Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/347

 318 little doubt but that he would have succeeded, and the Caliphate might then have been established in his family. Even at Damascus, there was a numerous party in his favour, and most of the strongholds in Syria and Mesopotamia sided with him. Ibn Bahdal alone and the Syrian army, now returning from Arabia, were staunch to the Umeiyad interest, and they were reinforced by Umeiyads driven out of Medīna. Aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk, governor of Damascus, temporised. The young Caliph had left no child, but there was a brother, a younger son of Yezīd, named Khālid. The family favoured him; but the chief men of the Court felt that a stronger hand was needed, and they put forward Merwān. An Umeiyad, he came from another branch, but had rendered devoted service to ʿOthmān and to the dynasty at large. After much dissension, he was saluted Caliph, on condition that Khālid should succeed on reaching man's estate. Aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk now showed his colours in the interest of Ibn az-Zubeir, and retired with his adherents to Merj Rāhiṭ, a meadow in the vicinity. Merwān, with a following of the Kelb, of the Jordan province and the Ghassān, pitched at Al-Jābiya. A strong antagonism was growing up between the two Bedawi branches of the Arabs, the Yemeni or "southern," against the Beni Bekr and the "northern." The former, especially the Beni Kelb, from which the Caliphs had taken wives, were devoted to the Umeiyad house; the Beni