Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/344

680–3] even the most sacrilegious tyrant would have the hardihood to attack the sacred places. "Good heavens!" they cried, looking upwards, "will ye fall down upon us!" And in like security Ibn az-Zubeir had probably been the less careful to prepare for his enemy's advance. Early in the year 64, going forth to oppose the Syrian army, he was driven back with loss. For two months the city was besieged and shot cast into it by the Syrians from the heights around. The Kaʿba caught fire and was burned to the ground. And so the siege went on till the third month, when tidings came of the death of Yezīd, and thereupon hostilities ceased. So poor at the moment were the prospects of the Umeiyads under the weak son who succeeded Yezīd, that the Syrian general offered to swear allegiance to Ibn az-Zubeir as Caliph if he would but accompany him to Syria, where alone he had any chance of successful candidature. But he refused, preferring to remain and rebuild the sacred shrine. Though himself a warrior, and the son of one of the most renowned heroes in the Prophet's train, he went out no more into battle, but from his quiet retreat maintained, as rival Caliph, an acknowledged rule, as we shall see, in the troubled years that follow, over a large portion of the Muslim Empire.

Yezīd died in his hunting castle at forty years of age, after a reign of three and a half years. The news took twenty-seven days to reach Mecca. In natural disposition he much resembles Charles II. of England. He is described as a dissipated Monarch, but though the patron of learning, and himself no mean poet, he is only remembered for his sacrilegious attack upon the Holy Cities and the family of Moḥammad.

"He reigned," says Ibn aṭ-Ṭiḳṭaḳa, "three years and six months; and in his first year he killed Al-Ḥoṣein son of ʿAlī (on both of whom be peace!). In his second year he plundered