Muḥammad: it proved to be a letter from Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad to Abū Muslim, an answer to an earlier missive, in which he ordered Abū Muslim to kill everyone in Khurāsān who spoke Arabic.

Marwān thereupon seized Ibrāhīm. He had already been given, in the books, a description of “al-Saffāḥ”; when Ibrāhīm was brought before him he said, “This is not the man whose features were described.”

He dismissed his agents, sending them out again to search for the person so portrayed, but al-Saffāḥ—together with his brothers and uncles—had already escaped to Iraq and gone into hiding among their supporters.

It is said that Ibrāhīm, sensing his own end, had warned them and urged them to flee; they slipped away from al-Ḥumaymah, reached Kūfah, where Abū Salamah al-Khallāl hosted them and kept their presence secret.

When word reached Abū al-Jahm he gathered the leading partisans, entered upon the family of al-ʿAbbās and asked, “Which of you is ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥārithiyyah?”

They answered, “This man.”

They greeted him with the salutation of the caliphate. Abū al-Jahm, Mūsā ibn Kaʿb, and the other notables withdrew, arranged their affairs, and al-Saffāḥ appeared riding a bay mule and led the people in the Friday prayer.

All of this is related in full in the biography of al-Saffāḥ, in my Major History (1), and in the biography of al-Saffāḥ’s uncle ʿAbd Allāh.

In 133 AH Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr set out for Khurāsān to consult Abū Muslim about killing Abū Salamah Ḥafṣ ibn Sulaymān al-Khallāl, their vizier.

The reason was that when al-Saffāḥ and his kinsmen had taken up residence with Abū Salamah, the latter felt inclined to swear allegiance to an ʿAlid and abandon them. He began concealing their identity from the commanders of their Shīʿah supporters. The senior leaders moved quickly, pledged to al-Saffāḥ, brought him out, and he addressed the people. Abū Salamah had no option but to pledge as well, and so suspicion fell upon him.

Abū Jaʿfar narrated:

“My brother al-Saffāḥ commissioned me to go to Abū Muslim. I set off in trepidation, reached Rayy, then rode on two farsakhs beyond it. When I was still two farsakhs from Marw, Abū Muslim came out with the troops to meet me. As he drew near he dismounted, proceeded on foot, and he kissed—"