Maslamah attacked Ḥiṣn Kamkh[1] but failed to reduce it. Ṣafwân too attacked it and failed. In the year 59—the year in which he died—Ṣafwân made another attempt on it, at which time he was accompanied by ʿUmair ibn-al-Ḥubâb[2] as-Sulami, who climbed the wall and kept struggling single-handed until the Greeks gave way and the Moslems climbed up. Thus the reduction of Kamkh was due to ʿUmair ibn-al-Ḥubâb and was the thing in which he boasted and others boasted for him. Later, however, the Greeks succeeded in taking it; but it was recaptured by Maslamah ibn-ʿAbd-al-Malik. Thus the fort passed back and forth from the hands of the Moslems to the hands of the Greeks until the year in which al-Manṣûr left Baghdâdh for Ḥadîthat al-Mauṣil from which he sent al-Ḥasan ibn-Ḳaḥṭabah and after him Muḥammad ibn-al-Ashʿath, both under the leadership of al-ʿAbbâs ibn-Muḥammad, for the invasion of Kamkh. Muḥammad ibn-al-Ashʿath died at Âmid.[3] Al-ʿAbbâs and al-Ḥasan advanced to Malaṭyah[4] from which they took provisions, and then camped around Kamkh. Al-ʿAbbâs ordered that mangonels be set upon the fort. The holders of the fort covered it with cypress wood to protect it against the mangonel stones, and killed by the stones they hurled two hundred Moslems. The Moslems then set their mantelets[5] and fought severely until they captured it. Among those in the company of al-ʿAbbâs ibn-Muḥammad ibn-ʿAli in this campaign was Maṭar al-Warrâḳ. Once more the Greeks took Kamkh fort, and in the year 177 an attack against it was led by Muḥammad ibn-
