Abu al-ʿAbbās Abd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿal-ʿAbbās, known by his laqab al-Saffah, was the first caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate, one of the longest and most important caliphates in Islamic history.
Abū Isḥāq Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Rashīd, better known by his regnal name al-Muʿtaṣim biʾllāh, was the eighth Abbasid caliph, ruling from 833 until his death in 842. A younger son of Caliph Harun al-Rashid, he rose to prominence through his formation of a private army composed predominantly of Turkic slave-soldiers. This proved useful to his half-brother, Caliph al-Ma'mun, who employed al-Mu'tasim and his Turkish guard to counterbalance other powerful interest groups in the state, as well as employing them in campaigns against rebels and the Byzantine Empire. When al-Ma'mun died unexpectedly on campaign in August 833, al-Mu'tasim was thus well placed to succeed him, overriding the claims of al-Ma'mun's son al-Abbas.
The Zanj Rebellion was a major revolt against the Abbasid Caliphate, which took place from 869 until 883. Begun near the city of Basra in present-day southern Iraq and led by one Ali ibn Muhammad, the insurrection involved both enslaved and freed East Africans or Abyssinians exported in the Indian Ocean slave trade and transported to slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate in the Middle East, principally to drain the region's salt marshes. It grew to involve slaves and freemen, including both Eastern Africans and Arabs, from several regions of the Caliphate, and claimed tens of thousands of lives before it was fully defeated.
Abu Ahmad Ṭalḥa ibn Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Muwaffaq bi'Llah, better known by his laqab as Al-Muwaffaq Billah, was an Abbasid prince and military leader, who acted as the de facto regent of the Abbasid Caliphate for most of the reign of his brother, Caliph al-Mu'tamid. His stabilization of the internal political scene after the decade-long "Anarchy at Samarra", his successful defence of Iraq against the Saffarids and the suppression of the Zanj Rebellion restored a measure of the Caliphate's former power and began a period of recovery, which culminated in the reign of al-Muwaffaq's own son, the Caliph al-Mu'tadid.
The Battle of al-Harra was fought between the Umayyad army of the caliph Yazid I led by Muslim ibn Uqba and the defenders of Medina from the Ansar and Muhajirun factions, who had rebelled against the caliph. The battle took place at the lava field of Harrat Waqim in the northeastern outskirts of Medina on 26 August 683 and lasted less than a day.
The Fourth Fitna or Great Abbasid Civil War resulted from the conflict between the brothers al-Amin and al-Ma'mun over the succession to the throne of the Abbasid Caliphate. Their father, Caliph Harun al-Rashid, had named al-Amin as the first successor, but had also named al-Ma'mun as the second, with Khurasan granted to him as an appanage. Later a third son, al-Qasim, had been designated as third successor. After Harun died in 809, al-Amin succeeded him in Baghdad. Encouraged by the Baghdad court, al-Amin began trying to subvert the autonomous status of Khurasan, and al-Qasim was quickly sidelined. In response, al-Ma'mun sought the support of the provincial élites of Khurasan and made moves to assert his own autonomy. As the rift between the two brothers and their respective camps widened, al-Amin declared his own son Musa as his heir and assembled a large army. In 811, al-Amin's troops marched against Khurasan, but al-Ma'mun's general Tahir ibn Husayn defeated them in the Battle of Ray, and then invaded Iraq and besieged Baghdad itself. The city fell after a year, al-Amin was executed, and al-Ma'mun became Caliph.
The Third Fitna, was a series of civil wars and uprisings against the Umayyad Caliphate. It began with a revolt against Caliph al-Walid II in 744, and lasted until 747, when Marwan II emerged as the victor. The war exacerbated internal tensions, especially the Qays–Yaman rivalry, and the temporary collapse of Umayyad authority opened the way for Kharijite and other anti-Umayyad revolts. The last and most successful of these was the Abbasid Revolution, which began in Khurasan in 747, and ended with the overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate and the establishment of the Abbasid Caliphate in 750.
The Anarchy at Samarra was a period of extreme internal instability from 861 to 870 in the history of the Abbasid Caliphate, marked by the violent succession of four caliphs, who became puppets in the hands of powerful rival military groups.
