Khorasan and Transoxiana under the Abbasids
In the 740s opposition to the Umayyads grew: under the caliph Marwan II (744–750) the kharaj was raised and people were forced into labour duties. The descendants of Abbas, the Prophet’s uncle, the Abbasids, began a struggle for the throne and sent out preachers; in Khorasan one of them was Abu Muslim. In 747 he began an uprising and took Merv, in 749 the rebels marched on the centre of the Caliphate, Damascus was taken and Marwan II overthrown. The Abbasid Abu al-Abbas as-Saffah (750–754) took the throne and the capital moved from Damascus to Baghdad. The promises made to working people were not kept, and in 750 there was an uprising in Bukhara as well. In 751 a Chinese army was defeated in the Talas valley and driven out of the country. Abu Muslim was killed in 755 on the caliph’s order. The caliph relied on the grand vizier (vazir ul-vuzaro) and handled affairs in the devan ad-dar; Transoxiana’s matters were decided in the devan al-mashriq, and local rulers had to obey the governor.
“Moving the capital”: find Damascus and Baghdad on a map and compare their distance to Transoxiana.