A Short History of Saracens:Chapter VII

THE OMMEYADES (THE HARBITE BRANCH) 

Hassan — His Abdication — Muawiyah — The Usurpation — Tribal Dissensions — The Modharites — The Himyarites or Yemenites — Effect of Tribal Discord on Islam — The Extension of the Empire — Tiie Death of Muawiyah — Yezid I. — Hussain — The Massacre of Kerbela — The Rising in Hijaz — Syrian Victory at Harra — The Sack of Medina — Death of Yezid I. — Muawiyah II. — Abdullah the son of Zubair — Oath of Fealty to him in Hijaz. 

Hassan, the eldest son of Ali, was elected to the vacant Caliphate by the unanimous suffrage of Kufa and its dependencies, but the inconstancy of the volatile people that had wrecked the hopes of the father soon drove the son to abdication. Hardly had the new Caliph been seated on the pontifical throne when Muawiyah invaded Irak. Hassan was thus compelled to take the field before he had either strengthened himself in his position or organised the administration thrown into confusion by the death of his father. Sending forward a general of the name of Kais to hold the Syrians at bay, he proceeded with his main force to Madain. Here a false report of the defeat and death of Kais excited a mutiny among the young Caliph's troops ; they broke into his camp, plundered his effects, and even thought of seizing his person and making him over to the enemy. Thoroughly disheartened, Hassan retraced his steps towards Kufa, firmly resolved to resign the Pontificate. Mistrust of his Irakian supporters, so lavish of promise, so faithless in performance, led him to lend a willing ear to the proposals of Muiwiyah. The negotiations resulted in a treaty by which the Caliphate was assigned to Muawiyah for life ; upon his death it was to devolve on Hassan again. After his abdication Hassan retired with his family to Medina, but did not long enjoy the pension secured to him under the compact, as many years did not pass before he was poisoned at the instigation of Yezid the son of Muawiyah. 

Upon the abdication of Hassan, Muawiyah became the sole ruler of Islam. Thus, by one of the strangest freaks of fortune recorded in history, " did the persecutors of Mohammed usurp the inheritance of his children, and the champions of idolatry become the supreme heads of his religion and empire." The seat of government, which Ali had fixed at Kufa, was now removed to Damascus, where Muawiyah surrounded himself with the pomp and pageantry of the Persian and Byzantine monarchs. Neither claims of kinship nor services to Islam formed any protection. Among those thus sacrificed to ambition or policy, was Abdur Rahman the son of Khalid the great conqueror of Syria. Abdur Rahman's popularity among the Syrians, and the esteem in which he was held by thoughtful Moslems, formed the cause of his assassination. 

The accession of the Ommeyades did not simply mean change of dynasty ; it meant the reversal of a principle and the birth of new factors which, as we shall its effects gee, exercised the most potent influence on the fortunes of the Empire and the development of the nation. To apprehend these circumstances and to note the current of history, it is necessary to review briefly the position of the various Arabian tribes in their settlements and of their relations to each other. 

TRIBAL DIVISIONS:

At the time of Mohammed's advent, as already mentioned, Arabia was inhabited by people claiming origin from two different stocks — the one from Kahtan,the other from Ishmael,the son of the Patriarch Abraham. The cradle of the former was Yemen ; of the latter Hijaz. From Himyar, one of the sons of Abd ush Shams, their ancient king, the Kahtanites came to be called in later times Himyarites, though by the Arabian writers they are spoken of, from their original habitat, as Yemenites. The tribe which dwelt in and round Mareb or Saba, the capital of Yemen under the Himyarite kings were the Banii Azd, the children of Azd, a descendant of Kahtan. In the second century of the Christian era, there seems to have been a movement of the Azdites towards the north, which led to the displacement of other tribes. Eventually, a portion of the Azdites settled themselves at Batn Marr near Mecca, under the name of Khuzaa where they still resided at the time of the Prophet; another branch found its way into Yathreb (Medina), where, in the course of ages, it developed into the two tribes of Aus and Khazraj, of whom we have spoken before. Others, wandered into Syria and Irak ; those who settled on the Syrian side were called the Banii Ghassan (the Ghassan- ides); those on the Irakian side were, called the Banu Kalb (the Kalbites). Another detachment settled at Hamadan ; whilst a large number, turning eastward, found a home in the province of Oman on the shores of the Persian Gulf. This in brief was the position occupied by the Himyarite Arabs about the time of the ministry of Mohammed. 

