ABSTRACT
The Umayyad Caliph at last recognised the gravity of the situation, and sent all the forces he could muster to oppose Kahtaba. But the Hāshimite troops carried all before them. They defeated a large Syrian army near Isfahān, and captured the important stronghold of Nahāvend, a.h. 132 (749). Then Kahtaba started for Küfa, 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 Kūfa, and on the arrival of the victorious Hāshimite forces 2 delivered up the town to them. On the entry of Hasan ibn Kahtaba into Kūfa the head of the ‘Abbāsid house, Abū-l-‘ Abbās, emerged from his hiding-place, and the town for the time became the seat of the ‘Abbāsids. Abū Sālama was provisionally recognised as the Vezīr of the house of Mohammed. Meanwhile the fate of the Umayyads had been decided by the battle of the Zāb in Mesopotamia, a.h. 132 (7 50)> where Merwān himself, surrounded by his greatest generals, encountered the Hāshimites under ‘Abdullah, Abū-l-‘Abbās’s uncle. Merwān suffered a crushing defeat, and fled, hotly pursued, to Egypt, where he was finally captured and slain.
