The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall/Chapter 57

by William Muir

CHAPTER LVII

IBRĀHĪM AND MERWĀN II., LAST OF THE UMEIYADS

126–130 A.H. 744–748 A.D.

Ibrāhīm's partial succession,
126 A.H.
744 A.D.Ibrāhīm can hardly be said to have succeeded his brother Yezīd. He assumed indeed the government at Damascus, and held it for three or four months. He was addressed by some as Caliph, by others only as Amīr. No general homage was done to him. It seems to have been felt that, unless in South Syria, he had no proper hold on the Caliphate, as events, in point of fact, did soon determine.

Merwān advances on Damascus.For Merwān immediately on receiving tidings of Yezīd's decease, started from his home in Ḥarrān, in the centre of the Ḳeis country, with a heavy force for Syria. At Kinnasrīn, the Moḍari party joined his standard. Strengthened by their adherence, he advanced on Ḥimṣ, which, refusing to acknowledge Ibrāhīm, had been invested by his troops. Raising the siege, and with an army now of 80,000 men, he continued his march upon the Capital. A force had already started from thence to stay his approach. It was commanded by Suleimān son of Hishām, and composed chiefly of the Yemeni and other adherents of the late Caliph, numbered 120,000 men. Merwān's ranks, however, were full of veterans used to the field. They met in a valley between Baalbek and Damascus. Merwān astutely demanded of his enemy homage to two sons of Al-Welīd, now in confinement at Damascus. They were in the enemy's hands, and he knew their fate was sealed in any case. Homage was refused, and the armies joined battle.Defeats Ibrāhīm's army. They fought all day, but Merwān, used to warlike tactics, in the evening sent a column by a circuit, which, taking his enemy in the rear, put them to a disastrous flight; 17,000 were left on the field and as many more taken prisoners. Damascus thus left defenceless, Ibrāhīm and Suleimān made their escape to Tadmor, the seat of the Beni Kelb, but not before they had plundered the treasury and put the two sons of Al-Welīd to death, also Yūsuf ibn ʿOmar, the late tyrant of Al-Kūfa. They had no sooner fled than the adherents of Al-Welīd rose upon the relatives of the fallen ruler with slaughter and riot, and having exhumed the body of Yezīd III., impaled it at the Jābiya gate of the city. Merwān, on coming up, had the bodies of Al-Welīd's sons honourably buried, as also that of Yūsuf.Is saluted Caliph as Merwān II.,
ii. 127 A.H.
Dec., 744 A.D. And,there being now none with a better claim, he was saluted Caliph, and thereafter returned to his palace at Ḥarrān. His policy was one of conciliation and clemency. Thābit ibn Noʿeim, who had mutinied against him in the Caucasus, was, with his consent, chosen Wāli of Filastīn. Ibrāhīm, who survived only a year or two, was admitted to amnesty; and so also was Suleimān, who to outward appearance was reconciled, and in token thereof gave his sister in marriage to the son of Merwān. His accession was a blow to Kelb and Ḳoḍāʿa, as his interests were those of Ḳeis. He was also opposed to the Ḳadarīya, who held the doctrine of free will, whom his predecessor had fostered.

Merwān surrounded by difficulties.His success notwithstanding, embers of disaffection were ever bursting into flame around Merwān. The support accorded him by the Moḍar (northern) clan, and the sanguinary defeat inflicted by them, rankled in the breast of the Yemeni (or southern) tribes. Khāriji adventurers sprang up in every quarter of the Empire; and the Hāshimi (or ʿAbbāsid) conspiracy spread with alarming rapidity, especially in the East. Disaffection brooded over the Empire. Merwān, with all his strength and warlike prowess, was ever endeavouring to stem the rising wave. Even the men of Kelb, till now "the loyalest of the loyal," and the Syrian troops became disaffected. His reign was one continual struggle, which, spite of all his difficulties, would without doubt have put rebellion down, had the Syrian forces held a united and faithful front; but that, from the tribal jealousies prevailing, they failed to do, and the result was fatal to Umeiyad rule.

