Page:Muhammad Diyab al-Itlidi - Historical Tales and Anecdotes of the Time of the Early Khalîfahs - Alice Frere - 1873.djvu/267

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Abbasside dynasty. Ibn-Khalikân calls him the champion and asserter of the rights of the Abbassides to the Khalîfate. He was not of the house of el-Abbâs, nor do historians seem agreed as to his birth, some even maintaining that he was originally a slave of Kurd extraction. Be that as it may, he attached himself to the house of el-Abbâs, and so great were his talents as a general, that the Khalîfah Marwân's troops could make no head against him, and in 129 all Marwân's commandants of fortresses in Khorassân were obliged either to take an oath of fidelity to Ibrahîm, or within a limited time to quit the province. In 131, Ibrahîm, while on his way to perform the pilgrimage to Mekkah, was seized by the troops of Marwân, which came up with him near Harrân, carried him to that city, and confined him in prison, where he soon after died. His brother Abu-ʾAbd-Allâh, es-Saffâh, succeeded him, and mainly owing to the exertions and ability of Abu-Muslim, Marwân and his forces were driven from point to point until at length he retreated to Egypt, where he was slain, 132 ( 750), and es-Saffâh took possession of the Khalîfate without further resistance.

Es-Saffâh after this treated Abu-Muslim with the highest honour for his services, and the talents he had displayed in conducting this important enterprise. And from that time he constantly repeated aloud the lines given in the text. Ibn-Khalikân gives a slightly different version of them.

Es-Saffâh died of smallpox at el-Anbâr, or at el-Hâshimiyyah, a city erected by him at a short distance from the former, 136, on the very day that he completed his thirty-third year. He was succeeded by his brother Abu-Jaʾafar, el-Mansûr. But though the house of el-Abbâs owed its elevation to the Khalîfate almost entirely to Abu-Muslim, there had for some time been a considerable misunderstanding between that general and Abu-Jaʾafar. The latter, indeed, observing the devotion of the people of Khorassân to Abu-Muslim,