I shall strike ʿĪsā by night.
Huraym relates: I said to Ibrāhīm, “You will never defeat al-Manṣūr unless you enter Kūfa. If you seize it, he will never rise again; if not, then let me go on ahead. I will canvass support for you quietly and then proclaim it openly. Were al-Manṣūr to hear a single outcry there, he would flee to Ḥulwān.”
He replied, “We cannot be sure that a faction among them would not answer your call—[whereupon Abū Jaʿfar would send in cavalry that would trample the innocent, the helpless, the young, and the old] (1); you would incur sin.”
I said, “You have set out to fight a man like al-Manṣūr and yet you shrink from that?!”
When he camped at Bākhamrā, Salm ibn Qutaybah wrote to him: “You have exposed yourself on the open plain, and a man like you is too precious to risk. Dig a trench around your position; but if you will not, Abū Jaʿfar has stripped his camp—slip away with a detachment, reach him, and seize him from the rear.”
He consulted his commanders, who said, “Shall we dig a trench around ourselves when we are on the offensive?!”
Some remarked, “Are we to go after him when he is already in our grasp whenever we wish?!”
One of them recounted: “When the two armies met, I said to Ibrāhīm, ‘If a battle line breaks it collapses; arrange us in tight blocks (karādīs).’ His men shouted, ‘No, no!’
“I said, ‘They will attack you at dawn fully armed and mounted, while your men are half-clad. Let us strike them by night.’
“He answered, ‘I dislike bloodshed.’
“I said, ‘You aspire to the caliphate and yet dislike killing?’—Bākhamrā is but two days from Kūfa.
“The battle was joined. Ḥumayd ibn Qaḥṭabah was routed, the army crumbled, and ʿĪsā pleaded with them, but to no avail; yet he himself stood firm with a hundred horsemen.
“It was said to him, ‘Will you not withdraw?’
“He replied, ‘I will not move until I am killed or granted victory, and no one shall say that I fled.’
“Al-Manṣūr used to consult the stars and felt no qualm about it.
“It is reported that he said to ʿĪsā, ‘They tell me you will meet him, that you will have one setback, and then his men will return to you.’
“ʿĪsā said, ‘There came a moment when I saw myself with only three or four men.’
“My servant exclaimed, ‘Why are you just standing there?!’
“I replied—”