The Abbasid da'wa in Khurasan

Al-Dinawari reports, introducing it with “they say”, that in the year Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik came to power, early in 101 AH, the partisans came to Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Abd Allah ibn Abbas at al-Humayma in Syria, and he told them to call people gently and in secret. ¹ He sent Maysara and Ibn Khunays to Iraq and Abu Ikrima and Hayyan to Khurasan, who went from district to district calling to him in the guise of merchants. ⁴

Bukayr ibn Mahan succeeded Maysara in Iraq and later appointed Abu Salama al-Khallal. Abu Ikrima and Hayyan were seized in Khurasan by Asad ibn Abd Allah, executed and crucified. ⁵ The imam then sent five men, among them Sulayman ibn Kathir, Malik ibn al-Haytham and Musa ibn Ka'b, ordering them to bind every recruit by oath to secrecy; they travelled through Merv, Bukhara, Samarqand, Kish, Nasaf and other places until the cause was known throughout Khurasan. ^{6 2}

The leadership in Khurasan then passed to Abu Muslim, who sent each companion to a region, travelling as merchants, and set them a fixed day for the rising. ³ Al-Dinawari reports that the followers in Khurasan dyed their clothes black in mourning when they heard of Muhammad ibn Ali's death, the first being Hurayth, client of Khuza'a, and then Qahtaba ibn Shabib. ⁷ On the appointed day they came from every district in black, with the watchword “O Mansur”, some hundred thousand men. ^{8 9} The da'wa ended with the oath to Abu al-Abbas at Kufa in Rajab 132. ¹⁰