Note 180 — Chapter XI · Khorāsān under the First `Abbāsids

The Caliph’s two uncles, Dā´ūd and `Abdullah,—the former in Mekka and Medīna, the latter in Palestine,—were responsible for the wholesale extermination of the Umayyads in those countries. The historians tell us that `Abdullah on one occasion invited seventy members of the house of Umayya to a feast, under promises of a full amnesty, and that, at a given signal, the servants fell upon the unsuspecting guests and put them all to death. This tragedy recalls the famous “Blood bath” in Stockholm, but the Umayyads had no Gustav Wasa to avenge their death. We are told that the spirit of revenge carried them so far that they caused all the tombs of the Umayyad Caliph to be opened, and what remained of their corpses to be scattered to the winds. Cf. Chroniques de Tabari, vol. iv. p. 343.