The Shiʿi anti-Umayyad daʿwa was led by a network of individuals who worked in secrecy, therefore accounts about this organisation and about the person of Bukayr b. Māhān, who until his death was its most prominent dāʿī, are shrouded in obscurity. Al-Ṭabarī, who probably took his account from Abū al-Ḥasan al-Madāʾinī, provides scant but significant information about this period of the daʿwa up to the death of Bukayr (e.g. see 7/49–50). Other authors and historians of the 3rd/9th century, such as al-Balādhurī (d. 279/892), provide similar information. However, it is the work known as Akhb…