizing and institutionalizing the dynasty. He is also known for founding the ‘round city’ of Madinat al-Salam which was to become the core of imperial Baghdad. Poisons Abu Muslim. In order to downplay the assassination, he gives Khurasan a measure of autonomy.
Humeima
The town was the home of the Abbasid, or Banu Abbas family, around AD 700, who eventually overthrew the Umayyad dynasty and took over the title of caliph, and as such it was the birthplace of the first three Abbasid caliphs: As-Saffah (r. 750–754), Al-Mansur (r. 754–775) and Al-Mahdi (r. 775-785).
Khorasan
comprised the present territories of northeastern Iran, parts of Afghanistan and much of Central Asia. The province was often subdivided into four quarters. In the north, Khorasan stretched as far as the Oxus, and according to some descriptions, included Transoxiana (Bukhara and Samarqand in present-day Uzbekistan). Along the north, it extended westward to the Caspian coast. Comprised of Arab Settlers and Mawali. Felt underrepresented by the Umayyads and had issues with foreign governors appointed. Was the hotbed of the Abbasid revolution under Abu-Muslim who played on pro-Shia feelings.
The Battle of the Zab
took place on the banks of the Great Zab river in what is now Iraq on January 25, 750. It spelled the end of the Umayyad Caliphate and the rise of the Abbasids. In 750, the army of the Umayyad caliph Marwan II fought a combined force of Abbasid, Shia, Khawarij, and Iraqi forces. Marwan’s army was, on paper at least, far larger and more formidable than that of his opponents, as it contained many veterans of earlier Umayyad campaigns against the Byzantine Empire; its support for the caliph, however, was only lukewarm. The morale of the Umayyads had been damaged by the series of defeats inflicted earlier in the rebellion, while the morale of the Abbasid armies had increased.
Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya
was a descendant of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad, through his daughter Fatimah. Known for his commanding oratory skills, amiable demeanor, and impressive build, he led the Alid Revolt (762–763) in Medina, a failed rebellion, against the second Abbasid Caliph, Al-Mansur. He and a few hundred soldiers faced against a large Abbasid force under Isa ibn Musa, and he was killed on December 6, 762 CE.
Initially, he hoped to rebel against Umayyad rule, when the children of Hashim paid their allegiance to him at Abwa. Among them were Ibrahim al-Imam, As-Saffah and Al-Mansur. But it soon became clear that Abbasid rule was established, so those who had paid allegiance to him deserted him, and another group of Shiites flocked around him.
