and Mujāhid ibn Jabr, and his son ʿAbd al-Malik.

He had been the scribe of his cousin ʿUthmān, and the signet-ring was in his keeping; yet he betrayed him, and because of that betrayal the crowds were roused against ʿUthmān. Marwān then slipped away and set out with Ṭalḥah and al-Zubayr to seek revenge for ʿUthmān’s blood, but he killed Ṭalḥah on the Day of the Camel and got away—may he never have been spared—after which Muʿāwiyah appointed him governor of Madinah more than once.

His father had been banished by the Prophet ﷺ to Ṭāʾif (1), but ʿUthmān later recalled him to Madinah because he was his uncle.

When Yazīd’s son died, Marwān advanced; the Umayyads and others rallied around him, he fought al-Ḍaḥḥāk al-Fihrī, killed him, seized Damascus and then Egypt, and laid claim to the caliphate.

He was a man of mettle, courage, guile, and craft; red-faced, short—indeed very short (2)—slender-necked, large of head and beard, and was nicknamed khayṭ bāṭil (the “worthless thread”) (3).

Al-Shāfiʿī said: When they were routed on the Day of the Camel, ʿAlī asked about Marwān and remarked, “A near blood-tie still draws me toward him, and with that he is a leader among the young men of Quraysh.” (4)

Qabīṣah ibn Jābir said: I asked Muʿāwiyah, “Whom do you consider fit for authority after you?” He named several men and then added, “As for the Qurʾān-reciter, the jurist, the one uncompromising in enforcing Allah’s limits—that is Marwān.”

Aḥmad said: Marwān used to track the judicial precedents of ʿUmar.

Ibn ʿAwn narrated from ʿUmayr ibn Isḥāq, who said: Marwān was our governor, and every Friday he would revile a certain man. He was dismissed and replaced by Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ, who did not curse him; then Marwān was reinstated and resumed his cursing. Someone said to al-Ḥasan, “Do you not hear what he is saying?”