confront the men arrayed before us; once they are beaten, he will be in our hands.” This diverted them from their original plan, though had Ibrahim followed it the affair would have been decided in their favor.
Then some of them said, “Dig a trench round the army.” Others retorted, “This force has no need of a trench,” and the idea was abandoned. Next certain advisers urged him to launch a night attack on the host of ʿIsa ibn Musa (1). Ibrahim replied, “I do not think that wise,” and so that suggestion, too, was set aside. Others proposed that he arrange his troops in separate detachments (karādīs), so that if one detachment were routed the next would stand firm. Still others said, “It is better that we fight in ranks, for the Most High has said: ‘Indeed, Allah loves those who fight in His cause in ranks, as though they are a solid structure’ (al-Saff 4). The matter, however, rests with Allah; He does whatever He wills.” Had they marched on Kufah and attacked by night, or drawn up the army in detachments, the victory would have been theirs—Allah decreeing whatever He wills.
The two armies advanced and formed lines at Bakhumra, sixteen farsakhs from Kufah, and there a fierce battle was fought. Humayd ibn Qahtabah, who commanded the vanguard, broke and fled with his men. ʿIsa kept adjuring them by Allah to rally and attack again, but no one heeded him. He himself stood firm with a hundred of his kinsmen.
Someone said to him, “Withdraw from this spot lest Ibrahim’s army crush you.” He answered, “By Allah, I shall not leave it until Allah grants me victory or I am killed here.” Al-Mansur had already written to him—on the word of an astrologer—that the troops would first scatter from around ʿIsa ibn Musa, then return to him, and that the issue would be decided in his favor.
The fugitives kept running until they reached a narrow stream between two mountains; unable to cross it, they wheeled about and came back in a body—the first to return being Humayd ibn Qahtabah, who had been the first to flee. They clashed once more with Ibrahim’s men and fought savagely; many on both sides were slain. At length Ibrahim’s forces broke and ran, while he himself remained steadfast with five hundred—some say four hundred, others only ninety—men. ʿIsa ibn Musa and those with him gained the upper hand, and Ibrahim was killed among the slain. His head was mixed with the heads of his followers until Humayd kept bringing heads to ʿIsa and they recognized Ibrahim’s. It was sent with the bearer of glad tidings to al-Mansur.
Naybakht the astrologer had entered upon al-Mansur before the head arrived and had told him that Ibrahim was dead, but al-Mansur did not believe him. “Commander of the Faithful,” Naybakht said, “if you do not believe me, imprison me; and if the matter is not as I have said, then kill me.” While he was still with him, the courier came announcing the rout of Ibrahim’s army.
When the head was brought in, al-Mansur recited the verse of Muʿaqqir ibn Aws ibn Ḥimār al-Bāriqī:
She cast down her staff and found her resting-place at last …
as the traveller’s eye is refreshed on returning home.
It is also said that when al-Mansur saw the head he wept until his tears fell upon it, saying, “By Allah, I was averse to this, but you were tried through me and I through you.” He then ordered the head to be displayed in the market, and granted Naybakht the astrologer—the “liar”—an estate of two thousand jarib (2).