“O House of Marwān, God will annihilate you …
and will replace your security with fear and banishment.
May God grant none of your descendants a long life …
but scatter you across His earth, far and wide.”

He then proceeded to al-Anbār, where he died.

Whenever he learned of enmity (1) between two people, he would not accept the testimony of one against the other, saying, “Hostility removes probity.”

Later Abū Muslim dispatched men who assassinated Abū Salama al-Khallāl, the vizier, in a secret attack after the late-night prayer, just after he had risen from an evening sitting with al-Saffāḥ. The populace said, “The Khārijites have killed him.”

Sulaymān ibn Muhājir al-Bajalī recited:
“Distress may sometimes gladden, and it may be
that joy resides in what you once disliked.
The vizier—the vizier of the House of Muhammad—has perished;
so whoever hated you was the vizier.”

He was slain four months after the public pledge of allegiance.

It is also reported that ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī, al-Saffāḥ’s uncle, sent a group of Syrian elders to the caliph to impress him. They swore to him that, until his accession, they had known of no relatives of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, entitled to inherit from him other than the Umayyads.

Al-Saffāḥ said, “When power becomes immense, appetite diminishes; no voluntary largesse is extended without some rightful due being lost. Patience is praiseworthy except toward whatever (2) undermines the religion and weakens the state.”

Al-Ṣūlī relates: Al-Saffāḥ had some of the Umayyads’ jewels brought, then divided them between himself and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥasan ibn Ḥasan.

Al-Saffāḥ’s generosity became proverbial.

Whenever two of his intimates grew hostile, he would refuse to listen to either about the other, saying, “Grudges breed enmity.”