Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

38
THE ABBASID REVOLUTION
Umayyad rule had been accepted by the Muslim community less because of its virtues and merits than because of the lack of a satisfactory alternative, and it was never universally popular. The pious never ceased to be scandalized at the profane and secular atmosphere surrounding the court of Damascus: luxurious living, a growing staff of eunuchs and concubines, and the extravagant retreats and hunting-lodges built on the edge of the Syrian desert, contrasted unfavourably with the puritan simplicity of the first Caliphs. The partisans of Ali (Rad.A), who never forgave the Umayyads for the tragedy of Karbala, remained irreconcilable enemies of the dynasty, though their inability to agree upon a candidate for the throne long weakened their influence. Upholders of the ancient Arab traditions, who hated the government of kings, felt small loyalty to sovereigns who seemed to be aping the despotism of foreign infidels. The Kharijites no longer appeared in arms, but they propagated their republican and theocratic ideas through underground channels, and their scornful assertion that a Negro slave had as good a right to the Caliphate as the members of the aristocratic Qura>sh awoke a favourable response among many of those who resented the arrogance and pretensions of the Arab ruling class.
Abbasids revolution was a great event in the history of Islam. It has changed the structure of Muslim polit> and division of social classes. This event has dealt by many historians like Lewis Bernard, ”in his article Abbasids: Enc. of Islam”. Wellhausen J. ”The Arab Kingdom and its Fall’’,’Hugh Kennedy ” Earl> Abbasids Caliphate”. P.K. Hitti ”History of the Arabs”. Guyle Strange,
The Abbasid Revolution
497
”Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate”. M.A. Shahban, ”Abbasid Revolution”.
Yet none of these critics of the reigning house would have seriously endangered it had they not been able to enlist the support of the Mawali, the non-Arab converts to Islam. By 700 the religion of the Prophet (PBUH) had ceased to be a monopoly of his people, and the Arab Muslims were at last outnumbered by those of the subject races, notably the Persians and Berbers. In theory, all believers were equal within the brotherhood of Islam; in practice, the Mawali were treated as lowborn inferiors. Racial segregation was common: in Kufa Arabs and non- Arabs used separate mosques; inter marriage was strongly discouraged; and in some towns an Arab risked social ostracism, if he walked down the street in company with a Mawla. The Mawali paid taxes from which the Arab Muslims were exempt, and though they were permitted to serve in the army, they were excluded from the cavalry, and as foot-soldiers; drew lower rates of pay. So long as the converts were a small minority, they could be kept in their place, but as their number rose, their complaints and grievances grew louder, and the Mukhtar revolt of 685 A.D. had shown the alarming political dangers latent in this situation. It was natural that the Mawali should tend to be anti- Umayyad, since the government was associated in their minds with the maintenance of Arab domination, and equally natural that the enemies of the dynasty should seek to win them as allies. When the regime was at last driven to seek means of conciliating the Mawali, it found the position complicated by economic difficulties almost impossible to over come.
The economic history of the Umayyad age is very imperfectly known. There seems to have been a considerable though patchy prosperity; big fortunes were made and in vested principally in land, and enormous sums were expended in buildings, from mosques to the Umayyad desert palaces which have been excavated from the sand in recent years. The Euphrates, disappearance of the frontier which for seven centuries had separated the Roman from the Persian world, created a huge free trade area in which goods could circulate and from which customs barriers were absent; the Arab navy protected commerce of the Indian Ocean; the conquest of North Africa and Spain flooded the East with treasure, goods and slaves, and it is possible that gold from the mines of the Wadi al-Allaki, near Aswan in Nubia, was already reaching the Caliphate. On the other

498