money, drove off livestock, and wreaked havoc throughout the countryside; so al-Maʾmūn dispatched an army against him, and they killed him in Muḥarram of that same year.

In that year as well, on Thursday, the tenth of Jumādā al-Ākhirah, Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib rose in Kūfah, summoning the people to the cause of al-Riḍā from the Family of Muḥammad and to governance by the Book and the Sunnah. He is the figure known as Ibn Ṭabāṭabā. The man who conducted his affairs and directed the fighting before him was Abū al-Sarāyā al-Sarī ibn Manṣūr al-Shaybānī. The people of Kūfah unanimously supported him, flocking to his banner from every distant quarter, and the Bedouin of the surrounding districts also joined him.

Kūfah’s deputy governor, appointed by al-Ḥasan ibn Sahl, was Sulaymān ibn Abī Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr. Al-Ḥasan sent him reproachful letters for letting the revolt take root and dispatched ten thousand cavalry under Zāhir ibn Zuhayr ibn al-Musayyab to reinforce him. The two sides met outside Kūfah; Ibn Ṭabāṭabā’s forces routed Zāhir, overran his camp, and plundered its contents. That took place on Wednesday, the last day of Jumādā al-Ākhirah. The very next day the leader of the Shīʿah, Ibn Ṭabāṭabā, died suddenly—it is said that Abū al-Sarāyā had poisoned him—and Abū al-Sarāyā installed in his stead a beardless youth named Muḥammad ibn Zayd ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib.

Zāhir withdrew with the few men left to him to the palace of Ibn Hubayrah. Al-Ḥasan ibn Sahl then sent ʿAbdūs ibn Muḥammad with four thousand horse as ostensible reinforcements for Zāhir, but when they engaged Abū al-Sarāyā he crushed them, and not a single man in ʿAbdūs’s force escaped. The Ṭālibids fanned out across the region, and Abū al-Sarāyā minted his own dirhams and dinars in Kūfah, engraving on them the verse: “Indeed, Allah loves those who fight in His cause in ranks” (al-Ṣaff 4).

He next sent his armies to Basra, Wāsiṭ, and al-Madāʾin; they defeated the deputies stationed there, entered the cities by force, and their power grew. This greatly alarmed al-Ḥasan ibn Sahl. He wrote to Harthama ibn Aʿyan, summoning him to wage war on Abū al-Sarāyā. Harthama at first refused, but eventually came, marched out against Abū al-Sarāyā, defeated him more than once, and drove him back until he was confined to Kūfah.

Meanwhile the Ṭālibids in Kūfah stormed the houses of the Banū al-ʿAbbās, looted them, devastated their estates, and committed disgraceful acts. Abū al-Sarāyā also sent envoys to al-Madāʾin, whose people submitted, and he dispatched Ḥusayn ibn Ḥasan al-Afṭas to the people of Mecca to preside over the pilgrimage. Fearing to enter Mecca openly, Ḥusayn advanced cautiously. When the city’s deputy governor, Dāʾūd ibn ʿĪsā ibn Mūsā ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās, heard of his approach, he fled Mecca for Iraq.

The inhabitants were left without an imam. They asked the muezzin, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Walīd al-Azraqī, to lead them in prayer, but he refused. They then approached the judge, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Makhzūmī, who also declined, saying, “Whom shall I call to prayer when the city’s deputies have fled?” So the people put one of their own forward, and he led them in the Ẓuhr and ʿAṣr prayers. When the news reached Ḥusayn al-Afṭas, he entered Mecca with ten men shortly before sunset, circumambulated the Kaʿbah, spent the night at ʿArafah, led the Fajr prayer at Muzdalifah, and completed the remaining rites during the days of Minā. Thus the pilgrims departed from ʿArafah without an imam.

Among those who died in that year was Isḥāq ibn Sulaymān.