for many years.
Then the Musawwida (the black-clad rebels) rose up in Khurasan and persisted until they uprooted the Umayyad dynasty. Only after countless souls—whose number none but Allah can know—had been slain did the Hashimite state come to power.
Next al-Manṣūr fought his uncle ʿAbd Allāh. ʿAbd Allāh was abandoned, and Abū Muslim, the chief architect of the daʿwa, was put to death.
The two sons of al-Ḥasan (1) revolted and almost seized the reins of rule, but they were killed.
A great war then erupted between al-Amīn and al-Maʾmūn (2) that ended only with al-Amīn’s death.
During that same period several others rose up, each claiming the imamate. Thus, not long after the year 200 AH, Bābak al-Khurramī, a zindīq (heretic) in Azerbaijan, appeared. His exceptional bravery became proverbial: he captured a number of cities and routed successive armies until, at last, he was taken by stratagem and executed (3).
(1) The two men were Muhammad b. Abd Allah b. Hasan b. Hasan b. Ali b. Abi Talib and his brother Ibrahim. They rose against the caliph al-Mansur after refusing to present themselves to him during his pilgrimage that year. Al-Mansur pursued them relentlessly, arrested their father together with several members of the Prophet’s family, and imprisoned them; they all died in detention. Muhammad then revolted in Madinah, jailed its governor, and appointed officials over various towns until al-Mansur dispatched an army under his cousin Isa b. Musa that crushed the uprising in 145 AH.
See: al-Tabari, Tarikh, vol. 7, p. 17 ff., events of 144 AH; Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil, 5/513-527; al-Wafi bi-l-Wafayat, 3/297-300; Shadharat al-Dhahab, 1/313, events of 144 AH.
(2) This took place in 195 AH, when al-Amin publicly deposed his brother al-Ma'mun from Khurasan; al-Ma'mun responded by deposing al-Amin as caliph, and war ensued between them.
(3) For a detailed account of his murder, see the biography of al-Ma'mun in volume 10 of the present work, p. 293.