The Ishmaelite tribes of Arabia are sometimes called Maad,- but oftener Banu Modhar, or Modharites, from Modhar, a grandson of Maad. I shall call them in these pages by this latter name, though in Arabian histories this general designation often gives place to sub-tribal names, such as the Banu Koraish, the Banu Kais, the Bani Bakr, the Banu Taghlib, and the Bani Tamim. The Koraish, as we have already seen, inhabited Mecca and its environs ; the others were spread over Hijaz (with the exception of Yathreb or Medina) and Central Arabia. 

Between these two races, the Himyarites and Modharites, there had existed a keen and constant antagonism,verging on hatred. With the Arabs before Mohammed it was different. Long before the appearance of the Prophet, the Himyarite tongue, born of the mixture of Semitic and indigenous idioms, had given place to pure Arabic, the language spoken by the Banu Modhar, which had acquired a certain intellectual preponderance; and the Arabs all over the Peninsula talked, with slight differences of dialect, one common language. Their customs and manners, their ideas and tastes, were similar. And yet the division between the two races was sharp and well-defined. We must search deeper to arrive at the cause. 

The Himyarites had attained a high state of civilisation several centuries before the birth of Islam; wherever settled, they possessed an organised government, no doubt archaic, but still sufficiently regular for the ordinary purposes of civil life. They knew the art of writing, and were chiefly addicted to agriculture. The Modharites, on the other hand, with the exception of the Koraish since the time of Kossay, were nomadic and pastoral. 

Each tribe was separate from the other, divided in interest and sympathies, and electing its own chief by a sort of popular suffrage. This divided condition had naturally led to their subjugation by the Himyarite kings, to whom, in spite of frequent wars, they paid tribute until late into the fifth century of the Christian era. The incessant struggle between Himyar and Modhar, for preponderance on one side, for independence on the Other, had created a bitter feeling of jealousy, and a burning antagonism on the part of both, which were kept alive by their bards, who sang of the " Days " when Kinda harried Tamim, or Kais swooped down upon Azd. The preachings of Mohammed began to efface this racial hatred and to nullify the influence of the bards. Had the Prophet lived longer, in all human probability his teachings and his wonderful personality would have moulded the tribes into a homogeneous nation. Ten years of ministry, however earnest, were much too short to eradicate the poison of race-antagonism which had worked for centuries in the Arab blood. In Medina alone, where his influence was persistent and continuous, was the fusion complete. 

The wave of conquest under Abu Bakr and Omar carried the Saracenic tribes into different parts of the world. The Modhar settled at Bussorah, whilst Kufa was occupied chiefly by the Himyar. In Palestine and in the province of Damascus, the Modhar were preponderant ; whilst the northern part of Syria like Northern Arabia was held by the Himyar. In the Eastern Provinces, as also in Egypt and in Africa, the two tribes were more or less equally dispersed. But wherever they went they carried with them the old feeling of discord. Under the stern rule of the great Omar, it was kept down with a strong hand ; nor would the work in which the nation was then engaged — the work of self-preservation, and the necessity of self-expansion — allow much room for any sentiment other than generous emulation. Had Ali been allowed peaceably to succeed Omar, probably the two tribes would have imperceptibly merged into one nation. But under Osman, the Ommeyades, for their own ends, fanned the smouldering ashes of dying hatred until they had worked it into a flame which burnt as furiously in Spain and Sicily as in the deserts of Africa, the plains of Khorasan, and the wilds of Kabul. This lamentable discord proved most disastrous to its fomentors, and exercised a far-reaching effect on the fortunes of the Saracenic nation, and on the destinies of the Roman and Germanic races with whom the arabs soon became involved in contest. It stopped them on their road to conquest just at the moment when the west lay at their feet, and eventually led to the loss of a great portion of their Empire. 

