Following Khumarawayh's ascension to power in 884, the Abbasid central government decided to reassert its control over the provinces ruled by him and invaded northern Syria that year.

Immediately al-Muwaffaq ended the ongoing negotiations that he had been conducting with Ibn Tulun, and refused to recognize Khumarawayh's rule over Egypt and Syria.

A prominent Tulunid general, Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Wasiti, then defected to al-Muwaffaq, and urged him to make war on the "young and inexperienced" Khumarawayh and recover the latter's provinces for the central government.

The Tulunid army first proceeded to Damascus, where they succeeded in forcing its rebel governor to flee, and then advanced to Shayzar on the Orontes.

[11][14] The two armies met at a village called at-Tawahin ("the Mills"), situated between Ramlah and Damascus, on 5/6 April 885 (although later Egyptian sources like al-Maqrizi give the date, probably erroneously, as 7 August).

[17] Believing that they had won the battle, the Abbasid troops proceeded to plunder the Tulunid camp, with Abu'l-Abbas installing himself in Khumarawayh's own tent.

Abu'l-Abbas, who mistakenly thought that Khumarawayh had returned to the fight, decided to flee with what men he had left, and the Tulunids plundered his camp in turn.

[11] After spending some time at Tarsus, they were ousted from the city by its residents in mid-885, at which point Abu'l-Abbas decided to withdraw from Syria and return to Iraq.

[8] In late 886, he launched an offensive against the Jazira; Ishaq ibn Kundaj was defeated and forced to flee, and the province came under the Tulunid sphere of influence.

In 893 Abu'l-Abbas, now Caliph, succeeded in regaining the Jaziran provinces by treaty, and after Khumarawayh's death in 896, took advantage of Tulunid weakness to recover northern Syria and Cilicia as well.

[23] Finally, in 905 the Abbasids launched a campaign that rapidly brought about the end of Tulunid autonomy and fully re-incorporated their lands into the Caliphate.