and his forces multiplied, his army grew formidable, and he appointed officials over the palace guard, the police, the correspondence bureau, the dīwān, and every other department a ruler requires. He made al-Qāsim ibn Mujāshiʿ al-Tamīmī—one of the naqībs—the chief judge. Al-Qāsim would lead Abū Muslim in the prescribed prayers and would recite narratives that praised the virtues of Banū Hāshim while denigrating the Banū Umayyah.
Abū Muslim then moved to a village called Balīn. Because it lay in low ground, he feared that Naṣr ibn Sayyār might cut off its water supply. This occurred on the sixth of Dhū al-Ḥijjah of that year, and on the Day of Sacrifice the judge al-Qāsim ibn Mujāshiʿ led the people in prayer.
Naṣr ibn Sayyār set out with hosts as dense as storm clouds, intent on combating Abū Muslim, and left deputies in charge of the provinces. What transpired between the two of them will be related under the events of the following year.
The Killing of Ibn al-Karmānī
War broke out between Naṣr ibn Sayyār and Ibn al-Karmānī—Jadīʿ ibn ʿAlī al-Karmānī—and great numbers were killed on both sides. Abū Muslim began corresponding with the two camps to win them over, writing to Naṣr and to Ibn al-Karmānī: “The Imām has enjoined me to treat you well, and I shall not depart from his view of you.”
He also wrote to the various districts, inviting them to the cause of the Banū al-ʿAbbās, and a vast throng responded. Abū Muslim advanced and camped between Naṣr’s trench and that of Ibn al-Karmānī, and both parties stood in awe of him.
Naṣr ibn Sayyār wrote to Marwān informing him of Abū Muslim, the multitude at his side, and the fact that he was rallying support for Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad. In the course of his letter he quoted:
I see amid the ashes the glimmer of an ember,
and it is all the more likely to blaze into flame;
for fire is fanned by nothing more than sticks,
and the beginning of war is words.
So, amazed, I asked: Would that I knew—
are the Umayyads awake, or are they asleep? (1)
Marwān replied, “The onlooker sees what the absentee does not.”
Naṣr retorted, “Your man has already told you that no victory is to be had from him.”
Others transmit the verses in a different wording:
I discern through the ashes a flash of fire—
it may soon become a blazing flame;
for a spark is struck by two sticks together,
and the first stage of war is talk.
If the wise among a people do not quench it,
its fuel will be corpses and severed heads.
So, amazed, I asked: Would that I knew—
are the Umayyads awake, or are they asleep?