Ibrahim al-Imam

He inherited the leadership of the movement from his father, Muhammad, in 743, and played a major role in its spread in Khurasan, not least by appointing Abu Muslim as the local leader.

Ibrahim did not live to see the success of the revolution, being imprisoned and dying in August 749, either killed at the orders of the last Umayyad caliph, Marwan II, or from the plague.

His tenure was marked by two achievements: the move of the movement's centre of activity away from its original base in Kufa to the remote eastern province of Khurasan, and the consolidation of Abbasid leadership.

The Khurasani Hashimiyya appears to have championed the broader Alid cause initially, and its local leader, Sulayman ibn Kathir al-Khuza'i, displayed independent tendencies.

[19] The violence intensified the widespread disaffection of the Khurasani Arabs with the Umayyad regime, which was perceived as oppressive and unfair, especially in matters of taxation—including the collection of taxes by non-Muslims, who thus had authority over Muslims—and in the employment of the local military forces in prolonged, bloody and fruitless campaigns.

[23] At the very same time, however, the Umayyads managed to discover Ibrahim's role and whereabouts: from Humayma, the imam was brought first to Damascus and then to Marwan II's headquarters at Harran.

[1][27] According to historian Moshe Sharon, Marwan II is unlikely to have wanted the death of the Abbasid imam, as having the leader of the uprising in his control allowed him to negotiate rather than fight to the end.

[1][31] Ibrahim's two sons, Abd al-Wahhab and Muhammad, enjoyed a military career against the Byzantine Empire, as well as undertaking the honorific role of leading the annual Hajj pilgrimage.