The Chaliphate - Muir - The Search For Mecca

CHAPTER LXI
abu'l-'abbAs as-saffAi.i
132-136 A.H. 749-754 A-D.
A BRIEF review may here be necessary, to recall the
circumstances attending the establishment' of the new
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Caliphate at Al-Kufa.
Saffah, In a previous chapter we have seen that while Merwan
132 A.H. still tarried at Harran, Ibn Hubeira, the Umeiyad general,
was defeated in the vicinity of Al-Kufa b)- the army of
Kahtaba, and obliged to fall back on Wasit. Abu Salama,
heretofore the busy leader and agent of the Hashimi
cause in Khorasan, now came and encamped at Al-Kufa in
the beginning of the year 132 A.H., where, meeting with little
opposition, he took possession of the city, and for a time
carried on .the government under the simple title of " Wazir
of the house of Mohammad." On the arrest of Ibrahim, two
or three years before, his two brothers with all the relatives
of the house of Hashim had fled from. Al-Homeima to
'Abbasid Al-Kufa, where they remained ever since in concealment.
family
Thev were now taken charge of by Abu Salam.a, but for
brought into
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-i i i
Kiifa, several weeks still kept by hnn in the strictest privacy.
11. 132 A.H.
When urged to declare at once the advent of the new dynasty,
Uct., 749 A. D. °
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he said that it would be premature and dangerous so long
as Ibn Hubeira maintained his stand at Wasit. Some
suspected him of favouring the other branch of Hashim.i stock,
that, namely, descended from 'All, but of these none had now
the ambition or the courage to come forward. However that
may be, the 'Abbasid party were impatient at the delay,
and learning that Ibrahim, late head of the House, had
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