Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/597

Rh OMAYYADS.] MOHAMMEDANISM 569 Hosain b. Nomair immediately offered the Caliphate to Ibn Zobair, on condition that he should grant a complete amnesty to all those who had taken part in the battle of Harra and in the siege of Mecca. Abdalldh had the folly to refuse, and Hosain then returned to Damascus. Ibn Zo- Thus rid of his enemy, Abdallah caused the title of bair pro- Prince of the True Believers (Amir al-mo minln) to be clamed conferred on him a title which Omar had already the Be- rece i ve d, and which was afterwards adopted by all the lievers. Caliphs. He sent one of his brothers, Obaid Allah, to Medina, and chose as governor of Egypt Abd al-Rahmdn b. Jahdam, who repaired to that province, and caused the authority of Ibn Zobair to be acknowledged there. At Basra and at Cufa, many of the inhabitants did not hesitate to acknowledge him, and received a Zobairite governor, while the Khdrijites and the Shi ites rose in revolt the former at Basra under the leadership of Ndfi b. Azrak, the latter at Cufa under that of Solaimdn b. Sorad and expelled the Omayyad governor, Obaid Alldh b. Ziydd, who took refuge at Damascus. Mesopo tamia soon followed the example of Irak. Even in Syria, the population seemed disposed to forsake the cause of the Omayyads. The Kharijites and Mokhtdr b. Abi Obaid, who had supported Ibn Zobair, now repented of having laboured for the elevation of this pretender, and quitted Mecca. The son of Zobair, remaining thenceforth sole master of Mecca, occupied himself tranquilly in rebuilding the Ka ba, which he restored on its ancient foundations. Mo dvri 3. It was in the midst of this break-up of his party ya II. that, immediately after the death of Yazid, his eldest son, Mo dwiya II. , was elected Caliph at Damascus at the age of only seventeen or twenty. He was a young man of weak character, and imbued, it is said, with Shfite opinions. He felt himself incapable of ruling, and was contemplating abdication, when he died, after a reign of but forty days, by poison, as some say ; of the plague, as others assert. The Caliphate was immediately offered to Othman b. Otba b. Abi Sofydn, cousin of Mo awiya II. ; for Khdlid, the second son of Yazid, was only sixteen years old. Othman b. Otba, however, having made it a condition of his election that he should not be compelled to enter on any war, or to condemn any one to death, the choice fell at Damascus on Merwdn b. al-Hakam, a Descendant of Omayya through his grandfather Abu l- As, but on con dition that he should marry Maisiin, the widow of Yazid, and should appoint Khalid, her son, as his successor. Merwdn 4. Merwdn b. al-Hakam had been secretary to the ! Caliph Othman, and governor of Medina under Mo awiya I. Yazid, on his accession to power, had dismissed him and put Walid b. Otba in his place ; but Merwan had continued to live at Medina, and had been driven from it daring the revolt of the year 63, and again in the following year, when Obaid Allah b. Zobair had taken possession of that city in the name of his brother. It might have been thought that Merwdn would cherish a deep hatred of Abdallah Ibn Zobair ; but he was an old man of sixty- two at the time of his election, and, dreading an unequal struggle, he was on the point of making his submission to the Meccan Caliph. The drooping courage of Merwan was revived by his son Abd al-Melik and by Obaid Allah b. Ziydd, and he resolved to try the chances of war. Dahhak b. Kais, governor of Damascus, had declared himself on the side of Ibn Zobair, and had raised an army, principally from among the tribe of Kais. This tribe had taken offence because Mo awiya I. and Yazfd had chosen their wives from the Yemenite tribe of Kalb, and, con tinuing to resent their conduct, now refused to acknowledge Khdlid as the heir-presumptive of Merwan. It was there fore on the Yemenites that Merwan had to depend for the suppression of Dahliak s rebellion. The latter had an army of nearly sixty thousand horsemen, while Merwan could bring together only thirteen thousand infantry. The two armies met at Marj Rahit, a few miles from Damascus, and, after a series of combats which lasted for twenty days, Merwdn s troops gained a complete victory, and Dahliak was among the killed. The Syrian provinces hastened to acknowledge the conqueror, and Merwdn was able to turn his attention to Egypt, which, as will be remembered, had submitted to the Meccan. Abd al- Aziz, a son of Merwdn, had already marched to Aila on the lied Sea, and was preparing to enter Egypt ; Merwdn joined him, and the Zobairite governor of Egypt, beaten by their united forces, was obliged to seek safety in flight. Merwdn made Abd al- Aziz governor of the province. At the beginning of the year 65 (A.D. 684-685) Merwdn returned in haste to Syria; for, during his absence, a brother of Ibn Zobair, named Mos ab, had invaded that province. Merwdn triumphed over Mos ab ; but an army of four thousand men, which he had sent to the Hijdz, and in which was Hajjaj b. Yiisuf then quite a young man, but who afterwards played so important a part under Abd al - Melik was cut to pieces. This defeat was redeemed by a victory gained by his generals, Obaid Alldh b. Ziyad and Hosain b. Nomair, at Ain al-Warda over a small army of Shi ites led by Solaimdn b. Sorad. But while the battle was being fought in Ramadan 65 (April-May 685), Merwdn died ; suffocated, it is said, by his wife Maisiin, because he had insulted her son Khdlid, and had broken his word by nominating his own son Abd al-Melik as his successor. The accession of Abd al- Melik was attended with no difficulty, as he was acknow ledged by the whole of Syria and Egypt. The Kaisites naturally rallied round him, because he had not a drop of Yemenite blood in his veins. 5. When Abd al-Melik ascended the throne, there still Abd al- remained much to be done before the unity of the empire Melik - could be re-established. Ibn Zobair was still master of Arabia and of Irdk, though in the latter province his authority was very much shaken by the permanent rebel lion of the Shi ites at Cufa, and of the Khdrijites at Basra. The Zobairite general Mohallab had, it is true, succeeded in forcing back the Khdrijites into Susiana and Persia ; but at Cufa the Shi ites, at the instigation of Mokhtdr, continued their agitation. Mokhtdr, as we have seen, had withdrawn from Mecca after the raising of the siege by Hosain b. Nomair. He returned to Cufa, and there fomented serious disturbances. Many of the inhabitants of that city repented bitterly of having allowed Hosain, the grandson of the Prophet, to be massacred. Amid the general disorder of the Moslem empire, Mokhtdr hoped to make his own authority acknowledged in Irdk and Mesopotamia. He put himself forward as the avenger of the family of Ali, and pretended to have been commissioned by a son of All, Mohammed b. Hanafiya, 1 who was living at Medina, to give effect to his rights to the Caliphate. Many Shi ites believed him, and, detesting their chief Solaimdn b. Sorad, joined Mokhtdr. On learning these intrigues, the Zobairite governor threw him into prison. Soon after the defeat of Solaimdn at Ain al-Warda, at the request of Mokhtdr s brother-in-law, who was no other than Abdallah the son of Omar, the governor consented to set him at liberty, on his swearing to make no further attempts against him. As Solaimdn had fallen on the 1 That is to say, the son of the Hanafite woman. The mother of Mohammed was of the tribe of Hanifa. Even before Mokhtar, Mo hammed had partisans who looked on him as destined to be Caliph. These sectaries received the name of Kaisanites, from a freedmau of All, called Kaisan, who was the most ardent advocate of Mohammed s pretensions. After Mokhtar had declared iu favour of Mohammed, his supporters received the name of Mokhtavites. vvr -,-,