'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎173v] (351/862)

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242 HISTORY
became great cities with populations numbering 200,000-300,000,
and a third new Moslem city was founded by the Omayyad viceroy
Hajjaj at Wash to watch over the other two, Kufa being strongly
pro-Alid. Hajjaj also kept the Shia sectaries in control by the sword.
On his first arrival (694) he declared from the pulpit of the mosque
of Kufa: ‘O people of Kufa; I see heads ripe for cutting and verily
I am the man to do it. I see blood between the turbans and the
beards.’ This strict control was all the more necessary because the
Persian provinces were administered from Iraq rather than from
Syria. This displacement increased when the Moslems penetrated,
during the regency of Hajjaj, into the regions between the Oxus and
Jaxartes, Bokhara, Samarkand, Khiva (Khwarizm), and Ferghana
( 7 0 5 “ 7 I 3 )- . ^ ,
The Omayyad Caliphate also saw the great expansion of Moslem
power in north Africa, Spain, and along the northern shores of the
western Mediterranean (670-730), which were ruled by Caliphal
governors as long as the Omayyad dynasty lasted.
The Abbasid Caliphate, a.d. 750-1258
The extension of the empire eastwards, coupled with the growth
of the numbers of the non-Arab Moslems, who because of their
grievances were ready to overthrow the existing government, led
to the substitution of Iraq for Syria as the centre of the Caliphate, and
the replacement of the Omayyad family by the Abbasids. These
descendants of an uncle of the Prophet gained Shia support by repre
senting that the Abbasid family was closely allied to that of Ali. But
the main forces which effected the change came from Khorasan, the
north-eastern province of Persia. Here in 747 Abu Muslim, agent
of Abu al Abbas, rallying both Arabs and Persians, raised the black
banner of Mohammed as the Abbasid emblem. In 749 Abu al Abbas
was proclaimed Caliph at Kufa with Shia support, and at the battle
of the Great Zab, Marwan II, the last Omayyad Caliph, was over
thrown (750). The whole family was exterminated, except for one
Abd ar Rahman, who fled to Spain and there founded a dynasty.
The Abbasid dynasty was properly established by Jafar al Mansur
(754-775), the brother and successor of Abbas, and its greatest period,
as is common in Moslem history, was its first century of life.
Mansur reorganized the imperial administration on Sassanid lines
and extended the privileges of the Arabs to all Moslems of the empire.
Abbas had selected Anbar, on the Euphrates and the route to Syria,