During that same year Muḥammad ibn al-Ashʿath set out for Ifrīqiyyah, fought the inhabitants with great ferocity, and succeeded in opening the province.

In that year as well Sharīk ibn Shaykh al-Mahri rose up in Bukhārā against Abū Muslim, declaring, “This is not why we pledged allegiance to the House of Muḥammad—to shed blood and take lives.” About thirty thousand men joined him. Abū Muslim dispatched Ziyād ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Khuzāʿī against him; they fought, and Ziyād killed him.

That same year al-Saffāḥ dismissed his brother Yaḥyā ibn Muḥammad from Mosul and appointed his uncle Ismāʿīl in his stead.

He also entrusted command of the summer frontier expedition to Ṣāliḥ ibn ʿAlī ibn Saʿīd ibn ʿUbayd Allah, who campaigned beyond the mountain passes, while al-Saffāḥ’s maternal uncle Ziyād ibn ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Dār al-Hārithī led the pilgrimage. The provincial deputies remained the same as in the previous year, except for those whose dismissal has already been noted.

[Then the year 134 AH began]

In this year Bassām ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Bassām renounced obedience and rebelled against al-Saffāḥ. The caliph sent Khāzim ibn Khuzaimah against him; Khāzim routed him, killed most of his men, and plundered his camp. On the return march he passed a gathering of Banū ʿAbd al-Dār—al-Saffāḥ’s maternal uncles—asked them for something that would aid the caliph, but they gave no reply and treated him with disdain. He therefore ordered their beheading: nearly twenty men and a similar number of their retainers.

The Banū ʿAbd al-Dār lodged a complaint against Khāzim before al-Saffāḥ, saying, “He killed these men without cause.” The caliph resolved to execute him, but some commanders advised, “Do not kill him; rather, send him on a perilous mission. If he survives, so be it; if he is slain, your aim will have been achieved.” Thus Khāzim was dispatched to ʿUmān, where a faction of Kharijites had rebelled. He was given seven hundred men, and the caliph wrote to his uncle Sulaymān in Basra to convey them by ship to ʿUmān, which he did.

Khāzim fought the Kharijites, broke and subdued them, seized the surrounding territory, and slew their Sufrī leader al-Julandā along with about ten thousand of his followers and supporters. He sent their heads to Basra, and the deputy there forwarded them to the caliph. Months later al-Saffāḥ ordered him to return, and he came back safe, victorious, and enriched.

That same year Abū Muslim campaigned in the land of Soghd (1), while Abū Dāwūd, one of his deputies, campaigned in the land of Kash (2). He killed a great multitude and captured an immense quantity of Chinese vessels ornamented with gold.