rity. Meanwhile, life within the palace degenerated into elaborate orgies and the separation between the caliphate and the rest of the population widened. The ruling caste of the Empire lost the simplicity and piety of Muhammad and his immediate successors (Peretz 25).
By the middle part of the Eighth Century, the Umayyad family itself was falling apart. The last of the strong caliphs, Hisham, died in 743, leaving a nephew who was more interested in poetry than ruling. This nephew lasted less than a year and the three caliphs who followed him were unable to rule even that long. In 744, Marwan II, a professional soldier, became caliph and restored some semblance of order. Marwan put down a Kharijite rebellion in Iraq in 747, ostensibly bringing peace to the empire. This peace was illusory, however, for when a conspiracy erupted in Khurasan in the late Spring of that same year, he had no force to oppose it. The conspiracy thus evolved into a full-fledged rebellion on June 9, 747, when one of the leaders of the conspiracy, abu-Muslim, raised the banner bearing the Abbasid emblem (Von Grunebaum 77; Hitti 279-84).
The Abbasids claimed descendency from al-Abbas, Muhammad's uncle. The conspiracy had existed since fairly early in the Eighth Century in Iraq, where the Shi'ite Muslims had deplored the degeneracy of the Umayyad dynasty. In addition, there was much resentment against the Umayyad claims of racial superiority and class distinction. The non-Arab converts to Islam living in Iraq were discriminated against because they were not Arab. They paid higher taxes than Arabs and were generally shut out of salaried positions. Many Arabs who had settled in Iraq also felt discriminated against by those sent to govern the region. The earliest Arab settlers occupied positions of privilege and refused to share this wealth, contrary to the teachings of equality in Islam. In addition, there was considerable resentment against th...