a large crowd, and he was reciting the verses that enjoin fighting the unbelievers. Rabiʿ fell as a martyr, together with many others, on the day of battle in Safar 334 AH. The aim of those Magian Banu ʿUbayd was to seize him alive so that they could torture him.

Abu l-Hasan al-Qabisi said, “Along with him were martyred men of excellence, leading scholars, and devoted worshippers.”⦗1⦘

One of the poets composed the following about the Banu ʿUbayd:
“The schemer, traitor, seducer of his own faction—
 Worst of all heretics among followers and hirelings.
He addresses the devout in reckless haste,
 With the sorcery of Harut—pure unbelief and innovation.
Were it said to the Byzantines, ‘You are their equals,’ they would weep;
 Were it said to the Jews, they would stop up the holes of their ears.”

67 – al-Mansur, Abu l-Taḥir Ismaʿil ibn al-Qaʾim ibn al-Mahdi,
 the ʿUbaydi Batinite, ruler of the Maghrib.

He succeeded his father and fought the head of the Ibadi community⦗2⦘, Abu Yazid Makhlad ibn Kaydad the ascetic. The two forces met repeatedly, and Makhlad gained the upper hand over most of the Maghrib, leaving the Banu ʿUbayd nothing but Mahdiyya⦗3⦘. Al-Mansur therefore rose up, concealed his father’s death⦗4⦘, and held out against the Ibadis until they withdrew.