and killed a number of them, but Ṭāhir’s troops held their ground. They then rose up, charged, and put them to flight. Their commander, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Jablah, was slain, and his followers fled in disgrace.
When the survivors returned to Baghdad, affairs fell into turmoil and rumors abounded. This took place in Dhu’l-Hijjah of that same year. Ṭāhir expelled al-Amīn’s officials from Qazwīn and the neighboring districts, and al-Maʾmūn’s cause became exceedingly strong throughout those lands.
In that very month of Dhu’l-Hijjah, a claimant known as the Sufyānī arose in Syria; he was ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Khālid b. Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān. He deposed the caliph’s governor and called people to pledge allegiance to himself. Al-Amīn dispatched an army against him, but it never advanced, remaining instead at al-Raqqa. What followed of his story will be related in due course.
That year the pilgrimage was led on behalf of the Ḥijāz by its governor, Dāwūd b. ʿĪsā.
During the same year a number of prominent figures passed away.
Among them:
-
Isḥāq b. Yūsuf al-Azraq (1): one of the leading authorities on hadith, from whom Aḥmad and others transmitted.
-
Bakkār b. ʿAbd Allāh (2) b. Muṣʿab b. Thābit b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr. He served as al-Rashīd’s governor over Medina for twelve years and one month, during which al-Rashīd, through him, distributed to its inhabitants one million two hundred thousand dinars. He was a noble, generous, and highly respected man.
-
Abū Nuwās the poet (3): his name was al-Ḥasan b. Hāniʾ b. Ṣabāḥ b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Jarrāḥ b. Hinb b. Dadda b. Ghanm b. Sulaym b. Ḥakam b. Saʿd al-ʿAshīrah b. Mālik b. ʿAmr b. al-Ghawth b. Ṭayyʾ b. Udad b. Shabīb b. [ʿUmar b.] Sabīʿ b. al-Ḥārith b. Zayd b. ʿAdī b. ʿAwf b. Zayd b. Humaysiʿ b. ʿAmr b. Yashḥub b. ʿArīb b. Zayd b. Kahlan b. Sabaʾ b. Yashjub b. Yaʿrub b. Qaḥṭān b. ʿĀbir b. Shālakh b. Arfakhshadh b. Sām son of