THE OMMEYADES (THE HAKAMITE BRANCH)
Merwan, son of Hakam — Accepted as the Chief of the Ommeyades — Battle of Marj Rahat — Destruction of the Syrian Modhar — Merwan's Treachery — The Penitents — The Death of Merwan — Abdul Malik, the Ruler of Syria — The Rise of Mukhtar — The Destruction of the Murderers of Hussain— The Death of Mukhtar — Musaab — Invasion of Irak by Abdul Malik — Death of Musaab —Invasion of Hijaz by Abdul Malik's Army — Siege of Mecca — Death of Abdullah, the son of Zubair (the Meccan Caliph) — Abdul Malik, Chief of Islam — The Tyrant Hajjaj — Progress in Africa — War with the Romans — The Kharij is— Abdul Malik's Death.
On the death of Muawiyah II. the succession devolved on his brother Khalid, but as he was a mere lad at the time, the Ommeyades refused to acknowledge him as their ruler, and demanded the elevation of an elder ikabir) in accordance with the tribal practice. The Ommeyades at this juncture were in a state of paralysis. Merwan, the oldest member of the clan, was ready to take the oath of fealty to Abdullah bin Zubair. He was a cousin of Muawiyah I, and wielded considerable influence among the Ommeyades ; and his adhesion would have secured the submission of the family. But the over-cautious son of Zubair, content with the possession af Arabia, Egypt, Irak, and Khorasan, denined to move upon Syria. Whilst Abdullah lay thus supinely at Mecca, the notorious Ibn e Ziad tried to instal himself as Caliph at Bussorah, the seat of his government; failing in his endeavours, he fled to Merwan and instigated him to make a bid for the Empire on his own account. The task before was not free from difficulty; the Ommeyades were suspicious and divided; and the Himyarites of Syria were jealous of Modharite ascendency. But age had not dimmed Merwan's genius for intrigue.. He won the support of Khalid's partisans by promising him the succession to the throne; he secured the adhesion of Amr,- his own cousin, who had a considerable following in the clan, by a similar promise. He bribed the Syrian Himyarites by lavish concessions to their chiefs. Thus did Merwan obtain the power for which he was bidding. Masudi says, "he was the first to seize the throne with the help of his sword."
The adhesion of these Syrian Himyarites enabled Merwan to march against the Modharite chief Zahhak, who had espoused the cause of Abdullah the son of Zubair. A battle took place at Marj Rahat, and the death of the opposing chief Zahhak, and then followed a conflict in which the Modharites were literally annihilated. The whole of Syria now passed under the rule of Merwan, and Egypt soon after fell into his hands. Finding his position thus sufficiently secured, Merwan withdrew his promise to Khalid, and forced Amr, whom he had also nominated as his successor, to resign the right to the throne in favour of his own sons, Abdul Malik and Abdul Aziz.
With the battle of Marj Rahat the disastrous feud between Himyar and Modhar, which had slept for so many years, rekindled in all its fury. The Himyarites were now in the ascendant, and cruelly oppressed their rivals. This continued, more or less, under Merwan's son and successor, Abdul Malik. About this time, a large body of Irakians, struck with remorse at their desertion of Hussain and his family on the fatal field of Kerbela, rose in arms, vowing vengeance upon his murderers. One night they prayed and wept by his tomb, and next morning they issued against the Syrians. They called themselves "the Penitents," and under their leader Sulaiman carried at first everything before them, but they were ultimately defeated by an overwhelming force sent against them by Merwan. Sulaiman and his lieutenants were killed, and the shattered remnants of " the Penitents " retreated upon Kufa. Here they were subsequently rallied by Mukhtar, another of the "Avengers."
Merwan's death at the hands of Yezid's widow was a fitting end to a life of intrigue and violence. He had married this lady with the object of reconciling the partisans of her son Khalid. One day he grossly insulted the boy whom he had ousted from the throne; that same night he was smothered by the enraged mother. Merwan is not recognised by the Sunnis as a Caliph (Commander of the Faithful). Their foremost writers count him as a rebel against Abdullah the son of Zubair, "whose authority was acknowledged from all the pulpits of Islam," save and except in Syria. Nor do they "hold his covenant for his sons legal," though they regard the Caliphate of Abdul Malik as rightful from the time the son of Zubair was killed.
