[1] He was a prominent member of the Ibadi Kharijite movement in Basra, headed by Abu Ubayda Muslim ibn Abi Karima, who sent him to Hadramawt, where the qadi Abdallah ibn Yahya al-Kindi was gaining prominence.
[2][4] In mid-747, at the time of the Hajj pilgrimage, Abdallah entrusted al-Mukhtar with some 900–1,000 strong, and sent him to occupy the two Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
[2][4] Al-Mukhtar seized Mecca in August 747 without a fight,[5] but before Medina was opposed by a local force, which he defeated with great loss of life in October 747.
[6] The expansion of the Ibadi uprising worried the Umayyad caliph Marwan II, who in January 748 sent his general, Abd al-Malik ibn Atiyya, to suppress it with 4,000 troops.
The Umayyad general defeated and killed Abu Hamza before Medina and retook control of the Hejaz.