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

Ascendancy of al-Saffah
The third great state in Islam, the Abbasid was founded by Abu’l Abbas al-Saffah. From their original home at Humayma on the arrest of Ibrahim ibn Muhammad, his family fled to Kufah in Safar

132/October 749. Since then they remained in hiding till Kufah was conquered by Qahtabah from Ibn Hubayrah who escaped to Wasit and Abu Salma the Hashimid agent in Khurasan ruled over the city under the title ”Wazir of the house of Muhammad” for three months. On capturing Iraq Abu’l Abbas, younger’ brother of Ibrahim, ascended the throne on the 12th Rabi al-Awwal 132/October 30, 749 and delivered his address from the pulpit of the Chief Mosque of Kufah, the same pulpit which had been once used for the same purpose by Hazrat Ali.

For some time the new Caliph lived with Abu Salma in his abode and then retired to his country residence al-Hashimyah, at alAnbar near Kufah from where he sent his uncles and others to replace the Umayyad officials and persue the family members of Marwan II to death. In Dhu’l Hijjah 132/July 750 after the murder of Marwan II he delivered his sermon as the Caliph of Muslim world for the first time.1 Hashimyah remained the Abbasid capital till the construction of Baghdad by Mansur. The Abbasid dynasty claimed itself to be a dawah (a revolutionary era) and indeed it departed from the Umayyad dynasty in many ways. The ascendancy of the Arabs was over and while the Khurasanis became the Caliphate bodyguards the Persians occupied the key-positions in the government a new hierarchy of officers other than that of the Arabs grew and field for cultural and scientific developments was prepared. Their temporal hold on distant provinces loosened although spiritual authority remained. Special stress was laid on the religious character of the
Ya’qubi’s Vol. I, P.413.

514
Political and Cultural History of Islam

Abu’l Abbas Al-Saffah
515
state, possession of and reverence to the Holy cities of Makkah and Medina, wearing of Holy Prophet’s mantle and holding of his staff in hand by the Caliph.