who called themselves the Shĩa (or faction), and who are known to Europeans as the Shi'ites.

In the reign of Hishām (A.H. 105), Mohammed, the great-grandson of the Prophet's uncle, 'Abbās, who was living in retreat in the south of Palestine, began to advance his claims to the Caliphate. Emissaries and secret deputations were sent to all the principal towns of Persia, 'Irāk, and Khorāsān, and, in spite of the severe measures taken to check the movement, the cause of the Hashimites began rapidly to spread. The Shi'ites and the Kharijites were induced to make common cause with the Hashimites, on the plea that the only object of the movement was to secure the Caliphate for a member of the Prophet's own family.

In the year A.H. 125 (742) Mohammed visited Mekka, and in the same year Abū Muslim was taken there on a pilgrimage by a party of the Hashimite faction. This Abū Muslim, whose real name was 'Abd er-Rahman ibn Muslim, was a native of Khorāsān, and had been a saddler in the service of a distinguished Arabian family.1 While residing at Mekka he attracted the attention of the 'Abbasid claimant, who at once singled him out as a youth of great promise, and prophesied that Abū Muslim would be greatly instrumental in bringing the 'Abbasids to power. He spent the two following years in journeys between Khorasan and Homayma, in order to promote the cause and report its progress. By means of an active propaganda the Hashimites had been most successful in winning over large numbers of adherents, and Abū Muslim was only watching for a suitable moment to raise the flag of revolt. In A.H. 129 (746), on the death of Harith ibn Surayj, Nasr ibn Sayyār sent a small force from Nīshāpūr 1 Zotenberg, op. cit. vol. iv. p. 323 et seq.

2 He was then not twenty years of age.

against El-Kirmānī, which was repelled, and Nasr now moved on to Merv with all the troops he could command. Abū Muslim, deeming the moment favourable for his designs, unfurled the black standard1 of the 'Abbasids. Ere a month had elapsed contingents began to pour in from all quarters. Nasr, finding himself unable to check the movement, implored reinforcements from Merwan, the governor of 'Irāk, and pointed out that the loss of Khorāsān would be fatal to the house of Umayya.

But no help arrived, and Abū Muslim, conscious of his foe's weakness, invited El-Kirmānī to join with him against Nasr; the latter, foreseeing this contingency, caused ElKirmānī to be killed by one of his soldiers, and sent his head to the Caliph. The Yemenites and the two sons of El-Kirmānī attached themselves to Abū Muslim. In despair Nasr sent to Merwān a despatch in verse, in which he pointed out the perils surrounding his situation, and asked whether the house of Umayya was asleep or awake.

In the year A.H. 130 (747) Abū Muslim made his entry into Merv, and ordered public prayers to be offered for the Abbasid claimant as Caliph. Nasr, who had abandoned the struggle for power and was living in retirement at Merv, withdrew on his approach to Nishāpūr by way of Sarakhs.3 In his flight he was joined

1 We are told that Abū Muslim wished to have a distinctive colour for his party, the Umayyads having adopted white. After making one of his slaves clothe himself in suits of various colours, he ordered him to dress in black, and finding the sombre hue the most awe-inspiring adopted it for his party. Cf. Zotenberg, loc cit. p. 327. Later the Khārijites adopted red, and the Shi'ites green.

Nasr ibn Sayyar was a poet of no mean order, and Arabic histories contain many quotations from his compositions, specimens of which will be found on p. 87 and 88 of Nöldeke's Delectus Vet. Carm. Arab.

Two very different versions of the end of Nasr are to be found in Oriental histories. That given in the text is the usually accepted one; but in the Persian translation of Tabari (cf. Zotenberg, loc cit. p. 329), in the Tarikh-iGuzida, etc., we are told that he fled unaccompanied as far as Ray, where

by such of his troops as remained faithful, but near Nishāpūr he was overtaken and defeated by Kahtaba ibn Shebib, who had been despatched by Abū Muslim in pursuit. Nasr now fled farther westward, and on reaching Jurjān was joined by the Syrian troops from ‘Irāk; but they came too late. Kahtaba again overtook the fugitive and inflicted a final defeat. Nasr fled towards

Hamadān, but he died worn out by years and toil at Sāva at the age of eighty-five. With this faithful viceroy perished the last hopes of the Umayyads, A.H. 131 (748).

he died. No mention is made here of the engagements with Kahtaba, who, according to the author of the Guzida, gained possession of Jurjān, Ray, Sāva, and Kum without striking a blow.

