Ḥumayd ibn Qaḥṭabah and the troops under him. They fought an exceedingly fierce battle. The men of ʿAbd Allāh began to break ranks, yet he and Ḥumayd stood firm until they routed Abū al-Ward’s forces. Abū al-Ward himself held his ground with five hundred horsemen from his household and clan, and they were all slain. Abū Muḥammad al-Sufyānī and those with him fled until they reached Tadmur. ʿAbd Allāh guaranteed the safety of the people of Qinnasrīn; they adopted the black, pledged allegiance to him, and returned to obedience.
ʿAbd Allāh then turned back toward Damascus after learning of its revolt. When he drew near, its people scattered and fled; no fighting took place. He granted them security, they came back under his authority, and they too put on the Abbasid black in deference to the caliph, for that color had become the emblem of submission and obedience.
As for Abū Muḥammad al-Sufyānī, he remained a fugitive, wandering from one land to another until he reached the Ḥijāz. There he was confronted by the deputy of Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr—during al-Manṣūr’s own reign—who killed him, severed his head, and sent it along with two of his sons taken captive. Al-Manṣūr later released the two sons. It is said that the battle in which al-Sufyānī was killed occurred on Tuesday, the last day of Dhū al-Ḥijjah in the year 132 AH; Allah knows best.
The people of al-Jazīrah likewise cast off their allegiance to al-Saffāḥ. When they heard that the inhabitants of Qinnasrīn had rebelled, they followed suit, donned white, and marched against al-Saffāḥ’s lieutenant in Ḥarrān, Mūsā ibn Kaʿb, who, with three thousand men, had fortified himself inside the town. They besieged him for nearly two months. Al-Saffāḥ therefore dispatched his brother Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr together with the forces that had been at Wāsiṭ besieging Ibn Hubayrah. On his march he reached Ḥazān near Qarqīsiyā (1), whose people had likewise put on white; they shut their gates against him. He then passed through al-Raqqah, where Bakkār ibn Muslim was in command and had done the same, and next through Ḥājir (2), where Isḥāq ibn Muslim, with the contingent from al-Jazīrah, was laying siege to the town. Isḥāq left it and withdrew to al-Ruha.
Mūsā ibn Kaʿb meanwhile marched out with the garrison of Ḥarrān; al-Manṣūr met him, and they joined his army. Bakkār ibn Muslim reached his brother Isḥāq in al-Ruha, and the latter sent him to the Rabiʿah tribesmen at Dārā and Mardīn, whose leader was a Kharijite named Buraykah. They formed a single faction, whereupon Abū Jaʿfar advanced against them and fought a fierce engagement in which Buraykah was killed. Bakkār fled to his brother in al-Ruha. Isḥāq left him in charge there and moved on with the bulk of the army until he encamped at Sumaysāṭ, digging a trench around his camp.
Abū Jaʿfar then turned and besieged Bakkār in al-Ruha; several engagements followed. Al-Saffāḥ wrote to his uncle ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī, ordering him to proceed to Sumaysāṭ, for some sixty thousand men from al-Jazīrah had gathered around Isḥāq ibn Muslim. ʿAbd Allāh set out toward them, and Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr joined him. Isḥāq wrote to them seeking safe-conduct, and they granted it to him, pending the Caliph’s approval.