Abasbali 1 | Prosopography of the Byzantine Empire |
| Sex | M |
| Floruit | M/L VIII |
| Dates | 776 (taq) / 778 (tpq) |
| PmbZ No. | 6 |
| Variant Names | Isbaali; Isbali; Basbali |
| Religion | Muslim |
| Ethnicity | Arab |
| Locations | Kasin (Cave of); Germanikeia (Syria) |
| Textual Sources | Theophanes Confessor, Chronographia, ed. C. de Boor, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1883-85, repr. Hildesheim/NewYork, 1980); tr. and comm. C. Mango and R. Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, Oxford 1997 (chronicle) |
Abasbali 1 was al-`Abbas ibn Muhammad ibn `Ali ibn `Abd Allah, brother of the first two Abbasid caliphs as-Saffah 1 and al-Mansour 1 and uncle of the third, al-Mahdi 1; see Encyclopaedia of Islam., vol. I, p. 12. In the MSS of Theophanes his name is variously spelt as Abasbali, Isbali, Isbaali, Basbali.
Abasbali 1 was the Arab commander sent to attack Roman territory by the caliph Al-Mahdi 1 in 776; he captured the cave of Kasin and took all the inhabitants prisoner: Theoph. AM 6268 (called Abasbali). The uncle of the caliph Al-Mahdi 1, in 778 Abasbali 1 was besieged in the stronghold of Germanikeia in Syria by a large Byzantine army; he is said to have prevented the capture of the fort by bribing one of the Byzantine commanders, Michael 5 Lachanodrakon, to withdraw and plunder the countryside instead: Theoph. AM 6270 (called Isbaali). Cf. Rochow, Theophanes, pp. 218, 223.
He is to be identified with Abbas 2.
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