Ḥarrān, Merwān's home, where his father had lived and where he had grown up, now became the Capital instead of Damascus. This aroused the jealousy of the Syrians and united their opposing parties against the Caliph.Various insurrections. First Ḥimṣ rose in rebellion. As soon as Merwān approached, it submitted and surrendered to him 1000 riders of Kelb who had come from Tadmor to its relief. They were, it seems, spared. At the same time, the Kelb tribes who were settled in and about Damascus, attacked the city; but they were discomfited by a detachment from Ḥimṣ, and their villages in the beautiful vale of the Barada burned to the ground. Shortly after, a serious insurrection breaking out in Palestine, threatened Tiberias; the rebel leader, Thābit ibn Noʿeim, was taken prisoner with three sons, and executed. Tadmor, the chief town of Kelb, also rose against the Caliph, but on the arrival of Merwān made peace. Merwān's two sons were now declared heirs-apparent, and, to conciliate the other branches of the Umeiyad family, married to daughters of Hishām. But he had not rested long when fresh troubles arose.

Rebellion of Ibn Muʿāwiya, decendant of Jaʿfar,
126 A.H.
744 A.D.It is a sign of the restlessness of Muslim feeling at this time, that besides the claims of the representatives of Al-ʿAbbās, the uncle, and of ʿAlī, the cousin and son-in-law, of Moḥammad, a pretender from another branch of which we hear nothing before, now appeared at Al-Kūfa, in the person of Ibn Muʿāwiya, great-grandson of Jaʿfar, ʿAlī's brother who was killed in the battle of Mūta.^[1] This man was honoured on account of his birth by the governor Ibn ʿOmar in Al-Ḥīra, who even provided for his support. His pretensions to the throne were warmly espoused by the citizens, especially by the erstwhile supporters of Zeid ibn ʿAlī. When, then, Ibn Muʿāwiya stepped forth to claim his pretended right, crowds followed after him, so that the plain from Al-Kūfa to Al-Ḥīra was white with them.Expelled from Kūfa,
127 A.H.
744 A.D. But immediately a force was sent against him, his brave supporters, after the fashion of the fickle city, fell away. The Zeidites alone did not yield until he was allowed, with his adherents, to depart across the Tigris to Al-Medāin. There many flocked to his standard, including crowds of Persian slaves and Mawāli from Al-Kūfa. With their aid he gained possession of Ḥolwān and the hill-country east of the Tigris.Success in Persia,
128 A.H.
746 A.D. In the next two years, supported by the Khawārij, he played a marvellous rôle in Persia, establishing his court at Iṣṭakhr, and being acknowledged in Ispahān, Ar-Reiy, Ḳūmis, and other chief cities in the East. In 129 A.H., however, the Khawārij having been subdued by Ibn Hubeira, his followers were dispersed by the Syrian columns, and he himself forced to fly to the far East.^[2]Defeated by Ibn Hubeira,
129 A.H.
747 A.D. By this time Abu Muslim (of whom we shall here more shortly) had established himself in the Hāshimi (ʿAbbāsid) interest at Merv; and Ibn Muʿāwiya, learning that he was fighting for the house of Hāshim, repaired to the governor of Herāt and urged his claims as a scion of that descent. "Give us thy pedigree," said the Governor, "that we may know who thou art." "The son of Muʿāwiya, who was the son of ʿAbdallah, who was the son of Jaʿfar."^[3] But Muʿāwiya, as the reader will understand, was a name of evil omen to a Hāshimite; and so the answer ran,—"ʿAbdallah we know, and Jaʿfar we know; but as for Muʿāwiya, it is a name we know not of." "My grandfather," explained the fugitive, "was at the court of Muʿāwiya when my father was born, and the Caliph bade him call the infant by his name, and for that received the gift of 100,000 dirhems." "An evil name, verily, for a small price," was the reply; "we recognise thee not." Put to death by Abu Muslim. On the matter being reported to him, Abu Muslim bade them release the rest of the party; but Ibn Muʿāwiya, as a descendant of Abu Ṭālib, was too dangerous a competitor to be spared, and so by command of the ʿAbbāsid viceroy, the fugitive was smothered under a mattress, and buried at Herāt, where, says the historian, his tomb has become a place of pilgrimage. Abu Muslim had cause to rue the cruel deed.

