A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

Kök Turks, Chinese expansion, and Arab conquest 65
did not intervene personally, but sent troops under Ziyad ibn Salih who
speedily and ruthlessly crushed the insurgents: first in Bukhara, then in
Samarkand.Ziyad stayed on in Samarkand as governor, and soon was
to fight and win a battle whose historical importance (which no doubt
escaped him) will be mentioned below.
One of Abu Muslim’s partisans was a certain Hashim ibn Hakim (his
exact name is a matter of debate), a native of Balkh who early moved to
the vicinity of Merv.He took part in the Abbasid dawa (religious and
political propaganda), and after the murder of Abu Muslim in 755
joined other groups of Shii extremists often characterized by the epithet
ghulat, “those who exaggerate.” These dissidents often claimed to possess
an understanding of the inner meaning (batin; hence their collective
name Batiniya) of the Koran and thus felt free to give it the interpretation
of their choice, in contrast to the more orthodox believers who followed
its outer meaning (zahir).Some of the Batiniya went so far as to
attribute prophethood or even divinity to the founders or leaders of their
sects.A striking example is that of a sect founded by Hashim ibn Hakim
when he emerged, sometime in 759 or soon thereafter, with claims of
being a prophet and an incarnation of divinity.He also began to appear
only with his face hidden under a qina or veil (either of green silk or a
mask of gold), and thus came to be known in Arabic as al-Muqanna,“The
Veiled One.” The reason for this comportment received two explanations:
according to his adherents, he wanted to shield the mortals from
the impact of his divine radiance, or, according to his detractors, he
wished to hide the deformities of his face.Al-Muqanna gained a devoted
following in Khurasan, but not enough to openly challenge Abbasid
authority there.His dais or missionaries, however, met with remarkable
success in Transoxania, so that he himself eventually joined them and
launched an open uprising that came close to overthrowing Abbasid rule
in Central Asia. The struggle lasted for some fourteen years, until after
several reverses the caliph al-Mahdi’s troops managed to surround the
rebels’ mountain stronghold Sanam, to the east of the Sogdian city of
Kesh, and storm it in 783.Al-Muqanna perished in the assault, and historical
sources offer conflicting versions of his death.One states that he
had thrown himself into a fire, wishing to be consumed by it to the point
of annihilation which would make his followers believe that he had risen
to heaven.The subsequent destinies of his movement bear out, if not
the letter, then the spirit of this version.It existed as an underground sect
for perhaps two centuries, outwardly professing Islam but secretly
expecting al-Muqanna’s triumphant return.The initial strength of the