The Alid revolt of 762–763 or Revolt of Muhammad the Pure Soul was an uprising by the Hasanid branch of the Alids against the newly established Abbasid Caliphate. The Hasanids, led by the brothers Muhammad and Ibrahim, rejected the legitimacy of the Abbasid family's claim to power. Reacting to mounting persecution by the Abbasid regime, in 762 they launched a rebellion, with Muhammad rising in revolt at Medina in September and Ibrahim following in Basra in November.
Sa'id ibn Amr al-Harashi was a prominent Arab general and governor of the Umayyad Caliphate, who played an important role in the Arab–Khazar wars.
The Battle of Fakhkh was fought on 11 June 786 between the forces of the Abbasid Caliphate and the supporters of a pro-Alid rebellion in Mecca under al-Husayn ibn Ali, a descendant of Hasan ibn Ali.
The Homs revolts of 854–855 were a series of armed uprisings that took place in Homs in northern Syria. During the autumns of both 854 and 855 the city's inhabitants attempted to rebel against local government officials, resulting in both instances in several fatalities and necessitating the intervention of the Abbasid central government in response. The second revolt also resulted in the promulgation of a number of anti-Christian edicts due to the participation of a portion of the city's Christians in the incident.
The shākiriyya were a regular cavalry regiment of the Abbasid Caliphate in the "Samarra period" in the 9th century. Probably of Khurasani and Iranian origin, they were rivals of the Turkish guard, and played a major role in the court conflicts that marked the decade of the "Anarchy at Samarra" in the 860s.
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muṭīʿ al-ʿAdawī was a leading Qurayshi of Medina and governor of Kufa for the anti-Umayyad caliph Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr from April 685 until his ouster by the pro-Alid leader al-Mukhtar al-Thaqafi in August 685. He was a military commander against the Umayyads at the battle of al-Harra and the siege of Mecca in 683. He fought alongside Ibn al-Zubayr in the second siege of Mecca in 692, where he was slain by Umayyad forces.
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan was an Umayyad prince, the son of Caliph Abd al-Malik, who played a role in the intra-dynastic politics of the Umayyad Caliphate, including the Third Muslim Civil War and the succession of Caliph Marwan II. He served as Marwan II's governor of Mecca, Medina and Ta'if in 747/48 and was executed by the Abbasids in the massacre of the Umayyads at Nahr Abi Futrus in Palestine in 750.
Ḥawthara ibn Suhayl al-Bāhilī was a Bedouin Arab administrator and military leader in the final years of the Umayyad Caliphate. The philosopher al-Kindī describes him as famous for his eloquence.
Abu'l-Sarāyā al-Sarī ibn Manṣūr al-Shaybānī was leader of a Zaydi revolt against the Abbasid Caliphate in Kufa and Iraq in 815. The revolt spread quickly across southern Iraq, and his agents even took over Mecca and Medina. At one point, the rebels threatened even Baghdad, but the Abbasid general Harthama ibn A'yan drove them back to Kufa in a series of victories. Forced to abandon Kufa in late August, Abu'l-Saraya and his followers tried to flee, but were pursued, defeated, and captured. Abu'l-Saraya himself was executed at Baghdad on 18 October. The uprising continued in the Hejaz for a few months under Muhammad ibn Ja'far al-Sadiq as anti-caliph at Mecca, until this too was suppressed by the Abbasid troops.
Al-Asbagh ibn Dhu'ala al-Kalbi was an Umayyad commander and a warlord of the Banu Kalb tribe in Palmyra who played a prominent role in the Third Muslim Civil War (744–750) and afterward was a leader of the revolt of the Umayyad prince Abu Muhammad al-Sufyani against the Abbasids in 750–751.
Umayyad rule in North Africa or Umayyad Ifriqiya was a province of the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) during the historical period in which it ruled the Maghreb region of North Africa, from its conquest of the Maghreb starting in 661 to the Kharijite Berber Revolt ending in 743, which led to the end of its rule in the western and central Maghreb. Following this period, the Umayyads retained their rule over Ifriqiya while the rest of the Maghreb fell to successive Islamic dynasties of Arab, Berber and Persian descent.
Chattel slavery was a major part of society, culture and economy in the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258) of the Islamic Golden Age, which during its history included most of the Middle East. While slavery was an important part also of the preceding practice of slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), it was during the Abbasid Caliphate that the slave trade to the Muslim world reached a more permanent commercial industrial scale, establishing commercial slave trade routes that were to remain for centuries.