Rebellion of Suleimān,
127 A.H.
745 A.D.No sooner had Ibn Muʿāwiya quitted Al-Kāfa, than a serious rebellion broke out in Al-ʿIrāḳ under a leader named Aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk, one of the Khawārij, who now cease to be a merely religious body, seeking to save their souls, and join in the free fight for the Empire of the Muslim world. To suppress this, Merwān gathered a force at Ḳirḳīsiya to be led by Yezīd ibn Hubeira.^[4] But as it was assembling, 10,000 of the number, Yemenīs from Syria, passing by Ar-Ruṣāfa, persuaded the bellicose but ungrateful Suleimān to put himself at their head. Crowds of disloyalists flocked to his banner at Kinnasrīn, and Merwān had to recall Ibn Hubeira from pursuit of Aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk to oppose the army, now swelled to 70,000, led by his new and formidable rival.Defeated; joins Ḍaḥḥāk. After a heavy battle, Suleimān was completely defeated, losing his sons and 30,000 men; for Merwān would allow no quarter to be given nor prisoners taken. Suleimān fled to Ḥimṣ; and thence, leaving his brother Saʿīd there, to Al-Kūfa. Merwān was still held back from attacking the Khawārij by the rebellion of Ḥimṣ.Ḥimṣ besieged. Though surrounded by eighty catapults, which threw shot day and night over the walls, it held out for nearly five months, but at last capitulated. Its walls, as well as those of Baalbek, Damascus, Jerusalem, and other towns, were dismantled, a fact which shows how widespread the rebellion had been. But Merwān had taken the clay from the foundations to repair the walls.

Rebellions of Ḍaḥḥāk,
127 A.H.
745 A.D. Meanwhile Al-ʿIrāḳ also was in a state of dangerous rebellion. It began in the north in the territory of Rabīʿa, not among Ḳeis in the south. Rabīʿa bore a grudge against Moḍar, who had dispossessed them of their territory, especially their leading clan Sheibān, round about Mosul, who were, since the time of Shabīb, the chief Khāriji tribe. On the death of Welīd II. they set up a Caliph of their own. On his death he was succeeded by Aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk, also of Sheibān and of the same family as Shabīb. After the expulsion of Ibn Muʿāwiya, the never-ending feud broke out with redoubled violence at Al-Kūfa,—Moḍar siding naturally with Merwān's governor, the Yemen with his ousted predecessor, the son of ʿOmar, who took possession of Al-Ḥīra; and thus for four months a civil war was kept up between Al-Kūfa and its suburb. Aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk, who with a large body of the Khawārij, Ṣofrīya, and other separatists, had taken advantage of the troubled times to ravage Mesopotamia, now hearing of this state of things, seized the opportunity for attacking Al-Kūfa; and, although both sides joined to resist him, they were beaten, and the invaders took possession of the city. Ibn ʿOmar fled to Wāsiṭ, but after three months he gave in and joined Aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk, in whose ranks he found Suleimān also. Aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk had now been above a year and a half master of the greater part of Al-ʿIrāḳ when he returned to his home in Mosul and drove out the government troops. Merwān, still at Ḥimṣ, sent his son ʿAbdallah with a column of 8000, to hold him in check; but he had no sooner, with this view, thrown himself into Naṣībīn than Aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk besieged him there with an army of 100,000.

Beaten by Merwān II.,
end of 128 A.H.
Sept., 746 A.D.,Ḥimṣ having surrendered, it was now high time for Merwān himself to take the field; and this he did with all the force at his disposal. The two armies met at Kefertūthā, between Ḥarrān and Naṣībīn. The battle raged all day and well on into the night, when search being made on the field, the body of Aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk, who with 6000 sworn followers dismounted to fight to the death, was found pierced through with twenty wounds. Next day, the battle renewed, the leader of the Khawārij, by a wild onset on the Imperial centre, placed Merwān in such peril, that he fled for several miles; but returning, he found the wings holding firm, and the enemy completely routed.^[5] The leader of the charge, having penetrated to the camp, was there despatched by the cudgels of the servants. Having sent the rebel's head all round Mesopotamia, Merwān pursued the Khawārij, who, under a new Bekri leader, still held together 40,000 strong,who retakes Mosul,
129 A.H.
747 A.D. to Mosul, drove them across the Tigris, and dispersed them in the East. Suleimān escaped, but only to meet his end at the hands of the coming dynasty.^[6] The position upon the Tigris had become impossible owing to Al-ʿIrāḳ having been seized by the Ḳeisi Ibn Hubeira. But though order was thus at last restored to the nearer parts of the Empire,Various Khārij risings. the Khawārij had entire possession of Azerbījān, from which they drove out the Imperial troops. Throughout Arabia also they more or less prevailed; Abu Ḥamza their leader was so powerful that at one time he had possession of both the Holy Cities; and the Caliph was obliged to send a large force to restore order throughout Arabia. Though Abu Ḥamza appeared at the Pilgrimage with 700 followers against the Umeiyads, clad in black and with black banners, the emblem of the ʿAbbāsids, yet as a Khāriji he was equally opposed to the Hāshimi pretender;Khawārij. for neither the Umeiyad, nor as yet for the ʿAbbāsid race, did he profess any partiality or respect, but rather for the simple memory of Abu Bekr and ʿOmar. It will thus appear that these Puritan covenanters, all over the Empire, if not in the ascendency, were yet powerful enough, even where baffled, to confuse and often paralyse the Government.

