The Chaliphate - Muir - The Search For Mecca

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A.D. 748-50] DEFEAT OF .SYRIANS 427
ibn Kahtaba, then took command, and, following up his
father's success, forced Ibn Hubeira, abandoning his camp and
all its stores, to retire on Wasit. Al-Kufa thus uncovered,
the Hashimi force advanced, and after slight opposition,
for the Syrian troops deserted hastily the Umeiyad leader,
took possession of the city; and shortly after Abu'l 'Abbas
with his family and relatives emerged from their hiding
there. In anticipation of the new order of things (reserved
for another chapter), Abu Salama, who had been one of the
busy agents of the Hashimis in Khorasan, was recognised
provisionally as " Wazir of the house of Mohammad," and
Mohammad, son of Khalid (former governor of Al-Kufa),
as " Amlr."^ In general the Yemen (with Rabi'a) supported
the revolution, Modar the Arab supremacy, and in Al-Basra
Modar for the moment succeeded.
Meanwhile, stirring events were passing in Upper
Mesopotamia. Kahtaba, in his victorious progress westward,
had detached an able general, Abu 'Aun, from
Nihavcnd to press forwards to Mesopotamia. Reaching
Shahrazor, east of the Little Zab, towards the end of 131
A. 1 1., he there defeated with great slaughter the troops of
'Abdallah, Merwan's son, and occupied the region east of
Mosul. The Caliph himself, since his campaign against
the Khawarij, had remained inactive at Harran. He was
now roused, by seeing the enemy at his very door, to take
the field in jjerson,—which earlier done, the issue might
have been very different ; but now with rebellion, defeat,
and disaffection around, the ground was sinking under
foot. Crossing the Tigris, he advanced upon the Greater
Zab with an army of 120,000, sufficiently strong in numbers
to meet his enemy, but made up in great measure of lukewarm
Yemeni tribes and Khawarij. Meanwhile, Ibn
Ilubeira having retired on Wasit, Abu'l-' Abbas the rival
Caliph— allegiance had been sworn to him in Al-Kufa on
A.H. 130-