In this same year Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās dispatched Abū Muslim al-Khurasānī to Khurasan, sending with him letters addressed to their partisans there which read: “This is Abū Muslim; listen to him and obey. I have placed under his authority whatever land of Khurasan he may conquer.” When Abū Muslim arrived in Khurasan and read the letter aloud to his supporters, they ignored it, did not act upon it, turned away from him, and cast it behind their backs. He therefore returned to Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad during the pilgrimage season, complaining of them and informing him of their opposition.

Ibrāhīm said to him:
“O ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, you are a man of us, the People of the House. Go back to them. Pay special attention to this clan of Yemen—honour them (1) and live among them, for Allah will bring this affair to its completion only through them. ”

He then warned him about the other tribes and said:
“If you can, leave not a single Arab tongue in those lands—do so. Any one of their sons who reaches five spans in height and whom you suspect, kill him. As for that elder, do not disobey him (2)—Sulaymān ibn Kathīr.”

What later befell Abū Muslim al-Khurasānī will be recounted in due course, God willing.

In this year, according to Abū Mikhnaf, al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays the Kharijite was killed. The cause was that al-Ḍaḥḥāk had laid siege to ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz at Wāsiṭ, and Manṣūr ibn Jumhūr had joined him in the siege. ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz wrote to him: “There is no benefit for you in besieging me; rather, you should confront Marwān ibn Muḥammad. March against him—if you kill him, I will follow you.” So the two reached an understanding to oppose Marwān ibn Muḥammad, the Commander of the Faithful.

Al-Ḍaḥḥāk then broke camp and set off to fight Marwān ibn Muḥammad. When he passed by Mosul, its inhabitants corresponded with him and won him over; he entered the city, killed its governor, and seized control of it. News of this reached Marwān while he was besieging Ḥimṣ, occupied with its people and their refusal to pledge allegiance to him. He therefore wrote to his son ʿAbd Allāh ibn Marwān—his deputy over al-Jazīrah—ordering him to fight al-Ḍaḥḥāk at Mosul.

Al-Ḍaḥḥāk advanced against ʿAbd Allāh ibn Marwān, and around him had gathered one hundred and twenty thousand men. They laid siege to Nisibis, and Marwān hastened in pursuit. The two forces met there and fought a very fierce battle. Al-Ḍaḥḥāk vaulted from his horse, and a group of leading commanders dismounted with him; they fought on foot with great valour until al-Ḍaḥḥāk was killed in the melee. Night then separated the two armies. Al-Ḍaḥḥāk’s followers searched for him, uncertain of his fate, until eyewitnesses told them he had been slain; they wept for him and raised loud lamentations. The news reached Marwān, who sent men with torches to the battlefield together with those who could recognise where he lay among the dead. When they found him they brought him to Marwān—lifeless, with about twenty wounds to his head and face. Marwān ordered that his head be carried around the towns of al-Jazīrah.

Al-Ḍaḥḥāk had appointed over his army after him a man called al-Khaybarī. The remainder of al-Ḍaḥḥāk’s troops rallied to him, and with al-Khaybarī joined Sulaymān ibn Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, along with his household, retainers, and the army that had pledged allegiance to him the previous year to the caliphate, having deposed Marwān ibn