[1] ‘Alī ibn Muḥammad was born in the village of Warzanīn in the suburbs of Ray, and belonged to the Azāriqah sect of the Khārijites. He claimed to be a sayyid (descendant of the Holy Prophet) by showing himself the son of Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Mukhtafī ibn ‘Īsā ibn Zayd ibn ‘Alī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, but the experts on lineality and biographers have not accepted his claim to being a sayyid and have given his father’s name as Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd ar-Raḥīm instead of Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad. The former was from the tribe of ‘Abd al-Qays and had been born of a Sindī maidslave. ‘Alī ibn Muḥammad rose as an insurgent in 255 A.H. in the reign of al-Muhtadī Billāh and associated with him the people from the suburbs of Basrah on promise of money, wealth and freedom. He entered Baṣrah on the 17th Shuwwāl, 255 A.H. killing and looting, and in only two days he put to death thirty thousand individuals, men, women and children, and displayed extreme oppression, bloodshed, savageness and ferocity. He dismantled houses, burnt mosques, and after continuous killing and devastation for fourteen years, was killed in the month of Safar, 270 A.H. in the reign of Muwaffaq Billāh. Then people got rid of his devastating deeds. Amīr al-mu’minīn’s prophecy is one of those prophecies which throw light on his knowledge of the unknown. The details of his army given by Amīr al-mu’minīn namely that there would be neither neighing of horses nor rustling of weapons therein is a historical fact. The historian aṭ-Ṭabarī has written that when this man reached near al-Karkh (a sector of Baghdād) with the intention of insurrection, the people of that place welcomed him, and a man presented him a horse for which no rein could be found despite a search. At last he rode it using a rope for the rein. Similarly there were at that time only three swords in his force —one with himself, one with ‘Alī ibn Abān al-Muhallabī, and one with Muḥammad ibn Salm, but later they collected some more weapons by marauding.