Battle of the Zab
Abbasids rout Marwan II at the Great Zab
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗When the Syrian cavalry hit their line, the Khurasani soldiers got off their horses, crouched down and pointed their lances outward.
25 January 750, on the Great Zab
Near the Great Zab in northern Iraq, the Abbasid army commanded by Abd Allah ibn Ali confronted the Umayyad army of Caliph Marwan II. Al-Tabari dates Marwan's rout to 25 January 750.
The Umayyad cavalry commander al-Walid ibn Mu'awiya attacked despite Marwan's order not to begin the battle, and drove back the Abbasid right wing under Abu Awn.
Musa ibn Ka'b advised Abd Allah to dismount his troops. They crouched with extended lances, checked the Syrian attack, and then drove Marwan's forces into flight.
The bridge
Marwan fled and the pontoon bridge was cut, trapping part of his army. Al-Tabari says more men drowned than were killed in combat.
The Abbasids retied the bridge and recovered bodies — about 300 by that account — and took Marwan's camp, weapons and wealth.
News of the victory went to Caliph Abu al-Abbas, who ordered 500 dirhams for every participant and set their monthly salary at 80 dirhams.
Marwan got away
Abd Allah stayed at the battlefield for seven days. Marwan escaped toward Harran and went on resisting.
He was killed near Busir in Egypt in August 750, not at the Zab, and Wasit and other centres still held out after the battle.
These narratives reach us through al-Tabari, compiled generations later from multiple transmitted reports, so the speeches and individual tactical anecdotes belong to their transmitters rather than to eyewitnesses.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 4 sources not yet audited Traditional date
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →
Traditional date. This date is the conventional one, not one fixed by a contemporary record.
What the sources leave uncertain
- The 25 January date is the standard conversion of 11 Jumada II 132 AH. Al-Tabari's translated text calls it Saturday, while Moshe Sharon's modern reconstruction calls it Sunday; both give 25 January 750.
- Battle narratives preserved by al-Tabari were compiled generations afterward and present multiple transmitted reports, so speeches and individual tactical anecdotes should be attributed rather than treated as eyewitness certainty.