Meanwhile, since the departure of the messengers from Abu ʿAbdullah to ʿUbayd Allah, the former had continued his career of conquest. Meila, Satif, and other towns immediately near the Katama territory were taken, and the governor at Kairawan was no longer able to disguise from himself that the Shiʿite revolt was threatening the very basis of Arab authority in Ifrikiya. Under these circumstances Ziadat Allah assembled a council of canonists to advise him about the Shiʿite claims. The meeting took place in the house of the prince’s chief adviser, Abdullah b. Essaig, and, after considering the religious character of Abu ʿAbdullah’s movement, and especially the report that “he cursed the Companions,” _i.e._, that he was a Shiʿite who cursed the first three Khalifs as usurpers who had excluded ʿAli from his rights, regardless of the fact that they had been the companions of the Prophet, they decided that Abu ʿAbdullah and his followers must be publicly denounced as heretics. Fortified with this decision which was necessary to stop the tendency of his own people to favour the Shiʿites, the Aghlabid assembled an army of 40,000 men whom he placed under a kinsman named Ibrahim b. Habashi b. ʿUmar at-Tamimi, and sent them against the Katama. Ibrahim took up his quarters at Konstantina l-Hawa, on the western edge of the Katama country, and there he stayed six months without actually attacking the Shiʿites, but serving as a check upon their movements. As soon as he appeared Abu ʿAbdullah retired to his usual retreat, “the house of flight,” and no further advance was made on either side. As Ahwal had already proved, this kind of patrol work was the most effective. But Ibrahim desired a decisive punishment of the revolted tribes, and rashly resolved to move out and attack Kerma, one of the cities occupied by the Shiʿites. On the way Abu ʿAbdullah met and defeated him, and he had to flee with the remnants of his army to Kairawan.
Matters were now becoming extremely serious, and Ziadat assembled a new force which he entrusted to Harun b. Tabni. Harun marched upon Daralmoluk and took it, but immediately afterwards Abu ʿAbdullah arrived with his main band, and a general engagement ensued, in which Harun was killed and his forces completely routed. After this victory Abu ʿAbdullah marched upon Banjas, which capitulated, and then was in a position to threaten Kairawan itself. We have now reached the year 295, and at this point Ziadat Allah raised a third army and took command himself. He advanced to Elaris, but there his courtiers began to remonstrate with him: if any disaster took place and he were involved it would mean the downfall of the Aghlabid dynasty, a result which would not necessarily proceed from the defeat of a subordinate general. Persuaded by his entourage Ziadat Allah appointed his kinsman Ibrahim as commander-in-chief, and himself retired to Raqada to the south-west of Kairawan, and gave himself over entirely to a life of pleasure.