—ten thousand Muslim women—and he razed the place.
At that time al-Muhallabī, the commander, was stationed in Ahwāz with thirty thousand Zanj. Al-Muwaffaq marched out to fight him; al-Muhallabī was routed, his army scattered, and many of them asked for amnesty. Al-Muwaffaq granted it, treated them kindly, and bestowed robes of honour upon them. He then encamped at Tustar, spent lavishly on the troops, and pacified the land.
He equipped his son al-Muʿtaḍid, Abū al-ʿAbbās, for the war against the wretch, providing him with ships. They engaged in battle and Abū al-ʿAbbās prevailed. He wrote a letter to the wretch, threatening him and calling him to repent of his deeds, but the wretch grew arrogant and rebellious and killed the envoy.
Al-Muwaffaq therefore advanced to the wretch’s city on the Abū al-Khaṣīb canal, set up ladders, entered it, and seized the outer wall; the Zanj broke and fled. When al-Muwaffaq saw how strongly fortified it was—its name was al-Mukhtāra—he was astonished, and the great number of fighters within alarmed him; yet several of them sought his protection, and he honoured them.
I have recorded the detailed course of the Zanj wars in my History of Islam; among those events is that in Shaʿbān of the year seven the wretch and his army—said to number three hundred thousand mounted and on foot—came out, while al-Muwaffaq took the field with fifty thousand, the river lying between them. Al-Muwaffaq proclaimed amnesty, and many men came over to him. He then built, opposite al-Mukhtāra on the Tigris, a city which he named al-Muwaffaqiyya; there he built the congregational mosque and the markets. People settled in it, and within a month five thousand sought his protection.
A fierce engagement took place in Shawwāl, and al-Muwaffaq was granted victory. In Dhū al-Ḥijja al-Muwaffaq crossed with his army toward al-Mukhtāra; the wretch fled (1), but soon returned, and al-Muwaffaq expelled him once more.
Meanwhile, Aḥmad al-Khujistānī seized Khurasan, Kerman, and Sijistān, and resolved to march against Iraq.