The Abbasid revolution in western literature in the modern period

The Abbasid revolution can be defined as the whole series of events which led to the Abbasids to take the place of the Umayyads in the Caliphate. The year 100 (718-719) is accepted for the beginning of these events while the year 132 (750) is accepted for the end. By this revolution, the Umayyad State, which ruled for almost ninety years, was destroyed. Thus, for the Caliphate, Umayyad dynasty was replaced by the Abbasid dynasty which was descendants of Prophet's uncle Abbas. This dynasty had remained in the scene of history for about five centuries. The Abbasid revolution has had an important place in Islamic history works of modern Western literature from the end of the 19th century until today. For more than a century, many independent works have been written by scientists on the Abbasid revolution. In this way, many theories related to the subject have been proposed and a large literature has emerged. Moreover, various schools arose on this subject which researchers have dealt with for more than a century. In this thesis, the views of modern historians who work on the Abbasid revolution were evaluated and the schools that emerged for more than a century were identified as well as a general outline was drawn about these schools. Herewith, two different theses; Arab and mawālī, and three main schools; classical, revisionist and post-revisionist have emerged by means of different points of view for the decisive power of the revolution. The scope of the thesis is the major works written in the Western literatüre in the modern period. The outstanding topics in these studies have formed the headings within the chapters and evaluations have been made considering the main thesis defended by historians. With this study, the content of many works, mostly in English, were acquired in Turkish literature and the analysis of Western historiography on Islamic history through the Abbasid revolution has been done.