CHAPTER XI

KHORĀSĀN UNDER THE FIRST 'ABBASIDS

THE Umayyad Caliph at last recognised the gravity of the situation, and sent all the forces he could muster to oppose Kahtaba. But the Hashimite troops carried all before them. They defeated a large Syrian army near Isfahan, and captured the important stronghold of Nahāvend, A.H. 132 (749). Then Kahtaba started for Kūfa, making a slight detour to avoid Ibn Hobayra, who was encamped at Jalūlā. On reaching the Euphrates, Ibn Hobayra came up with him, and a battle ensued at nightfall near Kerbelā. Kahtaba perished,1 but his son Hasan continuing the fray defeated Ibn Hobayra, and drove him back on Wāsit. Meanwhile the Yemenites revolted in Kufa, and on the arrival of the victorious Hashimite forces 2 delivered up the town to them. the entry of Hasan ibn Kahtaba into Kufa the head of the 'Abbasid house, Abu-l-'Abbās, emerged from his hiding-place, and the town for the time became the seat of the 'Abbasids. Abū Sālama was provisionally recognised as the Vezir of the house of Mohammed. Meanwhile the fate of the Umayyads had been decided by the battle of the Zab in Mesopotamia, A.H. 132

On

1 His horse ran away with him and, slipping on the banks of the river, threw its rider into the water, where he was drowned. His disappearance was not remarked until daybreak. The Guzida says that Ibn Hobayra also perished in the battle.

2 Numbering, according to the Persian Tabari, more than 30,000 men.

(750), where Merwän himself, surrounded by his greatest generals, encountered the Hashimites under 'Abdullah, Abū-l-'Abbas's uncle. Merwān suffered a crushing defeat, and fled, hotly pursued, to Egypt, where he was finally captured and slain.

At the beginning of this year Abu-l-'Abbās, called Es-Saffah, or the "Shedder of Blood," was proclaimed Caliph in the great mosque of Kufa. The new Caliph's first measure was to sweep the entire Umayyad race from the face of the earth. The traditions which have come down to us of his butcheries pass all belief.1 Syria was soon reduced, and Ibn Hobayra surrendered his last retreat, Wäsit. But troubles continued throughout his reign. Abū Muslim's attempts to put all the Umayyad faction to the sword led to a serious rising in Khorāsān. The partisans of the fallen dynasty, in Bokhārā, Soghdiana, and Farghāna, aided by the emperor of China, took the field in force, but were soon dispersed with great slaughter by Ziyad, governor of Samarkand. "It is plain," says Vambéry,2 « from the historical sources before us that the original Iranian population of the land, namely, the Tajiks, fought under the banner of Nasr, and long remained true to the cause of the Ommayades."

"The resistance which Nasr ibn Sayyar offered not

1 The Caliph's two uncles, Dā'ud and Abdullah,—the former in Mekka and Medina, the latter in Palestine,-were responsible for the wholesale extermination of the Umayyads in those countries. The historians tell us that 'Abdullah on one occasion invited seventy members of the house of Umayya to a feast, under promises of a full amnesty, and that, at a given signal, the servants fell upon the unsuspecting guests and put them all to death. This tragedy recalls the famous "Blood bath" in Stockholm, but the Umayyads had no Gustav Wasa to avenge their death. We are told that the spirit of revenge carried them so far that they caused all the tombs of the Umayyad Caliph to be opened, and what remained of their corpses to be scattered to the winds. Cf. Chroniques de Tabari, vol. iv. p. 343.

2 History of Bokhara, p. 40.