The revolt failed to gather support among the populace, and the reaction of the Abbasid garrison prevented the rebels from establishing control over the city, and eventually confined them to the Mosque itself.

In the ensuing battle, at the wadi of Fakhkh [ar] near Mecca, Husayn and over a hundred of his followers were killed, many others were captured, and some escaped by passing themselves off as pilgrims, including the future founder of the Idrisid dynasty in what is now Morocco.

[1] The change of dynasty was not a mere succession struggle, but the culmination of a broad social and political movement that rejected the Umayyad regime, which was widely regarded as oppressive, too dependent on and favouring its Syrian heartland to the exclusion of other areas, and more concerned with the worldly aspects of the caliphate than the teachings of Islam.

However, the Abbasids exploited the vagueness of the al-Rida min Al Muhammad slogan by portraying themselves as also being members of the wider 'Family of the Prophet' through their common descent from the Banu Hashim clan.

The situation grew worse when it was discovered that Abu'l-Zift, for whom Husayn had vouched together with Yahya ibn Abdallah (a half-brother of Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya), had fled the city.

One of them, Musa ibn Ja'far al-Kadhim, who is considered as the seventh imam by the Twelver Shi'a, reportedly warned Husayn that his actions would only result in his death.

[11][19] The assembled rebels were soon confronted by about 200 men from the local Abbasid garrison, with al-Umari and a certain Khalid al-Barbari, supervisor of the state domains at Medina, at their head.

Khalid charged forward, aiming to kill Husayn, but was cut down by Yahya ibn Abdallah and his brother Idris; taking heart, the rebels attacked the Abbasid troops, who fled.

I summon you to the Book of God and the Sunnah of His prophet, and if I do not fulfill that for you, then I have no claim upon you for obedience.The revolt failed to find many adherents;[12][11] according to al-Tabari, "the people of Medina locked their doors".

After another day of fierce fighting, interrupted only during the hot noon hours, the Alids were confined to the area of the mosque, while the Abbasids used the nearby governor's residence as their base.

[11][23] In their wake, they left the mosque in a state of filth, defiled with the bones of the animals the beleaguered Alids had been eating, and its curtains cut up to make kaftans, leading to general indignation among the Medinese.

Several Abbasid princes were at that time returning from their pilgrimage to Mecca, which that year had been led by Sulayman ibn Abi Ja'far, a son of Caliph al-Mansur.

Muhammad turned back to Mecca, where he was joined by the armed retinues of all of the Abbasid elites who had been in the city: the sources refer to 130 men mounted on horses and some mules, 200 on donkeys, and unspecified numbers of infantry.

[14][30] Al-Tabari and other medieval Muslim authors report stories about al-Hadi's sorrow and regret over the necessity of the death of "the Messenger of God's own offspring", but modern historians doubt their authenticity, especially as other sources explicitly record the caliph ordering the execution of prisoners who had received aman at Fakhkh.

[14] Idris eventually moved to the Maghreb, and in 789 established the Idrisid dynasty in the area of modern Morocco, while his brother Yahya raised a revolt in Daylam in 792.

Veccia Vaglieri points out that in Husayn's formula, "the duty of the subjects to obey him depended on his keeping the promises which he had made", something emulated a century later by al-Hadi ila'l-Haqq Yahya, when he founded a Zaydi state in Yemen.