, he wrote to the Muslims, informing them that on a particular night, when he would be on guard duty, they were to draw close to the gate so that he could open it for them. When that night came, he opened the fortress gate for them; they entered, slaughtered the fighting men, and took the women and children captive. The Ispahbadh, for his part, sucked on a poisoned ring and died. Among those captured that day were the mother of Mansur ibn al-Mahdi and the mother of Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi—both beautiful daughters of kings.

In the same year al-Mansur built for the people of Basra the prayer sanctuary toward which they faced at al-Jabban. Its construction was overseen by Salamah ibn Saʿid ibn Jabir, the deputy over the Euphrates district and al-Ubulla. Al-Mansur fasted the month of Ramadan in Basra and led the people in the ʿId prayer at that musalla (open prayer ground).

That year al-Mansur also dismissed Nawfal ibn al-Furat from the governorship of Egypt and appointed Humayd ibn Qahtabah in his place, while the Hajj was led on behalf of the people by Ismaʿil ibn ʿAli.

In the same year there died:
Sulayman ibn ʿAli ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbbas ⦗1⦘—the caliph’s paternal uncle and deputy over Basra—on Saturday, seven days before the end of Jumada al-Akhirah, at the age of fifty-nine. His brother ʿAbd al-Samad performed the funeral prayer for him. He transmitted hadith from his father, from ʿIkramah, and from Abu Burdah ibn Abu Musa; and a number of people narrated from him, among them his sons Jaʿfar, Muhammad, and Zaynab, as well as al-Asmaʿi.

His hair had turned grey when he was only twenty, and at that age he dyed his beard to cover it. He was renowned for generosity: every year on the afternoon of ʿArafah he manumitted one hundred slaves, and his gifts to the Banu Hashim, the rest of Quraysh, and the Ansar totaled five million. On one occasion he looked down from his palace and saw a group of women spinning in one of Basra’s houses. It so happened that one of them said, “If only the emir would look upon us and see our plight, he would spare us from spinning.” Straightaway he rose, went through his palace, and gathered from his wives’ jewelry—gold, gems, and the like—until he had filled a large kerchief. He then lowered it to the women and scattered upon them a great quantity of dinars and dirhams, whereupon one of them died from sheer joy. He paid her blood-money and allowed her heirs to keep the share she had received.

He had supervised the Hajj in the days of al-Saffah and governed Basra during the reign of al-Mansur. He was regarded as one of the noblest members of the Abbasid house. He was the brother of Ismaʿil, Dawud, Salih, ʿAbd al-Samad, ʿAbd Allah, ʿIsa, and Muhammad, and the uncle of al-Saffah and al-Mansur.