and the deputy governor of Kūfa, al-Ḥārith ibn Abī Rabīʿah, also advanced, accompanied by the townspeople and a number of their leading figures, among them Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ashter and Sabath ibn Ribʿī. When they reached the Bridge of al-Ṣirāṭ (1), the Kharijites cut it away so that it lay between them and their pursuers. The commander therefore ordered that it be rebuilt, and it was rebuilt; whereupon the Kharijites fled before him. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mikhnaf set off after them with six thousand men. They skirted Kūfa and continued on to the land of Isfahan, so he turned back without engaging them.
The Kharijites then returned and besieged ʿAttāb ibn Warqāʾ for a month in the town of Jiyā (2). When the people could endure no more, they sallied out, fought them, routed them, killed their commander al-Zubayr ibn al-Māḥūz, and seized everything in their camp. The Kharijites thereupon appointed Qaṭarī ibn al-Fujāʾah as their leader and marched toward the province of Ahwāz.
Muṣʿab ibn al-Zubayr wrote to al-Muhallab ibn Abī Ṣufrah—then in command at Mosul—ordering him to proceed against the Kharijites, for he was the most experienced of men in fighting them. To take his place in Mosul he sent Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ashter. Al-Muhallab moved on to Ahwāz and there fought the Kharijites for eight months in a struggle the like of which had never been heard.
Ibn Jarīr said (3): In this same year a severe drought struck the lands of Syria, leaving the people so weak and so short of food and provisions that they were unable to mount a single campaign.
He also said: In this year ʿUbayd Allah ibn al-Ḥurr was killed (4). He had been a courageous man whom circumstances and shifting opinions tossed about until he would acknowledge the authority of neither the Umayyads nor the house of al-Zubayr. Whenever he passed by the governor of a district in Iraq or elsewhere, he would seize by force all the revenue in the public treasury, write the governor a receipt, and then spend the money on his companions. Caliphs and governors repeatedly sent armies against him, but whether they were few or many he routed them—even those dispatched by Muṣʿab ibn al-Zubayr and his officials in Iraq.
Later he presented himself to ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān, who dispatched him with ten men and said, “Enter Kūfa and inform them that the troops will reach them shortly.” In secret he sent word to a group of his associates, revealing his plan. The governor of Kūfa, al-Ḥārith ibn ʿAbd Allah, learned of this, sent a force against him, and they killed him on the spot (5). His head was carried to Kūfa and then to Basra, and the people were rid of him.
Ibn Jarīr further said (6): That same year the standing on ʿArafāt saw four mutually independent banners, each refusing to follow the others—the first belonging to Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafiyyah and his followers, the second to Najda al-Ḥarūrī and his followers, and the third to the Umayyads.