The Abbasid Dynasty was founded on
two disaffected Islamic populations: non-Arabic
Muslims and Shi'ites. For the most part, the Islamic impetus to the Abassid revolution lay in the secularism of the Umayyad caliphs. The Umayyads had always been outsiders—as a wealthy clan in Mecca, they had opposed Muhammad—and the secularism and sometime degeneracy that accompanied their caliphate delegitimized their rule for many devout
Muslims. The Abassids took their name from al-'Abbas, a paternal
uncle of Muhammad and early supporter of the Prophet. Their close kinship to Muhammad and the position of al-'Abbas as a Companion of the Prophet served them well in gaining support. As early as 718 AD, during the reign of Umar II, Muhammad ibn '
Ali, a great-grandson of al-'Abbas, began to proselytize in Persia to rally support for returning the caliphate to the
family of the Prophet, the Hashimites.