In the West, as elsewhere, the administration was weak and unsettled.Africa. The governors throughout Africa had to keep up a continual contest against the Berbers and the Khawārij.Spain gradually slipping from Eastern control. In Spain, the Khāriji element was weak, and the Hāshimi unknown; but in all other respects Syria repeated itself in the Peninsula. The Arabs flocking thither in vast multitudes were taught to forget their native land, or rather to reproduce it in the West. Spain became to them a second home. Its landscape, to the Bedawi imagination, conjured up the lands of Syria and of Palestine, and the Bedawīn seemed to nestle again in the scenes of their childhood. "Thus (we read) the Arabs spread themselves over the land; the men of Damascus settled in Albīra (Elvira) because of its likeness to their native vale, and called it Damascus;" and so on with those who had come from Tadmor, Ḥimṣ, Ḳinnasrīn, and other cities of the East.^[7] But with the similitude of the old country, arose also its wretched feuds. The Yemen fought against Moḍar and Moḍar against the Yemen. The contest was maintained even more fiercely than against the infidel, till at last they agreed to appoint a neutral chief chosen from Ḳoreish. But even this failed, and for some months, there being no Amīr, anarchy was rife. Then they settled to have an Amīr one year from the Moḍar, and the next from the Yemen tribe. But at the end of the first term the Moḍari ruler refused to resign. And so things went on in the distracted land, till, as we shall see, Spain slipped entirely from the grasp of the eastern Caliphate.

Growing difficulties.At various periods, the Greeks, taking advantage of the civil war, made inroads upon the border lands of Asia Minor and Syria, which Merwān, with trouble on his hands at home, had no means of opposing. He had also, for the same reason, to turn a deaf ear to Naṣr's cry for help from Khorāsān,—where events, as will be shown in the next chapter, were rapidly hastening the downfall of the Umeiyad dynasty.

Merwān retires to Ḥarrān,
130 A.H.
748 A.D.On the restoration of order in Mesopotamia and Al-ʿIrāḳ, Merwān returned to Ḥarrān, his residence in the Desert, and there remained in dangerous and inopportune repose, till he was called away by the fatal campaign of the Zāb.

1. Life of Moḥammad, p. 395. Jaʿfar was the son of Abu Ṭālib; see table, supra, p. 385. He was killed two years before Moḥammad's death.
2. His following must still have been great, as 40,000 are said to have been taken prisoners, but released by Ibn Hubeira.
3. See table, p. 385.
4. Yezīd was son of ʿOmar ibn Hubeira, murdered by Khālid (p. 386); but like his father he is ordinarily called simply Ibn Hubeira.
5. We are told that after this engagement, the old Arab battle in line (ṣufūf) was given up, and fighting carried on by battalions (karādis). This was one of the changes introduced by Merwān.
6. We may here follow Suleimān to his end. He escaped with his family and retainers to Sind, and eventually presented himself, as an enemy of the Umeiyads, before the Hāshimi Caliph, who at the first received him graciously. One of his courtiers seeing this, recited verses warning the Caliph against appearances, and the danger of sparing any Umeiyad. Thereupon he retired, and shortly after gave orders for Suleimān, like the rest of his race, to be put to death.
7. Other places are mentioned, thus:—"The men of Ḥimṣ settled in Ishbīliya (Seville), and called it Ḥimṣ; of Ḳinnasrīn, in Jaen, and called it Ḳinnasrīn; of the Jordan, in Reiya, and called it The Jordan; of Palestine, in Shadhūna, and called it Palestine; of Egypt, in Todmīr, and, from its similitude, called it Egypt," and so on. See Al-Yaʿḳūbi, Descriptio Al-Magribi, ed. De Goeje, p. 14 f.