Muawiyah, whilst leaning for support on the Modhar, was astute enough to hold the balance fairly between them and the Himyar ; and not to allow the one unduly to oppress the other. Under his successors whichever party became preponderant for the time fiercely and cruelly persecuted its rival. But the Ommeyade clan, knit together by ties of kinship and self-interest, never wavered in its allegiance to its chief; and the Syrian mercenaries always formed a bulwark of strength for Muawiyah and his family. The more thoughtful and religious-minded people now withdrew from all interest in public affairs ; they devoted themselves to the cultivation of literature, to the pursuit of Islamic jurisprudence, — the first foundations of which were laid at this period, or to the quiet observance of the rules of their religion. They helped in the propagation of the Faith, but took no part in the government of the Empire. The bigots who had rebelled against the Caliph Ali and been crushed at Nahrwan, had taken refuge in the inaccessible province of al-Ahsa and other parts of Central Arabia. Here they had spread their dark, gloomy, and fanatical doctrines. Their number, their recklessness, and their devotion to what they considered right made them formidable enemy to the Damascus government. They rose against Muawiyah, invaded Chaldsea, and threatened Irak, but were ultimately beaten and forced to take refuge in their strongholds in the desert. 

Muawiyah, now firmly seated on the throne of Damascus, turned his attention towards Africa. It must be noted that among the Arabs the term "Ifrikia" was applied only to the northern parts of Africa beyond Egypt. This vast tract was divided into three parts — (i) the Remote West {Maghrib ul-Aksd), which stretched from the shores of the Atlantic to Tlemsen southward towards the Sahara ; (2) the Lower West {Maghrib ul-Adnd) which included the country lying between Oran and the district of Bugia; and (3) Ifrikia proper, which extended from the eastern limits of modern Algeria to the frontiers of Egypt. Northern Africa west of the Libyan Desert and north of the Black Country (Soudan) was inhabited by people belonging to the Semitic stock ; and many of the tribes who dwelt in the plains and on the hills of this region claimed descent from the two principal Arab branches. Hardy and brave, they were animated by the same fierce love of independence as the Arabs. The first invasion of this province had taken place in the under Osman the Saracenic forces had advanced as far as Barca. After the defeat of Gregorius the Byzantine Prefect, at the memorable battle fought not far from ancient Carthage, the Romans undertook to pay an annual tribute to the Saracens, who then withdrew from the country, leaving small garrisons at Zawilah and Barca. The Roman governors re-occupied the abandoned territories ; but their rapacity and exactions were so intolerable that before long the natives themselves invited the Saracens to liberate them from the Byzantine yoke. Muawiyah responded to their call, and an army under the celebrated Okba, son of Nafi, marched into Ifrikia, beat down all opposition, and reduced the country into a Saracenic dependency. 

In 50 A.H. Okba built the famous military city of 670 a.d. Kairowan to the south of Tunis to keep in check the Building of fierce unruly Berbers, and also to guard against the Roman ravages from the sea. The forest, hitherto infested by wild beasts and reptiles, was levelled, and the magnificent town, the remains of which may still be seen, was erected on the spot. The Romans, who held Maghrib (modern Morocco), assisted by Berber auxiliaries,frequently raided into Ifrikia. In 55 a.h. Okba determined upon an advance into the west. The open towns surrendered as he approached ; the Romans and Greeks hung about his flanks, cut off the stragglers, and tried to obstruct his passage towards the west ; but Okba forced his way through until he reached the Atlantic. Disappointed at the sight of the vast expanse of water which checked any further advance, he spurred his horse chest- deep into the waves, and raising his hands towards heaven exclaimed, " Almighty Lord ! but for this sea I would have gone into still remoter regions, spreading the glory of Thy name and smiting Thine enemies." 

The brilliant march of Okba and the crushing blows he inflicted on the Romans and the Berbers had the effect of keeping the country quiet for several years. With a slight intermission owing to his recall to Damascus, he ruled Ifrikia and its western dependency until his death in 65 a.h. In this year the wild hordes of the Berbers, a countless host issuing from the mountains and valleys of the Atlas, poured down upon the handful of Saracens that held Kairowan. No nation or race has shown more dauntless courage or more indomitable energy than the Saracens in their wars with the wild and warlike races of Northern Africa. With a comparatively small army the Arabs essayed the conquest of a vast country, inhabited, not like India, by an essentially peaceful population, but by fierce and turbulent tribes accustomed to warfare. The Berbers surrounded the capital ; but Okba was not the man to die like a mouse in a trap. He broke the scabbard of his sword, the usual mode of showing a resolution to conquer or to die, charged into the midst of the beleaguering host, and was killed fighting. Most of his soldiers fell with him. 