On the death of Merwan, Abdul Malik was accepted as their ruler by the majority of the clan. Abdul Malik was a typical Ommeyade ; energetic, intriguing and unscrupulous, he applied himself with extraordinary ability to strengthen his position. Whilst he was thus employed, Mukhtar established himself in Irak, and from there hunted the murderers of Hussain. They were systematically pursued and killed like vermin. An army sent by Abdul Malik under the "Butcher" was destroyed; he himself was killed and his head was taken to Mukhtar. Having achieved the object for which they had taken up arms, the " Avengers " became rent into factions, and were one after another subdued by Musaab, Abdullah's brother and deputy in Irak. The struggle with Mukhtar was protracted and sanguinary, but in the end the "Avenger" was killed, his adherents were put to the sword, and Musaab was left complete master of the field. The authority of the son of Zubair was now unquestioned both in Irak and Mesopotamia. Khorasan also was under his sway. But his power rested on precarious foundations. The Irakians were faithless, and entered into secret negotiations with Abdul Malik to accept him as their ruler in return for certain rewards.
In the meantime, Abdullah's forces were weakened by incessant fights with the Kharijis, who issuing from their desert fastnesses were committing depredations and atrocities upon the unoffending inhabitants of Chaldaea and Southern Persia. These ruthless fanatics, in their religious fury, perpetrated revolting cruelties to avenge themselves on organised society.
An incident connected with the Hajjaj is mentioned by the Arab historians as showing the divided condition of Islam a this period. On this occasion four standards, representing four different factions, were displayed at Arafat. One belonged to Abdullah, the son of Zubair; the second to Abdul Malik, the son of Merwan; the third to Mohammed al-Hanafia; and the fourth to the rebel Kharijis. Round each flag were gathered its partisans, but in spite of their mutual animosity, during the sacred season of truce none molested the other.
By the unsparing use of the sword, Abdul Malik in the Palace, killed by Abdul Malik with his own hands. Firmly established in Damascus, he turned his attention towards Mesopotamia and Chaldaea, held by Musaab on behalf of Abdullah bin Zubair. The defection of the Irakians encouraged him to move upon Kufa. Musaab, his son Yahya, and his heroic lieutenant Ibrahim, the son of Al-Ashtar were slain in battle, and Irak passed once more under the rule of the Ommeyades. After crushing Musaab, Abdul Malik despatched his troops against Abdullah. An overwhelming force under Hajjaj the son of Yusuf marched into Hijaz. Medina was captured without much difficulty, and Mecca, was again surrounded; and massive missiles, hurled from battering engines placed on the hills which encircled the devoted city, spread havoc and ruin all round. But Abdullah, by repeated sorties, long held the Syrians at bay. The siege was then turned into a blockade; the inhabitants, suffering from the rigours of famine, deserted in large numbers, until Abdullah was left with only a few defenders. Before making his last sortie, he consulted his mother Asma, the daughter of Abu Bakr, whether he should submit to the yoke of the hated Ommeyade or die fighting. The aged lady, in the heroic spirit of the Arab matron, answered that if he believed in the justness of his cause, it was his duty to fight to the last, but if he thought he was in the wrong, he should submit. She allayed his fear that the enemy would desecrate his body after his death by the answer, that “it mattered little what became of the body when the soul had returned to its Creator.” Bidding her farewell, he kissed her tenderly on the forehead, and then issued, sword in hand, determined to conquer or to die.
The Ommeyades were driven back on all sides, but in the end the brave warrior fell, overpowered by numbers. A soldier's death is generally respected by a brave enemy. But the Syrians possessed no sense of chivalry, and ignored the command of the Prophet, "to respect the dead." They refused the prayer of Abdullah's mother to give up her son's body for burial, and, in the ferocious spirit of the times, they impaled his corpse on a gibbet. The heads of Abdullah and of two of his leaders were exhibited at Medina and thence sent to Damascus.
There was much to admire in Abdullah's character; crafty and ambitious, he was yet cast in a heroic mould, and a strong sense of justice distinguished him from most of his compeers. The one great defect in his character, which probably led to his fall, was his niggardliness. Even when Hajjaj was battering at his gate, he refused to bring out his hoards to pay his men or buy materials of war. Abdullah is recognised by the Sunnis as one of the legitimate Caliphs of Islam, as he was in possession of the Holy Cities {Haramain-Sharifain), and prayers were offered for him from the pulpits of Medina and Mecca.
