Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/353

 324 was treachery in the Syrian camp. The Beni Ḳeis had not forgotten the field of Merj Rāhiṭ, and they carried the left wing in a body over to the enemy. Beaten at first by the other wing, Ibn al-Ashtar recovered his position; and in a furious charge, nerved by the cry of "vengeance on the tyrant ʿObeidallah and the murderers of Al-Ḥosein!" routed the Syrian force, of which the most that escaped the sword perished in the swift waters of the Zāb. ʿObeidallah and Ḥoṣein ibn Numeir were among the slain. The head of ʿObeidallah was carried to Al-Kūfa, and cast before Al-Mukhtār on the very spot where, six years before, as governor of Al-Kūfa he had so roughly handled the gory head of the Prophet's grandson. Thus early was the tragedy of Kerbalā avenged in the blood of its chief actor, and of almost all who had taken part in it.

The victory of Ibn al-Ashtar revived the hopes of the Ḳeis tribes; it also made Al-Mukhtār for the moment undisputed master of Mesopotamia. His fortune, however, built up on a sand-bed of false pretences, was but of short duration. He tried to hold with Ibn az-Zubeir; but Ibn az-Zubeir had no faith in him; and to test his profession of loyalty summoned him to Mecca. Al-Mukhtār, refusing, assumed a hostile attitude, and sent a force to succour Ibn al-Ḥanefīya, whose life Ibn az-Zubeir had threatened unless he would do him homage. He also despatched an army to Medīna with the ostensible object of defending it from Syrian attack; but Ibn az-Zubeir, divining his ambitious designs, sent a force in the same direction which cut it to pieces.

Muṣʿab, brother of Ibn az-Zubeir, was still governor of Al-Baṣra. Fortunately for ʿAbd al-Melik his hands were full. The Kūfans who had escaped thither from the tyranny of Al-Mukhtār, now besought Muṣʿab to rid them of their adversary. Nothing loth, he summoned the brave Muhallab from Fars, where he was still fighting against the Khawārij; and, thus supported, some little time after the battle of the