A few cut their way into Egypt. Kairowan fell into the hands of the Berbers, and Arab domination in Africa and the west seemed at an end. Whilst Okba was thus employed in the west, Sind and lower valley of the Indus was conquered by Muhallib, the son of Abu Sufra. Eastern Afghanistan was also brought under subjection about the same time. The Romans, who had taken advantage of the civil wars to make encroachments on the Moslem territories, were defeated in several battles, and the Saracenic army wintered in Cappadocia. The Roman fleet fled before that of the Saracens ; and many of the islands of the Grecian Archipelago were conquered and annexed to the Empire. 

Under the instigation of Mughira, the governor of Muawiyah Bussorah, Muawiyah conceived the design of nominating his son Yezid as his successor to the throne. This was as his in direct breach of his covenant with Hassan, but he was successor, supported in his design by the Bastard Ziyad who then ruled as his lieutenant over Irak and Khorasan. The Irakians were bribed, cajoled, or coerced to take the oath of fealty to Yezid ; the Syrians, of course, follovred Muawiyah's lead. 

In the year 51 a.h. Muawiyah proceeded to Medina and Mecca to secure the covenant of the people of Hijaz. Here, too, his menaces or his arts were partially successful. Four men, then foremost among the Moslems — Hussain the son of Ali, Abdullah the son of Omar (the Caliph), Abdur Rahman the son of Abu Bakr, and Abdullah the son of Zubair, refused to take the oath on any condition, and their example gave heart to the Hijazians. Abdullah the son of Zubair, whom Muawiyah called " the crafty fox of the Koraish," had himself an eye to the Caliphate ; the others were actuated by abhorrence of Yezid, whose wickedness was notorious. 

Muawiyah died in the month of Rajab 60 a.c. (April 680). He is said to have been of fair complexion, tall and unwieldy. The annalists say, "he was the first who preached seated to the people, the first who appointed eunuchs for his personal service, and the first with whom his courtiers jested familarly." Astute, unscrupulous, clear-headed, miserly, but lavishly liberal when necessary, outwardly observant of all religious duties, but never permitting any human or divine ordinances to interfere with the prosecution of his plans or ambitions — such was Muawiyah. But once firmly seated on the throne and his path clear of all enemies, he applied himself with assiduity to the good government of the Empire. His daily historian Masudi gives an account of his daily life which is curious and interesting. After the early morning prayers, he received the town-commandant's report. His ministers and privy councillors then came to him for the transaction of public business. During breakfast he listened to the correspondence from the provinces read to him by one of the secretaries. At midday he issued for the public prayers, and in the Mosque seated within an enclosure received the complaints of all who desired to approach him. On his return to the Palace he gave audience to the grandees. When that was over the principal meal of the day was served, which was followed by a short rest. After the afternoon prayers another audience was given to the ministers for the transaction of business. In the evening he dined in state, and afterwards held another reception which closed the day. On the whole Muawiyah's rule was prosperous and peaceful 

at home and successful abroad. 

ACCESSION OF YEZID 

On Muawiyah's death, Yezid ascended the throne according to his father's testament. The accession of Yezid gave the death-stroke to the republican principle that "the Commander of the Faithful" should be elected by the plebiscite of the people, — a principle to which the Arabs were so devoted, and which had led them to ignore the right of the Prophet's family to the spiritual and temporal headship of Islam. Henceforth the ruling sovereign nominated his successor, whose reversion he endeavoured to assure during his lifetime by the oath of fealty of his soldiers and grandees. The celebrated Imam Hassan Basri, who towards the close of the century, declared that " two men threw into confusion the affairs of the Moslems — Amr the son of al-Aas, when he suggested to Muawiyah the lifting of the Korans on the lances, and they were so uplifted, and Mughirah, who advised Muawiyah to take the covenant of allegiance for Yezid. Were it not for that, there would have been a Council of Election till the day of resurrection, for those who succeeded Muawiyah followed his example in taking the covenant for their sons." 

Yezid was both cruel and treacherous ; his depraved nature knew no pity or justice. His pleasures were as degrading as his companions were low and vicious. He insulted the ministers of religion by dressing up a monkey as a learned and carrying the animal mounted on a beautifully caparisoned Syrian donkey wherever he went. Drunken riotousness prevailed at court, and was naturally imitated in the streets of the capital. Hussain, the second son of Ali, had inherited his father's virtues and chivalrous disposition. 

