The capital of the Caliphate was subsequently moved from Damascus to Baghdad, and Palestine consequently lost its central position in the state, becoming a distant district whose affairs were not as closely monitored or regulated as they were under the Umayyads.
[3] Ibrahim ibn Salih, the governor of Bilad ash-Sham and a cousin of the caliph al-Mahdi, regularly dealt with the affairs in Jund Filastin.
[3] According to 9th-century historian al-Tabari, clashes between the Arab tribes of Palestine had begun in 790/91, while 15th-century Ibn Taghribirdi wrote that the conflict began as early as 787/88.
[4] Casualties became considerable as tribes from the Golan Heights and Jund al-Urdunn joined the war as allies of the Yamani coalition.
It is presumed by historian Moshe Gil that the northern Mudhar tribes instigated the hostilities and that the focus of their attacks was directed not only against the Yamani federation, but the Abbasid state itself.
Harun al-Rashid viewed this as a rebellion and dispatched a large army headed by Ja'far ibn Yahya al-Barmaki to quell the revolt.
[6] Various Arab tribes that previously attempted to raid the Christian monasteries of the Judean Desert, but were prevented from doing so by the state authorities, took advantage of the security vacuum and attacked several of them.