Ibn Jarīr said (1): “ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rāshid Abū l-Ḥajjāj told me: ‘I was standing at al-Manṣūr’s head while he was questioning me about Muḥammad’s uprising when news reached him that ʿĪsā ibn Mūsā had been routed. He had been reclining, but he sat bolt upright, struck the prayer-rug with the cane in his hand and exclaimed, ‘Never! What room is there now for the childish games once played on our pulpits and for women’s counsel? That time has passed.’ ”

ʿĪsā ibn Mūsā then sent the insignia of victory to al-Manṣūr with al-Qāsim ibn Ḥasan, and the head with Ibn Abī l-Karām, ordering the corpse to be buried. Accordingly it was interred in al-Baqīʿ. He commanded that Muḥammad’s followers who had died with him be crucified in two rows outside Madinah for three days; afterwards they were flung onto the Jewish cemetery near Salʿ, and later removed to a trench there.

He confiscated all the property of the Banū Ḥasan, and al-Manṣūr ratified the seizure; it is also said that he later returned it to them. Ibn Jarīr records this (2).

An amnesty was proclaimed in Madinah and the people were back in their markets the next morning. ʿĪsā ibn Mūsā withdrew with the army to al-Jurf because of the rain that had fallen the day Muḥammad was killed, and from al-Jurf he would come to the Mosque. He remained in Madinah until the nineteenth of Ramaḍān, then set out for Mecca.

In Mecca was al-Ḥasan ibn Muʿāwiyah, a supporter of Muḥammad, who had written to ʿĪsā inviting him to join him. Once ʿĪsā left Mecca and was some distance along the road, word of Muḥammad’s death reached him, so he kept on fleeing to Basra and to Muḥammad’s brother Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh, who had rebelled there; Ibrāhīm was killed later that same year, as we shall mention.

When Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥasan’s head was brought to al-Manṣūr and laid before him, he ordered that it be paraded on a white platter and afterwards displayed throughout the provinces. Al-Manṣūr then summoned the notables of Madinah who had supported Muḥammad: some he executed, some he had savagely beaten, and some he pardoned.

After ʿĪsā set out for Mecca he appointed Kathīr ibn Ḥuṣayn as acting governor of Madinah, who held the post for a month, until al-Manṣūr appointed ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Rabīʿ in his place. Ibn al-Rabīʿ’s troops ran riot in Madinah: whenever they bought goods they refused to pay, and if payment was demanded they beat the claimant and threatened him with death.

A contingent of the sūdān—black troops—rose against them. They assembled, blew a horn, and at its sound every black man in Madinah gathered. They charged the soldiers while the latter were on their way to the Friday prayer, with seven days remaining of Dhu l-Ḥijjah that year—others say with five days remaining of Shawwāl. They killed many soldiers with javelins and other weapons, and the governor ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Rabīʿ fled, abandoning the Friday prayer.

The leaders of the sūdān were Wathīq, Yaʿqil, Ramqa, Waḥdiyyā, ʿUnqūd, Misʿar, and Abū l-Nār. When ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Rabīʿ returned with his troops and met the sūdān, they routed him a second time. They pursued him to al-Baqīʿ, where he threw them his cloak to distract them and escaped with those who were with him, reaching Baṭn Nakhl, two nights’ journey from Madinah. The sūdān then fell upon provisions belonging to al-Manṣūr that had been stored in the house of Marwān, supplies that had arrived by sea.