"The only quality," says Sedillot, "that he lacked was the spirit of intrigue which characterised the descendants of Ommeya." He had served with honour against the Christians in the siege of Constantinople, and combined in his person the right of descent both from the Prophet and Ali. In the terms of peace signed between Muawiyah and Hassan, his right to the Caliphate had been 

expressly reserved. Hussain had never deigned to acknowledge the title of the tyrant of Damascus, whose vices he despised, and whose character he regarded with abhorrence, and when the Moslems of Kufa besought his help to release them from the curse of the Ommeyade rule, he felt it his duty to respond to the appeal for deliverance. All Hussain's friends tried to persuade him not to trust to the Kufan promises. They knew the Irakian character. Eager, fierce, and impetuous, the people of Kufa were utterly wanting in perseverance and steadiness. " They knew not their own minds from day to day. One moment ardent as fire for some cause or person, the next they were as cold as ice and as indifferent as the dead." But the assurances that all Irak was ready to spring to its feet the moment he appeared on the scene, decided him to start for Kufa. He traversed the desert of Arabia unmolested, accompanied by several of his kinsmen, his two grown-up sons, a few devoted followers, and a timorous retinue of women and children ; but as he approached the confines of Irak he saw no signs of the Kufan army, which had promised to meet him ; he was alarmed by the solitary and hostile face of the country, and suspecting treachery, the Ommeyade's weapon, he encamped his small band at a place called Kerbela near the western bank of the Euphrates. 

Hussain's apprehensions of betrayal proved only too true. He was overtaken by an Ommeyade army sent by the brutal and ferocious son of the illegitimate Ziyad. For days their tents were surrounded ; Massacre and as the murderous ruffians dared not come within the reach of Hussain's sword, they cut the victims off from the waters of the Euphrates, causing terrible suffering to the small band of martyrs. In a conference with the chief of the enemy, Hussain proposed the option of three honourable conditions : that he should be allowed to return to Medina, or be stationed in a frontier garrison against the Turks, or safely conducted to the presence of Yezid. But the commands of the Ommeyade tyrant were stern and inexorable, — that no mercy should be shown to Hussain or his party, and that they must be brought as criminals before the " Caliph " to be dealt with according to the Ommeyade sense of justice. As a last resource, Hussain besought these monsters not to war upon the helpless women and children, but to take his life and end the unequal contest. But they knew no pity. He pressed his friends to consult their safety by timely flight ; they unanimously refused to desert or survive their beloved master. One of the enemy's chiefs, struck with horror at the sacrilege of warring against the grandson of the Prophet, deserted with thirty followers " to claim the partnership of inevitable death. In every single combat and close fight the valour of the Fatimides was invincible. But the enemy's archers picked them off from a safe distance. One by one the defenders fell, until at last there remained but the grandson of the Prophet. 

Wounded and dying he dragged himself to the riverside for a last drink ; they turned him off from there with arrows. Re-entering his tent he took his infant child in his arms ; they transfixed him with a dart. And his sons and his nephews were killed in his arms. Able no more to stand up against his pitiless foes, alone and weary, he seated himself at the entrance of his tent. He was struck with a stone in fore-head and then was pierced in the mouth with a dart. He lifted his hands to heaven, and uttered a funeral prayer for the living and the dead. Raising himself for one desperate charge, he threw himself among the Ommeyades, who fell back on every side. But faint with loss of blood he soon sank to the ground, and then the murderous crew rushed upon the dying hero. They cut off his head, trampled on his body, and with savage ferocity subjected it to every ignominy. They carried his head to the castle of Kufa, and the inhuman Ibn e Ziad struck it on the mouth with a cane. "Alas!" exclaimed an aged Moslem, "on these lips have I seen the lips of the Apostle of God." 

"In a distant age and climate," says Gibbon, "the tragic scene of the death of Hussain will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader." It will be now easy to understand, perhaps to sympathise with, the frenzy of sorrow and indignation to which the adherents of Ali and of his children give vent on the recurrence of the anniversary of Hussain's martyrdom. 

