Aḥmad ibn Dāwūd ibn al-Jarrāḥ, the chancery secretary, relates: “The leader of the Zanj was ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn Rajab, a native of Rayy. He had a fair command of letters, and he is the one who said:
-
By Him Who made the night-journey to the corner of His House—
throngs of riders advance, their humped mounts carved smooth.⦗1⦘ -
I shall don the mail of war until it is said to me,
‘You have discharged war’s every claim—now cast the helm aside.’⦗2⦘
He also addressed the Caliph with these lines:
O our cousins, you and we are but fingers,
whose joints are bound together by the palms that clasp them.
O our cousins, do not kindle the fire of discord—
through the long passing of years its embers are slow to die.⦗3⦘
O our cousins, you have entrusted our affairs to the Turks,
while we, from of old, were its root and its great host.
67 – al-Zaydī, al-Ḥasan ibn Zayd ibn Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl
The emir, lord of Jurjān: al-Ḥasan ibn Zayd ibn Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Zayd ibn al-Ḥasan, descendant of Imam ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib—an Alid.
His grandfather Ismāʿīl was the brother of Lady Nafīsa.
He rose in 250 AH; his forces multiplied and he seized Jurjān.