[180] The Caliph’s two uncles, Dā´ūd and `Abdullah,--the former in Mekka and Medīna, the latter in Palestine,--were responsible for the wholesale extermination of the Umayyads in those countries. The historians tell us that `Abdullah on one occasion invited seventy members of the house of Umayya to a feast, under promises of a full amnesty, and that, at a given signal, the servants fell upon the unsuspecting guests and put them all to death. This tragedy recalls the famous “Blood bath” in Stockholm, but the Umayyads had no Gustav Wasa to avenge their death. We are told that the spirit of revenge carried them so far that they caused all the tombs of the Umayyad Caliph to be opened, and what remained of their corpses to be scattered to the winds. Cf. _Chroniques de Tabari_, vol. iv. p. 343. [181] _History of Bokhara_, p. 40. [182] Es-Saffāh was ten years younger than Abū Ja`far, but, as Weil suggests, was preferred to the latter, because his mother was a free woman, while his brother’s was a slave. [183] See Weil, _Geschichte der Khalifen_, vol. ii. pp. 24, 25. [184] The correspondence is fully reported by Tabari; and Weil, recognising its historical interest, has translated in full three of the letters. Cf. Weil, _op. cit._ vol. ii. pp. 27, 28. [185] Tabari, _Annales_, Series III. p. 122. [186] An account of this man may be found in the _Siasset Namèh_, pp. 122–23 of Schefer’s text. [187] In the Arabic, _Wadhālika innahu kāna min sanāyi`ihi_. [188] Numbering 6000 men. [189] Wrongly read by Weil as _Jumhur_. [190] Tabari, _loc cit._ p. 120. [191] According to both versions of Tabari, he fell from a window and broke his back. [192] El-Mahdi, who was at this time about twenty years of age, had, we are told, a lieutenant to assist him in his duties as governor. [193] The _Rāvandīs_ believed in the transmigration of souls, and held that the soul of the Deity was temporarily resident in the body of the Caliph, while the souls of Adam and Gabriel were residing in the bodies of two of his generals. For accounts of this sect, see Weil, _Geschichte der Khalifen_, vol. ii. p. 36 _et seq._; Muir, _The Caliphate_, p. 448; Tabari, _Annales_, Series III. p. 129 _et seq._; and Zotenberg, _Chroniques de Tabari_, vol. iv. p. 137 _et seq._ [194] In the preceding pages undue space may appear to have been given to the history of the Caliphs, but the growing importance of Central Asia will in future render our history almost independent of events at Baghdād. [195] The famous _Annales_ of Tabari (which have been our _Haupt-Quelle_ for the history of the Arabs in Central Asia), like those of Ibn el-Athīr, are arranged under the heading of each succeeding year. We make a point of giving throughout the name of each governor of Khorāsān appointed by the Caliphs, for, though such details are in themselves trivial, no list of them has, to our knowledge, appeared in any European work.