[169] An amusing incident is given in this connection by Tabari. Kirmānī was very stout, and the passage by which he had to escape was so narrow that his servant was obliged to drag him through by main force, and the operation very nearly killed him. [170] See note 1, p. 82. [171] For a full account of the story of El-Kirmānī and Hārith ibn Surayj, see Tabari, _Annales_, Series II. pp. 1855–69, 1887–90, and 1917–35. [172] The following table will explain the descent of the two branches:-- Kossay | `Abd Menāf | +------+--------------+ | | `Abd Shems Hāshim | | Umayya `Abd al-Muttalib | +--------------+----+------------+ | | | Abū Tālib `Abdullah `Abbās | | `Alī _Mohammed_ [173] Zotenberg, _op. cit._ vol. iv. p. 323 _et seq._ [174] He was then not twenty years of age. [175] We are told that Abū Muslim wished to have a distinctive colour for his party, the Umayyads having adopted white. After making one of his slaves clothe himself in suits of various colours, he ordered him to dress in black, and finding the sombre hue the most awe-inspiring adopted it for his party. Cf. Zotenberg, _lot cit._ p. 327. Later the Khārijites adopted red, and the Shi`ites green. [176] Nasr ibn Sayyār was a poet of no mean order, and Arabic histories contain many quotations from his compositions, specimens of which will be found on p. 87 and 88 of Nöldeke’s _Delectus Vet. Carm. Arab_. [177] Two very different versions of the end of Nasr are to be found in Oriental histories. That given in the text is the usually accepted one; but in the Persian translation of Tabari (cf. Zotenberg, _loc cit._ p. 329), in the _Tārīkh-i-Guzīda_, etc., we are told that he fled unaccompanied as far as Ray, where he died. No mention is made here of the engagements with Kahtaba, who, according to the author of the _Guzīda_, gained possession of Jurjān, Ray, Sāva, and Kum without striking a blow. [178] His horse ran away with him and, slipping on the banks of the river, threw its rider into the water, where he was drowned. His disappearance was not remarked until daybreak. The _Guzīda_ says that Ibn Hobayra also perished in the battle. [179] Numbering, according to the Persian Tabari, more than 30,000 men.