Nasb-and-the-Nawasib

of your rights as long as you acknowledge our rights, and we will not forget
being kind and good to you as long as you keep our status in mind. And
whoever will try to usurp from us this garment (leadership) we will crush
his brains so that your men remain straight and your governors are struck
with fear. 1
Similarly, what supports the fact that the Abbasids were only brutal and harsh
to the Alawids due to preserving their rule and confining it to themselves is that
when al-Mahdī released one of the Alawids who had rebelled against him he took
a promise from him that he will not rebel against him or any of his children. 2
However, the following are the most distinct differences between the Umayyads
and the Abbasids in this regard:
1.
2.
The Umayyads harassed only those who rebelled against them, whether
by killing or by imprisoning, but their harassment did not extend to their
families and children. As for the Abbasids many of them done the exact
opposite. In an effort to subdue those revolutionists they even harassed
innocent Alawids who had no share whatsoever in the rebellion. They did
this so that no one in the future entertain the thought of rebelling, for his
family and the closest of people to him were sure to suffer because of him.
Most of the Umayyads, with the exception of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, all
despised the Alawid household, those who they feared and those who they
did not. As for the Abbasids many of them honoured those who they did
not fear from the Alawids even if he be the close relative of one of the
revolutionists.
This is actually surprising as reason actually demands that the Umayyads, whose
penalisation was restricted to the revolutionist himself and whose harassment
did not extend to his family and children, be just to the distant people who had
1 Al-Muntaẓam 8/13; al-Bidāyah wa al-Nihāyah 10/71.
2 Al-Bidāyah wa al-Nihāyah 10/183; Shadharāt al-Dhahab 1/204.
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