On Thursday, with three days of Ramadan still remaining, Ṣāliḥ ibn Waṣīf ordered that Aḥmad ibn Isrāʾīl—the former vizier—and Abū Nujūḥ ʿĪsā ibn Ibrāhīm—once a Christian who had embraced Islam and served as Qabīḥa’s secretary—be flogged. Each man received five hundred lashes after his property had first been seized; they were then paraded through the streets astride two mules ridden backwards, and they died in that very state. This did not meet with the approval of al-Muhtadī bi-Llāh, yet at the outset he lacked the power to oppose Ṣāliḥ ibn Waṣīf.
During this same Ramadan another tumult erupted in Baghdad between Muḥammad ibn Aws—joined by the shākiriyyah, the regular troops and others—and the common folk, the rabble. Some one hundred thousand townspeople gathered, and the fighting raged with arrows, lances and swords; many people were killed. In the end Muḥammad ibn Aws and his followers were routed, and the masses plundered whatever of his wealth they could find, an amount reckoned at about two million dirhams (1) or so. It was then agreed that Muḥammad ibn Aws should be expelled from Baghdad to whatever country he might choose, so he departed in fear, a hunted fugitive, for the people found his conduct abhorrent—he was a tyrannical, obstinate man, a veritable devil.
The Caliph al-Muhtadī bi-Llāh also ordered (2) that the singing-girls and musicians be removed from Sāmarrāʾ, that the wild beasts kept in the palace and even the hunting dogs (3) be killed, that all entertainments be abolished, injustices redressed, and that he personally sit to hear the petitions of the populace. During his reign, however, the whole of Syria (4) was in turmoil.
Next the Caliph summoned Mūsā ibn Bughā al-Kabīr, seeking thereby to strengthen himself against the Turks in his entourage so that the word of the caliphate might be united; but Mūsā excused himself, citing the jihad in which he was engaged in those lands.
Another rebel who claimed kinship with the Prophet’s Household appears in Basra
On the fifteenth of Shawwāl of that same year a man emerged on the outskirts of Basra claiming to be ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿĪsā ibn Zayd ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. His claim to this lineage was false: he was in fact an ʿAbqasi tribesman of ʿAbd al-Qays named ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm. His mother was Qurrah (5) daughter of ʿAlī ibn Ruḥayb ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥakīm of the Banū Asad ibn Khuzaymah, and he originally hailed from a village in the district of Rayy, as reported by Ibn Jarīr (6).