After the accession of the second Umayyad caliph, Yazid, the Kufans invited Husyan ibn Ali to lead a revolt against him.
Following these emotions, an organized movement was started by a group of Kufan Shia, who called themselves Tawwabin (the penitents).
[1] The uprising started under the leadership of five followers of Husayn's father Ali ibn Abi Talib, and initially comprised one hundred Kufans, all aged sixty years or more.
One of the reasons was that Mukhtar al-Thaqafi believed that Sulayman had no experience of wars, so many Shia, especially those from Mada'in and Basra, from Khuzai's army began to abandon him in large numbers.
The Tawwabin pressed on to Ayn al-Warda (identified with Ra's al-Ayn), where they met an Umayyad army of 20,000, under command of Husayn ibn Numayr.
Although the Tawwabin held the upper hand in a first skirmish, over the next two days the numerical superiority of the Umayyad army began to prevail.