Abdul Malik was now the undisputed master of the Malik Islamic Empire. Muhalib, son of Abii Sufra, the master lieutenant of Abdullah bin Zubair in Southern Persia, of the perceiving the futility of further opposition, took the Empire. The viceroy of Khorasan, less tractable than Muhalib, replied to Abdul Malik's demand for submission by making the messenger swallow his master's missive and then return to Damascus.
During the struggle between Abdullah and Abdul Malik, the Kharijis had acquired strength and spread themselves over Southern Persia and Chaldaea. Goaded into fury by the insensate persecution of the Ommeyade governors, they fought wildly, reckless of their lives. Mere handfuls defeated time after time the legions of Abdul Malik. But they possessed no cohesion or unity. Some desired to return to the days of Omar, under a Caliph elected by the people; others, among them rejected all personal government and demanded the Lord's Rule under a Council of Elders. They were at last defeated and suppressed. In Persia, they met their match in Muhallib, whose military talents were appreciated by Abdul Malik. After a protracted and sanguinary struggle, he destroyed their strongholds and put them to the sword. The remnant again took refuge in the deserts of al-Ahsa. Like the Kharijis, the Romans had taken advantage of the civil war to make War with encroachments upon the dominions of Islam. Abdul Malik now forced them back, and after a series of successful operations, obtained a large cession of territory from the Byzantine emperor. In the east, the districts in the neighbourhood of modern Kabul, ruled by a Hindoo prince of the name of Ratbil, were brought into subjection. Similarly, a large part of Northern Africa was either subjugated or reconquered.
The conquest of Africa by the Saracens is full of romance. In 693 a.c. Abdul Malik despatched an army for the reconquest of Barbary {Ifrikia). The command was entrusted to Zuhair, an able lieutenant of Okba, who had, since the death of his chief, maintained himself against tremendous odds at Barca. The first operations were eminently successful; the rebel chief Koseila and the united forces of the Berbers and Romans were destroyed, and the whole province cleared of the enemy. Zuhair now committed a fatal mistake; keeping a small detachment with him at a place near Barca, which formed his head-quarters, he sent out expeditions for the subjugation of the outlying parts. In this perilous situation, the danger of which was enhanced by the absence of all scouting, he was suddenly attacked by a large Roman army landed in the rear. The fight was desperate; the Saracen general was killed and his soldiers cut to pieces. Barbary again slipped out of the hands of the Moslems. But the tenacity of purpose that had led to Abdul Malik's success over his rivals did not fail him on this occasion.
In 698 A.c. he despatched a third army under Hassan, the son of Noman, which for a time swept all opposition before it; Kairowan was recaptured; the city of Carthage was stormed, and the Romans and Berbers were defeated in open field. The remnant of the Roman army hastily abandoned the country, and the Saracen was once more supreme from the walls of Barca to the shores of the Atlantic. At this period the Berbers and the wild tribes of the Atlas acknowledged the authority of a woman, who is called by Arab historians the Kahina (Divineress). This Berber Pythoness was supposed to be gifted with supernatural attributes, and at her call a host of Numidians and other savages swept down upon the conquerors. The Saracens were simply overwhelmed ; several detachments were cut to pieces, and the main army was once more forced back upon Barca. For five years the Kahina remained the queen of Africa. In 79 A.H., Abdul Malik despatched another army to the assistance of Hassan. In those days one side was possessed of quick-firing machine-guns and rifles whilst the other was armed with ancient muskets or the still more primitive matchlocks. So far as actual weapons went, the Berbers and Saracens were equally matched, though the latter excelled their rebellious foes in equipment, organisation, and discipline. Their great superiority lay in those qualities of courage, energy and perseverance, and boundless trust in their prowess and their Faith, of which there are few parallels in history, ancient or modern. Abdul Malik's army cut its way through the Numidian hosts like a ship passing through the swirling waves. To bar the progress of the pertinacious Saracen, and to deprive him once for all of his chief temptation in the wealth of the cities, the Berber Pythoness formed the desperate resolution of turning the country into a desert. She gave orders that the entire tract under her sway should be laid waste. Mansions and palaces were pulled down ; whatever valuables could not be carried away to the mountains were destroyed ; cities and villages were laid in ruin ; groves and gardens were cut down, and the once prosperous country was turned into a howling wilderness. The Arab historian calls this "the first devastation of Africa," not thinking of the havoc and waste created by the Romans or by Genseric the Vandal. The savagery of the Pythoness, however, proved of no avail. Hassan was hailed by the inhabitants as a deliverer, the dismantled and ruined cities hastened once more to make their submission, and the people readily took the oath of allegiance. The Kahina was defeated and slain in a great battle at the foot of the Atlas. The Berbers, exhausted by the indomitable perseverance of the Saracens, sued for peace, which was granted upon condition of their supplying to the Saracen general an auxiliary contingent of 25,000 cavalry. Islam now spread rapidly among the Berbers. But unfortunately the Kharijis, driven from Persia and Arabia, began at this time to pour into Africa. Their narrow and bigoted conceptions, their exclusive and reactionary doctrines, their hatred of the government of Damascus, chimed in with Berber feelings and ideas. The Theocrats and Separatists, who had been hunted by Abdul Malik and his lieutenants, now found themselves the leaders of hosts. Henceforth the frequent and sanguinary revolts of the Berbers were due to their teachings.
