It was also said that Sulaymān ibn Abī Jaʿfar assumed authority over Damascus after a bout of civil strife and tribal chauvinism among the Arabs. The Umayyads had been circulating reports about Abū al-ʿAmayṭar, asserting that the prophetic signs were found in him and that the tribe of Kalb would be his partisans. They therefore inclined toward him, and he, in turn, cultivated their loyalty. Fearing Muḥammad ibn Ṣāliḥ ibn Bayhas, they secretly approached Sulaymān, swelled their numbers against Ibn Bayhas, and had him imprisoned. Once they had gained the upper hand they rose in revolt, surrounded Sulaymān while he was in the Ḥajjāj Palace, and he sent for Ibn Bayhas, who was still confined there. Ibn Bayhas came out to him, and the two of them fled across the open desert.

When ʿAlī emerged among the Yemenite faction, they pursued the Qaysites, burned their houses, and killed many of the Banū Sulaym. The people of al-Ghūṭah, Ḥimṣ, Aleppo, and the coastal districts rallied to him, while Qays took to flight. The palace guards could be heard shouting from the battlements: “O ʿAlī! O Chosen One! O you whom the Almighty has preferred over the wicked Banū al-ʿAbbās!”

After a series of events he fled, abdicated, went into hiding, and died.

81 – Abū Jaʿfar Hārūn son of al-Mahdī al-Rashīd

He is the caliph Abū Jaʿfar Hārūn, son of al-Mahdī Muḥammad, son of al-Manṣūr Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās al-Hāshimī, the ʿAbbāsid.

He acceded to the caliphate by virtue of a formal covenant that their father al-Mahdī had drawn up for him to succeed after al-Hādī, in the year 170 AH, following al-Hādī.