HASHIMIYAH

also called Rawandiyah, Islamic religiopolitical sect of the 8th9th century AD, instrumental in the 'Abbasid overthrow of the Umayyad caliphate. The movement appeared in the Iraqi city of Kufah in the early 700s among supporters (called Shi'ites) of the fourth caliph 'Ali, who believed that succession to 'Ali's position of imam, or leader, of the Muslim community had devolved on Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyah (d. c. 700), one of his sons, and Abu Hashim, a grandson. The Hashimiyah thus did not recognize, for religious reasons, the legitimacy of Umayyad rule, and when Abu Hashim died in 716, without heirs, a majority of the sect acknowledged Muhammad ibn 'Ali (died between 731 and 743) of the 'Abbasid family as imam. In the hands of Muhammad and his successor Ibrahim al-Imam (c. 701749), the Hashimiyah became a political instrument for stirring up anti-Umayyad sentiment among moderate Shi'ite and non-Arab, especially Iranian, converts to Islam. The sect's missionary branch, developed by Abu Hashim, was sent into the Iranian province of Khorasan, where it met with huge success under the leadership of Abu Muslim from about 745 on. By 747 the Hashimiyah had assumed a military character, and Abu Muslim and his general Qahtabah were able to take the city of Merv, then all of Khorasan, proceeding southwest to Rayy, Nahavand, and finally Kufah in 749. The Hashimiyah armies installed Ibrahim's brother Abu al-'Abbas as-Saffah (d. 754) as 'Abbasid caliph in Kufah (749), and, with the defeat of the last Umayyad, Marwan II, at the Battle of the Great Zab River in 750, 'Abbasid victory was complete. During 'Abbasid rule, the original sense of the term Hashimiyah was obscured, and it became confused with Hashimiyun, the descendants of Hashim ibn 'Abd Manaf, an ancestor shared by the Prophet Muhammad, 'Ali, and al-'Abbas, Muhammad's uncle and eponym of the dynasty; the 'Abbasids thus appeared to be kinsmen of the Prophet, with legal right to the caliphate.