—only three of his uncles were still alive: Ṣāliḥ, Sulaymān, and Dāwūd.
When they reached the open plain, Ṣāliḥ rode at his side, cast his eyes over the files of young retainers, and beheld a scene the like of which he had never witnessed. Thereupon Ṣāliḥ recited:
What wiped out the vanished generations will befall you yet,
What struck the realms of ʿĀd and Jurhum.
Men stronger than you in glory and proud renown,
And subtler than you at leading clamorous, massed armies—were laid low all the same.
Abū Muslim wept and could find no reply.
Abū Ḥassān al-Ziyādī, Yaʿqūb al-Fasawī, and others relate that he was killed in Shaʿbān of the year 137 AH.
I add: he was thirty-seven years old.
After his death Sunbādh rose in Khurāsān to avenge him. Sunbādh, a Zoroastrian, overran Nīshāpūr and Rayy, captured Abū Muslim’s treasuries, and his rebellion swelled in strength. Al-Manṣūr dispatched Jumhur ibn Marrār al-ʿIjlī against him with ten thousand horsemen. The battle took place between Rayy and Hamadhān; Sunbādh was routed, about sixty thousand of his troops—most of them highlanders—were slain, their families were taken captive, and Sunbādh himself was killed in the land of Ṭabaristān.
Fāṭimah bint ʿAlī informed us; Farqad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Kinānī related to us in 608 AH; Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī related to us; Abū al-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Sulaym al-Muʿallim related to us; Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Marzubān ibn Manjawayh related to us; Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Miqriʾ related to us; Abū Naṣr, the servant of Ibn al-Anbārī, told me—he heard Ibn al-Anbārī, who heard Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā the grammarian, who heard Masrūr the chamberlain—say:
“When al-Manṣūr ordered Abū Muslim back from Ḥulwān, he bid him depart with only his picked pages. Accordingly, he set out with four thousand clean-shaven, beardless youths,”