He embarked on a military career in the service of the Abbasids and is first recorded as one of the officers in charge of an expedition sent against unruly Arab tribes in Iraq in 899.
[1] In the following year he was appointed by the caliph al-Mu'tadid as governor of al-Bahrain and al-Yamamah[2] and tasked with driving the Qarmatians led by Abu Sa'id Jannabi out of the region.
Since the Qarmatians had already successfully occupied much of al-Bahrain, including al-Qatif, al-'Abbas assembled an army of regular soldiers, bedouin fighters and volunteers before departing from al-Basra for the province.
The day after the battle, Abu Sa'id ordered that the captured soldiers all be put to death; al-'Abbas alone was spared and was eventually released, with instructions to warn al-Mu'tadid of the futility in opposing the Qarmatians.
[4] He was subsequently made governor of Qom and Kashan in 908–9,[5] and he may have been a member of the campaign led by Mu'nis al-Khadim to defend Egypt against the Fatimids in 914–5.