Abu al-ʿAbbās ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-ʿAbbās (Arabic: أبو العباس عبد الله ابن محمد ابن علي; 721/722 – 8 June 754), known by his laqab al-Saffāḥ (Arabic: السفّاح), was the first Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate, one of the longest and most important caliphates in Islamic history.
His laqab al-Saffāḥ means "the Blood-Shedder". It may refer to his ruthless tactics, or perhaps it was used to intimidate his enemies. It was during his inaugural homage as Caliph, delivered in the Great Mosque of Kufa, that he called himself "al-Saffah" ("the Blood-Shedder"), and this title stuck to him due to his massacre of the Umayyads.
Family origins and earlier history
al-Saffāḥ, born in al-Humayma (modern-day Jordan), was the head of one branch of the Banu Hashim, a sub-clan of the Quraysh tribe who traced its lineage to Hashim, a great-grandfather of Muhammad via al-Abbas, an uncle of Muhammad, hence the title "Abbasid" for his descendants' caliphate. This indirect link to Muhammad's larger clan formed a sufficient basis for al-Saffah's claim to the position of caliph.
al-Saffah was the son of Muhammad ibn Ali and Rayta, daughter of a certain Ubayd Allah ibn Abd Allah.
As narrated in many hadith, many believed that in the end times a great leader or mahdi would appear from the family of Muhammad, to which Ali belonged, who would deliver Islam from corrupt leadership. The half-hearted policies of the late Umayyads to tolerate non-Arab Muslims and Shi'as had failed to quell unrest among these minorities.
During the reign of the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, this unrest led to a revolt in Kufa in southern Iraq, mainly by the town's slaves. The Shi'as revolted in 736 and held the city until 740, led by Zayd ibn Ali, a grandson of al-Husayn ibn Ali and another member of the Banu Hashim. Zayd's rebellion was put down by the Umayyad armies in 740. The revolt in Kufa indicated both the strength of the Umayyads and the growing unrest in the Muslim world.
During the last days of the Umayyad Caliphate, al-Saffah and his clan chose to begin their rebellion in Khorasan, an important, but remote military region comprising eastern Iran, southern parts of the modern Central Asian republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and northern Afghanistan. In 743, the death of the Umayyad caliph Hisham provoked a rebellion in the east. al-Saffah, supported by the Shi'as and the residents of Khorasan, led his forces to victory over the Umayyads. The civil war was marked by millennial prophecies encouraged by the beliefs of some Shi'as that al-Saffah 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. The choice of the Umayyads to enter battle with white flags and the Abbasids to enter with black encouraged such theories. The color of white, however, was regarded in much of Persia as a sign of mourning.
The Abbasid Caliphate was established by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib (566–653 CE), from whom the dynasty takes its name.
In early October 749 (132 AH), al-Saffah's rebel army entered Kufa, a major Muslim center in Southern Iraq. al-Saffah had not been 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 CE. Marwan II fled back to Damascus, which didn't welcome him, and was ultimately killed on the run in Egypt that August. al-Saffah would go on to become the first Abbasid caliph, but he did not come forward to receive the pledge of allegiance from the people until after the Umayyad caliph and a large number of his princes were already killed.
In one far-reaching, historic decision, al-Saffah 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 the Abbasid power for many centuries.
Later tales recount that, concerned that there would be a resurgence of Umayyad power, al-Saffah invited all of the remaining members of the Umayyad family to a dinner party where he had them clubbed to death before the first course, which was then served to the hosts. The only survivor, Abd al-Rahman ibn Mu'awiya, escaped to the province of al-Andalus, where the Umayyad dynasty would endure for three more centuries in the form of the Emirate of Córdoba and the subsequent Caliphate of Córdoba. Another version is that al-Saffah's new governor to Syria, Abd Allah ibn Ali, hunted down the last of the dynasty, with only Abd al-Rahman escaping. Ultimately, Abbasid rule was accepted even in Syria, and the beginning of the new Islamic dynasty was considered "free from major internal dissensions."
al-Saffah's four-year reign was marked with efforts to consolidate and rebuild the caliphate. His supporters were represented in the new government, but apart from his policy toward the Umayyad family, al-Saffah is widely viewed by historians as having been a mild victor. Jews, Nestorian Christians, and Persians were well represented in his government and in succeeding Abbasid administrations. Education was also encouraged, and the first paper mills, staffed by skilled Chinese prisoners captured at the Battle of Talas, were set up in Samarkand.
Equally revolutionary was al-Saffah's reform of the army, which came to include non-Muslims and non-Arabs in sharp contrast to the Umayyads who refused any soldiers of either type. al-Saffah selected the gifted Abu Muslim as his military commander, an officer who would serve until 755 in the Abbasid army.
Not all Muslims accept the legitimacy of his caliphate, however. According to later Shi'as, al-Saffah turned back on his promises to the partisans of the Alids in claiming the title caliph for himself. The Shi'as had hoped that their imam would be named head of the caliphate, inaugurating the era of peace and prosperity the millennialists had believed would come. The betrayal alienated al-Saffah's Shi'a supporters, although the continued amity of other groups made Abbasid rule markedly more solvent than that of the Umayyads.
Caliph Abu al-ʿAbbās ʿAbd Allāh al-Saffāḥ died of smallpox on 8 June 754 (13 Dhu'l-Hijja 136 AH), only four years after taking the title of caliph. Before he died, al-Saffah appointed his brother Abu Ja'far Abd Allah and, following him, the caliph's nephew Isa ibn Musa as his successors; ibn Musa, however, never filled the position.
During his reign a great battle took place in 751 known as the Battle of Talas or Battle of Artlakh was a military engagement between the Abbasid Caliphate along with their ally the Tibetan Empire against the Chinese Tang dynasty. In July 751 CE, Tang and Abbasid forces met in the valley of the Talas River to vie for control over the Syr Darya region of central Asia. After several days of stalemate, the Karluk Turks originally allied to the Tang defected to the Abbasids and tipped the balance of power, resulting in a Tang rout.
The defeat marked the end of Tang westward expansion and resulted in Muslim control of Transoxiana for the next 400 years. Control of this region was economically beneficial for the Abbasids because it was on the Silk Road. Historians debate whether or not Chinese prisoners captured in the aftermath of the battle brought paper-making technology to the Middle East, where it eventually spread to Europe.