to Nishapur, and Abu Muslim took possession of his baggage-train and his family.
Abu Muslim next dispatched an army toward Sarakhs. Shaybān met them in battle, but he was killed, and the bravest of his men fell with him. Soon afterwards Abu Muslim’s forces and those of Naṣr engaged—Abu Muslim’s fortune now clearly on the rise—and Naṣr’s troops broke and fled, while he himself withdrew to Qūmis.
Abu Muslim then captured Salm ibn Aḥwaz, the governor, put him to death, and by the end of the year 130 AH had brought all the cities of Khurasan under his control.
He likewise seized ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muʿāwiyah ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar al-Hāshimī and executed him.
Thereafter Abu Muslim outfitted Qaḥṭabah ibn Shabīb. Qaḥṭabah met Nubatah ibn Ḥanẓalah al-Kilābī at Jurjān, killed al-Kilābī, scattered his army, and Naṣr ibn Sayyār fell back yet again. He wrote to the governor of Iraq, Yazīd ibn ʿUmar ibn Hubayrah—the caliph Marwān’s deputy—pleading for help, “but it was no time for escape.”
Rebellions (1) were now closing in on Marwān from every side: Khārijites in the Maghrib, uprisings in Yemen, in Mecca, and in al-Jazīrah, and his rule began to slip away.
Ibn Hubayrah therefore assembled a vast army. Some of it camped at Hamadhān, some at Māh. Qaḥṭabah ibn Shabīb met them near Iṣfahān in Rajab 131 AH; Ibn Hubayrah’s army was routed. Qaḥṭabah then marched on Nahāvand and besieged it, while Naṣr ibn Sayyār retreated to Rayy.
Ibn Jarīr relates that Ibn Hubayrah’s force numbered one hundred thousand under ʿĀmir ibn Ḍubārah, whereas Qaḥṭabah commanded twenty thousand. Qaḥṭabah planted a lance with a Quran codex fixed to it and called out, “People of Syria! We summon you to what is in this Book.”
They cursed him, whereupon Qaḥṭabah charged; the fighting was soon over, Marwān’s troops were routed, and Naṣr ibn Sayyār died at Rayy—others say at Sāwah.
He instructed his sons to make for Syria, and, when no reinforcements came, he would recite: