—whom?” The youth fell silent. “Why do you not speak?” the Caliph asked. He answered, “Commander of the Faithful, my story is thus and thus.” At this the Caliph’s face changed color. He asked about the boy’s mother, and the youth told him; he asked about the situation in Mosul, and the Caliph began describing it to him, while the youth listened in amazement.
Then the Caliph rose, embraced him, and said, “You are my son.” He gave him a priceless necklace, a large sum of money, and a letter to his mother informing her of the truth of the matter and of her son’s state. The youth departed through the Caliph’s private gate, secured the gifts, and went to Abū Ayyūb.
Abū Ayyūb asked, “What delayed you with the Caliph?” He replied, “He kept me copying a great many letters.” They exchanged words, and the youth left in anger. Straightaway he hired transport to Mosul in order to tell his mother the news and bring her and her family to Baghdad, to his father the Caliph. After travelling several stages, Abū Ayyūb inquired about him.
“He has departed,” they told him. Abū Ayyūb assumed the youth had disclosed some of his secrets to the Caliph and had fled from him. He therefore dispatched a messenger in pursuit, saying, “Wherever you find him, bring him back to me.” (1)
The messenger set out, found the youth at one of the way-stations, strangled him, threw him into a well, and took everything he carried. He then returned to Abū Ayyūb. When Abū Ayyūb read the Caliph’s letter he was dumbfounded and regretted having sent anyone after him.
Meanwhile the Caliph awaited his son. When he tarried, the Caliph investigated and discovered that Abū Ayyūb’s courier had overtaken and killed him. He thereupon summoned Abū Ayyūb, levied enormous fines against him, continued to punish him until he had confiscated all his wealth and possessions, and then put him to death, saying, “This man killed my beloved.” Whenever al-Manṣūr remembered his son he was overcome by deep sorrow.
In that same year the Khārijites of the Ṣufriyya (2) and others in the lands of Ifrīqiyah rose in revolt. Three hundred and fifty thousand of them assembled, cavalry and infantry alike, under Abū Ḥātim al-Anmāṭī and Abū ʿAbbād. Abū Qurrāh the Ṣufrī joined them with forty thousand more. They fought the governor of Ifrīqiyah, routed his army, and killed him. He was ʿUmar ibn ʿUthmān ibn Abī Ṣufrah, formerly governor of Sind, whom al-Manṣūr had removed from that province for pledging allegiance to Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn Ḥasan and had appointed over Ifrīqiyah; the Khārijites slew him—may Allah have mercy on him. They then spread great corruption through the land, killing women and children and harming the populace at large.
That year al-Manṣūr also compelled the people to wear exceedingly tall black caps, so tall that they had to prop them up from inside with reeds. Concerning this the poet Abū Dulāmah said:
We hoped our Imām would grant us some increase—
the increase he granted was in the height of our caps!
You see them on men’s heads as though they were
Jews’ wine-jars wrapped in cloaks. (3)