The Armies
In 750, the army of the Umayyad caliph Marwan II fought a combined force of Abbasid, Shia and Persians soldiers at the Zab. Marwan's army was, on paper at least, far larger and more formidable than that of his opponents, as it contained many veterans of the Umayyads' earlier campaigns against the Byzantine Empire, but its support for the caliph was only lukewarm. It is fair to say their morale had been damaged — whereas the Abbasid's armies had been increased — by the series of defeats inflicted on the Umayyads earlier in the rebellion.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of The Zab
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