(a.), literally “the wearers, or bearers, of black”, the name given to the partisans of the ʿAbbāsids at the time of the daʿwas of Abū Muslim al-K̲h̲urāsānī and Abū Salama al-K̲h̲allāl [q.vv.], apparently from the black banners which these rebels against the Umayyads bore, so that they are described in some sources as the aṣḥāb al-rāyāt al-sawdāʾ .

The origins of this use of black are obscure and have been much discussed. In the first place, the use of black may have been simply a mark of rebellion, for the anti-Umayyad rebel in K̲h̲urāsān and Transoxania, al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. Surayd̲j̲ [q.v.], act…