February 14, AD 748

Abbasid capture of Merv

Abu Muslim occupies Merv and displaces its Umayyad governor

Abu Muslim never had to storm Merv. He waited until his two rivals started fighting each other, then entered without opposition.

Walking into the provincial capital

One modern scholarly synthesis dates Abu Muslim's occupation of Merv to 14 or 15 February 748, and reports that he entered without opposition after waiting for fighting to begin between Nasr ibn Sayyar and Ali ibn Juday al-Kirmani.

Nasr, the last Umayyad governor of Khurasan, fled the city with a small escort and withdrew toward Nishapur.

The unresolved factional war between those two rivals was the opening; this was a political occupation, not a pitched battle in which Abu Muslim defeated Nasr.

A government by evening

Abu Muslim occupied the government palace, accepted allegiance and installed officials — a guard chief, a security chief, a judge and a registry official.

He also executed leading officers associated with the previous order.

A later narrative puts the number of those officers at twenty-four.

The date, and what came after

The exact date is genuinely disputed. Scholarly works give 14–15 February 748, 27 January 748, 12 or 14 January, and further variants across December 747 and January 748.

Those disagreements reflect variant lunar-month readings and conversions of dates preserved in medieval narratives, so 14 February should not be presented as uncontested.

Qahtaba's pursuit of Nasr, the taking of Nishapur, the battle at Jurjan and the occupation of Rayy were later stages of the 748 campaign; taking Merv consolidated the revolt in Khurasan without yet overthrowing the Umayyad caliphate.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources not yet audited Date disputed

How this was checked

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Date disputed. Sources disagree about when this happened.

What the sources leave uncertain

The exact date is genuinely disputed. Scholarly works give 14–15 February 748, 27 January 748, 12 or 14 January, and variants in December 747–January 748.
The disagreement reflects variant lunar-month readings and conversion of dates preserved in medieval narratives; 14 February should therefore not be presented as uncontested.
Although Merv was culturally part of the Iranian world and was capital of Khurasan, its archaeological site is in modern Turkmenistan—not modern Iran.