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As-Saffah the head of one branch of the Banu Hashim, who traced their lineage to Hashim, a great-grandfather of Muhammad, via al-Abbas, an uncle of the prophet. The Banu Hashim had great support from the camp of Ali, the fourth caliph. They thought that the family which had produced Muhammad and Ali would produce another great leader or mahdi who would liberate Islam. The half-hearted policies of the late Umayyads to tolerate non-Arab Muslims and Shi'as had failed to quell unrest among these minorities.
This unrest led to revolt during the reign of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik in Kufa, a prominent city in southern Iraq. Shi'ites revolted in 736 and held the city until 740, led by Zayd ibn Ali, a grandson of Husayn and another member of the Banu Hashim. Zayd's rebellion failed, and was put down by Umayyad armies in 740. The revolt in Kufa indicated both the strength of the Umayyads and the growing unrest in the Muslim world.
As-Saffah chose to focus on Khurasan, an important military region in eastern Iran. In 743, the death of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham provoked a civil war in the Islamic Empire. Abu al-`Abbas, supported by Shi'as, Kharijis, and the residents of Khurasan, led his forces to victory over the Umayyads and ultimately deposed the last Umayyad caliph, Marwan II, in 750. The civil war was marked by millennial prophecies encouraged by the beliefs of some Shi'as that as-Saffah was the mahdi. Prominent Islamic scholars wrote works such as the Jafr telling faithful Muslims that the brutal civil war was the great conflict between good and evil. The choice of the Umayyads to enter battle with white flags and the Abbasids to enter with black encouraged such theories. The color white, however, was regarded in much of Persia as a sign of mourning.
Concerned that there would be a return of Umayyad power, as-Saffah invited all of the remaining members of the Umayyad family to a dinner party where he had them clubbed to death before the first course, which was then served to the hosts. The only survivor, Abd ar-Rahman I escaped to al-Andalus (Spain), where the Umayyad caliphate would endure for three centuries. For his ruthless efforts to eliminate the Umayyad family, Abu al-`Abbas `Abdu’llah gained the epithet al-Saffah, which means the slaughterer or 'Shedder of Blood'.
After the victory over the Umayyads, Abu al-`Abbas's short reign was marked with efforts to consolidate and rebuild the Caliphate. His supporters were represented in the new government, but apart from his policy toward the Umayyad family, as-Saffah is widely viewed by historians as having been a mild victor. Jews, Nestorian Christians, and Persians were well-represented in Abu al-`Abbas's government and in succeeding Abbasid administrations. Education was also encouraged, and the first paper mills, staffed by skilled Chinese prisoners captured at the Battle of Talas, were set up in Samarkand.
Equally revolutionary was Abu al-`Abbas's reform of the army, which came to include non-Muslims and non-Arabs in sharp contrast to the Umayyads who refused any soldiers of either type. As-Saffah selected the gifted Abu Muslim as his military commander, an officer who would serve until 755 in the Abbasid army.
As-Saffah turned back on his promises to the Shi'a community in claiming the Caliphate for himself. The Shi'a had hoped that their imam would be named head of the Caliphate, inaugurating the era of peace and prosperity the millenialists had believed would come. The betrayal alienated Abu al-`Abbas's Shi'a supporters, although the continued amity of other groups made Abbasid rule markedly more solvent than Umayyad.
Abu al-`Abbas `Abdu’llah as-Saffah died of smallpox on June 10, 754, only four years after deposing the Umayyads. He appointed his brother Abu Ja'far al-Mansur and then Isa ibn Musa as his successors.