Hajjaj bin Yousuf, at one time governor of Hijaz, was Abdul Malik's viceroy over Irak, Sejistan, Kerman, and Khorasan, which included Kabul and parts of Transoxiana. Western Arabia was under a separate governor named Hisham, son of Ismail, whilst Egypt was ruled by Abdul Malik's brother, Abdul Aziz. The intolerable and ferocious cruelty of Hajjaj gave rise to several furious revolts, one of which under Abdur Rahman, the son of al-Ashas, nearly cost Abdul Malik his throne. But numbers and perseverance bore down all opposition, and the insurgents were driven to take refuge in distant parts. Whilst governor of Hijaz, Hajjaj had cruelly oppressed the inhabitants of Medina and ill-treated the surviving companions of the Prophet. At one time he thought of rasing the city to the ground. In the course of his long government over Irak, he put to death nearly 150,000 men, many on false charges, some of them the best of the Arab race. At the time of his death, 50,000 people of both sexes were found rotting in his prisons and cursing the tyrant. The effect of these wholesale massacres was "to attenuate," as M. Sedillot observes, " the Saracenic nation by depriving it of its noblest and most capable leaders."
Muhallib, the conqueror of the Kharijis, who was acting as the deputy of Hajjaj in Khorasan, died in 703 A.c, and "with him died," says the Arab poet, "generosity and friendship." He was succeeded in his office by his son Yezid, to whom for a time Hajjaj showed the same favour.
Abdul Abdul Malik died at the age of 62 in 86 a.h. He loved poetry, especially when in praise of himself. Avarice and cruelty dominated his character; and his lieutenants, says Masudi, followed in his footsteps in the reckless shedding of blood. Of Abdul Malik it is stated, that in his young days he was much given to piety and devotional exercises; but the moment it was announced to him that he had succeeded his father, he put aside the Koran which he had been studying, with the remark, "This is my last time with thee." He was the first, says the annalist, who acted treacherously in Islam, the first who forbade speaking in the presence of the Caliphs, and the first who prohibited exhortations to justice, saying, "Let no one enjoin upon me the fear of God or love of equity, but I will smite his neck." In character he resembled Charlemagne. Just, when justice was not opposed to dynastic interest; daring and energetic, resolute and ambitious, he never faltered in the pursuit of his designs.
Before engaging in battle with Musaab and the insurgents under Abdur Rahman, he repeatedly offered them terms. His cruelty, like his frequent breaches of faith, was due to an anxiety to safeguard and promote the interests of his dynasty. But nothing can relieve him of responsibility for the cruelties of the ferocious Hajjaj, although he sometimes interfered to protect the victims. Abdul Malik was the first to open a mint in Islam. After him the Saracen rulers were extremely careful in maintaining the value of their coinage and in preventing counterfeit. Tampering with coins was punished with great severity. Until Abdul Malik's time, all public registers and the records of taxes were kept either in Greek or in Persian. Owing to the abuses resulting from this practice, he directed that thenceforth all records were to be kept in Arabic.
Some time before his death, he tried to induce his brother Abdul Aziz to resign the succession in favour of his son Walid. Abdul Aziz, however, firmly declined to do so, but dying soon after, Walid quietly succeeded to the throne.
Abdul Malik's contemporary on the throne of Constantinople was the tyrant Justinian II, who when returning from exile, and advised to show forgiveness to his enemies, declared — "Speak of forgiveness? May I perish this instant — may the Almighty whelm me in the waves, if I consent to spare a single head of my enemies."
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