REVOLT OF ABU MUSLIM (747)

It took place in the province of Khorasan and precipitated the downfall of the Umayyad caliphate.


The causes of the revolt are complex and many. It was essentially a socio-economic movement, aimed at a distant central government whose military and fiscal policies discriminated against certain strata of the Arab and Iranian population of Khorasan. The Arabs had conquered Khorasan in the mid-7th century and settled there as cultivators; they resented paying exorbitant revenues to Iranian notables, who collected land taxes on behalf of the Umayyad government of Damascus. Iranian merchants who had converted to Islam disliked paying the jizyah or head tax, usually collected from such non-Muslims as Jews and Christians, and, because of Umayyad fiscal difficulties, also demanded from the new converts. Both the Iranians and the Arabs were also discontented with imperial policies that forced them to be conscripted into the Umayyad army and sent to fight in distant wars.


Abu Muslim was able to create a coalition of discontented Arabs and Iranians and lead them in rebellion in June 747. The rebellion soon spread to other provinces, and by 750 the Umayyads were decisively defeated and replaced by the Abbasid caliphs.