These warnings, however, were of no avail, and on June 9th, a.d. 747, Abú Muslim displayed the black banner of the ‘Abbásids at Siqadanj, near Merv, which city he occupied a few months later. The triumphant advance of the armies of the Revolution towards Declaration of war. Damascus recalls the celebrated campaign of Cæsar, when after crossing the Rubicon he marched on Rome. Nor is Abú Muslim, though a freedman of obscure parentage—he was certainly no Arab—unworthy to be compared with the great patrician. "He united," says Nöldeke, "with an agitator's adroitness and perfect unscrupulosity in the choice of means the energy and clear outlook of a general and statesman, Abú Muslim. and even of a monarch."[477] Grim, ruthless, disdaining the pleasures of ordinary men, he possessed the faculty in which Cæsar excelled of inspiring blind obedience and enthusiastic devotion. To complete the parallel, we may mention here that Abú Muslim was treacherously murdered by Manṣúr, the second Caliph of the House which he had raised to the throne, from motives exactly resembling those which Shakespeare has put in the mouth of Brutus—
"So Caesar may: Then, lest he may, prevent. And since the quarrel Will bear no colour for the thing he is, Fashion it thus: that what he is, augmented, Would run to these and these extremities; And therefore think him as a serpent's egg Which, hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous, And kill him in the shell."
The downfall of the Umayyads was hastened by the perfidy and selfishness of the Arabs on whom they relied: the old feud between Muḍar and Yemen broke out afresh, and while the Northern group remained loyal to the dynasty, those of Yemenite stock more or less openly threw in their lot with the Revolution. We need not attempt to trace the course of the unequal contest. Everywhere the Arabs, disheartened and divided, fell an easy prey to their adversaries, and all was lost when Marwán, the last Umayyad Caliph, sustained a crushing defeat on the River Záb in Babylonia (January, a.d. 750). Meanwhile Abu ’l-‘Abbás, the head of the rival House, had already received homage as Caliph (November, 749 a.d.). In the inaugural address which he delivered in the great Mosque of Kúfa, he called Accession of Abu ’l-‘Abbás al-Saffáḥ. himself al-Saffáḥ, i.e., 'the Blood-shedder,'[478] and this title has deservedly stuck to him, though it might have been assumed with no less justice by his brother Mansúr and other members of his family. All Umayyads were remorselessly hunted down and massacred in cold blood—even those who surrendered only on the strength of the most solemn pledges that they had nothing to fear. A small remnant made their escape, or managed to find shelter until the storm of fury and vengeance, which spared neither the dead nor the living,[479] had blown over. One stripling, named ‘Abdu ’l-Raḥmán, fled to North Africa, and after meeting with many perilous adventures founded a new Umayyad dynasty in Spain.
CHAPTER VI
THE CALIPHS OF BAGHDÁD
The annals of the ‘Abbásid dynasty from the accession of Saffáḥ (a.d. 749) to the death of Musta‘ṣim, and the destruction of Baghdád by the Mongols (a.d. 1258) make a round sum of five centuries. I propose to sketch the history of this long period in three chapters, of which the first will offer a general view of the more important literary and political developments so far as is possible in the limited space at my command; the second will be devoted to the great poets, scholars, historians, philosophers, and scientists who flourished in this, the Golden Age of Muḥammadan literature; while in the third some account will be given of the chief religious movements and of the trend of religious thought.
The empire founded by the Caliph ‘Umar and administered by the Umayyads was essentially, as the reader will have gathered, a military organisation for the benefit of the paramount race. In theory, no doubt, all Moslems were equal, but in fact the Arabs alone ruled—a privilege which national pride conspired with personal interest to maintain. We have seen how the Persian Moslems asserted their right to a share in the government. The Revolution Political results of the Revolution. which enthroned the ‘Abbásids marks the beginning of a Moslem, as opposed to an Arabian, Empire. The new dynasty, owing its rise to the people of Persia, and especially of Khurásán, could exist only by establishing a balance of power between Persians and Arabs. That this policy was not permanently successful will surprise no one who considers the widely diverse characteristics of the two races, but for the next fifty years the rivals worked together in tolerable harmony, thanks to the genius of Manṣúr and the conciliatory influence of the Barmecides, by whose overthrow the alliance was virtually dissolved. In the ensuing civil war between the sons of Hárún al-Rashíd the Arabs fought on the side of Amín while the Persians supported Ma’mún, and henceforth each race began to follow an independent path. The process of separation, however, was very gradual, and long before it was completed the religious and intellectual life of both nationalities had become inseparably mingled in the full stream of Moslem civilisation.
The centre of this civilisation was the province of ‘Iráq (Babylonia), with its renowned metropolis, Baghdád, 'the The choice of a new capital. City of Peace' (Madínatu ’l-Salám). Only here could the ‘Abbásids feel themselves at home. "Damascus, peopled by the dependants of the Omayyads, was out of the question. On the one hand it was too far from Persia, whence the power of the ‘Abbásids was chiefly derived; on the other hand it was dangerously near the Greek frontier, and from here, during the troublous reigns of the last Omayyads, hostile incursions on the part of the Christians had begun to avenge former defeats. It was also beginning to be evident that the conquests of Islam would, in the future, lie to the eastward towards Central Asia, rather than to the westward at the further expense of the Byzantines. Damascus, on the highland of Syria, lay, so to speak, dominating the Mediterranean and looking westward, but the new capital that was to supplant it must face east, be near Persia, and for the needs of commerce have water communication with the sea. Hence everything pointed to a site on either the Euphrates or the Tigris, and the ‘Abbásids were not slow to make their choice."[480] After carefully examining various sites, the Caliph Manṣúr fixed on a little Persian village, on the west bank of the Tigris, called Baghdád, which, being interpreted, means Foundation of Baghdád. 'given (or 'founded') by God'; and in a.d. 762 the walls of the new city began to rise. Manṣúr laid the first brick with his own hand, and the work was pushed forward with astonishing rapidity under his personal direction by masons, architects, and surveyors, whom he gathered out of different countries, so that 'the Round City,' as he planned it, was actually finished within the short space of four years.