ABSTRACT
Muqanna had gathered a large number of intensely devoted supporters to the fortress on Mount Siyom. He demonstrated great skill in attracting popular attention with dramatic displays of collective action and by the advanced construction of lights. Later writers expanded and exaggerated these events to create legends. The Caliph al-Mahdi ordered a continuous siege of the fortress, until the defenders exhausted their supplies. Popular opinion shifted against Muqanna’s movement because his allies, the Turks, plundered the people ruthlessly. After the Arabs killed Muqanna’s top commander, the defenders on the outer wall accepted a safe conduct to surrender. After realizing that his cause was lost, Muqanna arranged for his followers to drink poison to avoid torture, rape, and slavery, and he also then killed himself. Ayni attributes the failure of this rebellion to Muqanna’s lack of strategic military understanding, the betrayal of the Turks, and the independence of each town and city that prevented coordinated defensive action.
