Talk:Battle of the Zab

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The Shiites in this Battle were not Arabs; they were Shiites who rebelled against the Arabs

According to William L. Cleveland in his book a History of the Modern Middle East non-Arab Muslims who were also called the Mwalis played a significant role in the rebellion in Zab, the main cause of this battle was that the Muwalis who were non-Arabs who converted to Islam and were Muwalis to Ali that is Shiite were treated as second class subjects to the Umayyad State that was ruled exclusively by Arabs. So, your claim that the Shiites who actually rebelled were Arabs is questionable.

Abu Muslim

I dont know from where you got that abu Muslim was the leader of the battle, all Islamic sources such as al Tabri and Ibn Kathir say that it was lead by abdullah ibn ali, this is what ibn Kathir says in al bedyat and nehayat and i quote:

"We have mentioned that Marwan, when he heard the news of Abu Musallam and his followers, and what happened in the land of Khorasan, he turned from Haran and landed on a river close to Mosul. He reached al Zab from the land of iraq and then when he learned that the al suffah became a caliph in al kufa and had soldiers allied to him. Then Al saffah gathered his soldiers and brought them to Abu 'Awn bin Abi Yazid in a heavy army, one of the princes of the al saffah, and gave him the the govenrship of al zab and supplies from the hand of the al saffah, but then he gave the lead to his uncle Abdullah bin Ali and said: God's blessing."

The source for Abu Muslim being a field commander during this battle is given in the article, it's Encyclopedia Universalis, which is, as far as i know, a reliable source. Best regards.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 02:13, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

So you use an obscure French secondary source whilst ignoring the primary sources that state otherwise? What primary sources are they basing their claim of Abu Muslim's lead role on? ChoseADifferentName (talk) 09:21, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

For your information, an encyclopedia is a tertiary source, not a secondary one.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 07:51, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Oh even better! ChoseADifferentName (talk) 17:41, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

The source cited for Abu Muslim’s participation in the battle includes a significant factual error — it claims that Abu Muslim and al-Saffah were brothers. This is historically inaccurate, as there is no evidence of a blood relationship between Abu Muslim and the Abbasid family. While the source might appear reliable overall, this particular claim raises concerns about its accuracy. It may be appropriate to either qualify the statement or replace the source with one that is accurate. @Wikaviani I hope you do another re-check for the source that is cited again and decide it's fate. R3YBOl (talk) 06:44, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

The source is better than nothing, unless you have a better source that contradicts it, this source should remain.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 07:56, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

While reviewing the article's history edits, I found that the addition of Abu muslim as a commander was originally made by a user with only two edits [1] by a user with only two edits. That user was subsequently banned, likely for disruptive edits, and the change [2] was reverted by an administrator.

Later, [3] A very similar or we should say the same edit appeared Likely for the same individual using a new account — strongly suggesting sockpuperty. Given that the original addition was inaccurate, reverted by an admin, and possibly reinstated via a sock account, I would say we should remove abu muslim from the commander list. while he played an important role and political role in the Abbasid Revolution, There are no other sources here list him as a battlefield commander at the Zab. Additionally I did a small check about something so many other Wikipedia articles from different languages about the same Topic of the battle and as I see There was like 8 Articles didn't mention abu muslim's name and 3-4 articles mentioned or listed him in the commander list using the same inaccurate source (It's not useful but whatever I wanted to mention this). I guess it's enough to say that we should remove him from the commander list. R3YBOl (talk) 08:45, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

I removed abu muslim. I will try to find sources of his involvement in the battle Later. R3YBOl (talk) 09:10, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

@Wikaviani - As promised, I've tracked down better sourcing for Abu Muslim's role in the battle. See the new citation in the article. R3YBOl (talk) 08:50, 1 June 2025 (UTC)