Thus fell one of the noblest spirits of the age, and with him perished all the male members of his family — old and young — with the solitary exception of a sickly child, whom Hussain's sister, Zainab (Zenobia), saved from the general massacre. He, too, bore the name of Ali, and in after life received the designation of Zain-ul- Aabidin, "the ornament of the Pious." He was the son of Hussain by the daughter of Yezdjard, the last Sassanide king of Persia, and in him was perpetuated the house of the Prophet. He represented also, in his mother's right, the claims of the Sassanians to the throne of Iran. When the young lad was brought before Ibn e Ziad, he thought of murdering him also, to put an end to the progeny of Mohammed; but something in the look of Zainab, her determination to die with her young nephew, struck fear into the tyrant's heart. The womenfolk of Hussain's family with young Ali were sent to Damascus ; the soldiers of their escort carrying on their lances the heads of the martyrs. On their arrival at Damascus, the granddaughters of the Prophet, in their tattered and travel-worn garments, sat themselves down under the walls of Yezid's Palace and wailed as only Arab women can wail. Their sorrowful cry frightened Yezid, and, afraid of some outburst in his capital in favour of the Prophet's family, he hurriedly sent them back to their homes. 

The butchery of Kerbela caused a thrill of horror throughout Islam, and gave birth in Persia to a national sentiment which afterwards helped the descendants of Abbas to destroy the Ommeyades. In Medina the feeling was so strong that Yezid sent in haste a special governor to calm the people. At his advice the notables despatched a deputation to Damascus to seek redress for Hussain's family. The deputation, however, returned disgusted with Yezid's abominable life and his conduct towards them. Enraged at the unsatisfactory result of their endeavours, the Medinites proclaimed Yezid's deposition and drove his governor from their city. This news threw Yezid into a fury, and he immediately hurried off a large army, consisting of his Syrian mercenaries and Ommeyade partisans, under Muslim the son of Okba, known in Arabian history as "the accursed murderer." The Medinites met the Syrians at a place called Harrah, where a desperate battle took place. The Moslems were overmatched, of heroic valour, were defeated with terrible loss. The flower of the Medinite chivalry and the noblest Companions of the Prophet, , both Ansar and Muhajerin, perished in that disastrous fight, — disastrous to Islam in more ways than one. The city which had sheltered the Prophet, and which was sanctified by his life and ministry, was foully desecrated ; and the people who had stood by him in the hour of his need were subjected to revolting atrocities. The public Mosque was turned into a stable, and the shrines were demolished for the sake of their ornaments. Paganism was once more triumphant, and "its reaction," says a European historian, "against Islam was cruel, terrible, and revolting." The Ommeyades thus repaid the clemency and forbearance shown to them in the hour of Islam's triumph. Its best men were either killed or fled for safety into distant countries. The few who were spared had to acknowledge themselves the slaves of Yezid ; such as refused were branded on their necks. 

From this ignominy only two persons were spared, Ali the son of Hussain, and Ali the grandson of Abbas. The colleges, hospitals, and other public edifices built under the Caliphs were closed or demolished, and Arabia relapsed into a wilderness ! In later years a grandson of Ali, whose name was Jaafar,surnamed the True {as-Sddi'k), revived, in Medina, the school of learning which had flourished under his ancestor, the Caliph Ali ; but it was a veritable oasis in the desert; all around lay in gloom and darkness. Medina never recovered her prosperity. It seems under the Ommeyades to have become a city of the unknown Past, for when Mansur, the second Abbasside Caliph, visited the place, he needed a guide to point out where the early heroes and heroines had lived and worked. 

After wreaking their vengeance on the Medinites, the The first Syrians marched upon Mecca, where Abdullah the son of Zubair had installed himself as Caliph. On arrival in the neighbourhood of Mecca the Syrians surrounded the city, and in course of the fights that followed great damage was done to the Kaaba and other sacred edifices. The timely death of Yezid, however, made the Syrians raise the siege and hurry back to Damascus. 

Yezid was succeeded by his son Muawiyah, a youth of mild disposition, who, it is said, abhorred the crimes of his family. He retired into private life after a reign of a few months, and died shortly after, supposed to have been poisoned. With Muawiyah II. ended the End of the rule of Abu Sufian's branch. This dynasty is called the Harbite Dynasty. Harbite, from the name of Abu Sufian's father, Harb, in contradiction to the Hakamites, who derived their name from Hakam, the father of Merwan, who, as we shall presently see, managed to oust the first Muawiyah's young grandson from the succession to the throne. 

Immediately on the death of Yezid, Abdullah bin Zubair had been acknowledged as Caliph all over Hijaz, Irak, and Khorasan. Had he now issued from Mecca, and with his old audacity struck for Syria, there is little doubt the Ommeyade domination would have ended for ever. But he lay supinely at Mecca, and gave time to the Ommeyades to join their forces.