A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

Kök Turks, Chinese expansion, and Arab conquest 63
the name of another Hashim, Abu Hashim Abdallah.This Hashim was
a grandson of the Prophet’s son-in law and cousin Ali; his father
Muhammad’s mother, however, was not the Prophet’s daughter Fatima
(in contrast to Hasan and Husayn), but another woman called al-
Hanafiya, hence the standard form by which he is known, Muhammad
ibn al-Hanafiya.This line ended with Abu Hashim Abdallah, who died
childless in 716.In the proliferation of Shii groups opposing the
Umayyad dynasty, the one propounding the candidacy of Muhammad
ibn al-Hanafiya had become especially active, and by the time the latter’s
son came to the fore as the possible imam, a special theory had been
elaborated – that of the transferability of the imamate to the person of
the existing imam’s choice.As he lay on his deathbed, Abu Hashim is
said to have bequeathed the imamate to Muhammad ibn Ali, a greatgrandson
of al-Abbas.The bequest, wasiya, was said to have occurred
near Humayma (a town in southern Jordan between Maan and Petra),
the residence of the Abbasid family.From then on the Shii party of the
Abbasids methodically organized political propaganda aimed at subverting
Umayyad rule and preparing the ground for an eventual takeover.Humayma
remained for a time its brain center, but soon the
garrison town of Kufa in Iraq became the headquarters, and eventually
Khurasan the staging area, for armed uprising and military operations.
The critical years were 742–49, when the campaign was directed by the
Abbasid Ibrahim, although still from Humayma.It was he who in 745
invested his mawla (freedman) Abu Muslim with the mission to organize
a campaign in Khurasan.The choice of both Abu Muslim and
Khurasan was significant.The Muslim community of this frontier province
included many mawali, freedmen of mostly Persian origin (such as
Abu Muslim himself), ready to join dissident movements that promised
greater equality preached by egalitarian Islam.A great source of dissatisfaction
was the fact that the Umayyad authorities as a rule continued
to impose the jizya, poll tax applicable according to Islamic law only
to non-Muslim subjects of the caliph, also on those who had converted
and thus should have been exempted from it.At the same time, Arab
garrisons and settlers, irked by certain policies pursued by Umayyad
governors and racked by internal rivalries between such groups as
Kalbites (Yemenites) and Qaysites, were ready to support the dynasty’s
overthrow.Abu Muslim thus found ample response in Khurasan, and by
747 the heretofore secret campaign openly challenged the Umayyads.
Abu Muslim displayed a true genius at organizing the political side of
the uprising, while Ibrahim again demonstrated good judgment by