Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/355

 326 attacks on the unoffending people, took Ar-Reiy, besieged Ispahān for months, overran Al-Ahwāz and Kirmān, and even threatened Al-Kūfa. Al-Muhallab, the only general able to cope with these savage fanatics, had been unwisely withdrawn from the field for the government of Mosul. Muṣʿab now again sent him against the Khāriji bands; and after eight months of unceasing warfare he succeeded in dispersing them for the time. The temporary quiet which, apart from these Khāriji outrages, at this period prevailed throughout the Empire is signalised by the singular spectacle chronicled by tradition, that whereas the Meccan solemnities were always headed by the Sovereign himself or by his Lieutenant, there were in the year 68 A.H., four leaders who, without any breach of harmony, presided at the Pilgrimage, each over his own adherents,—namely Ibn az-Zubeir, Ibn al-Ḥanefīya, the Khāriji Najda, who held the south of Arabia, and the representative of the Umeiyads. Yet no act of violence took place.

Now that the power of Al-Mukhtār and of the Khawārij had been broken for him, ʿAbd al-Melik had for some time been contemplating operations against Ibn az-Zubeir, and had in fact started on more than one occasion for a campaign to commence in the north of Syria, and sweep down upon Al-ʿIrāḳ and Arabia; but a severe famine paralysed his efforts for a time. At last, in the summer of 689 (69–70 ) he set out against the Ḳeis in Ḳirḳīsiyā, but was recalled by a danger which threatened his throne, and led to an act which has left an indelible stigma on his name. At the time of Merwān's accession, it was stipulated that the minor son of Yezīd should have the next claim. A similar expectation was held out, either then or afterwards, to ʿAmr ibn Saʿīd, cousin of the Caliph and governor of Damascus. Both expectations were defeated by the succession of ‘Abd al-Melik, and the injury rankled in the mind of ʿAmr ibn Saʿīd. Accordingly, on the Caliph's camp nearing Aleppo, he left it secretly by night, re-entered Damascus, and set up for himself as Caliph. ʿAbd al-Melik