I will not do it.”

They refused to accept this, so he released the prisoners. They began to pledge allegiance to him, but before the last of them had finished they spoke to him harshly and then encamped apart.

Another account relates that they emerged rubbing their hands along the walls, saying, “This is the pledge of Ibn Marjana!”

They seized his horses, whereupon he slipped away at night and sought refuge with Masʿūd ibn ʿAmr, the chief of the Azd, who granted him protection.

The people of Basra set ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Nawfal al-Hāshimī over them. The Kharijites attacked Masʿūd and killed him, the disorder grew worse, the city split into two camps, and they fought for several days. The Kharijites were led by Nāfiʿ ibn al-Azraq, while ʿUbayd Allah, before Masʿūd was slain, had already fled with one hundred men of the Azd toward Syria. He reached al-Jābiya, where the Umayyads were gathered, and there, in mid-Dhu al-Qaʿda, he and Marwān pledged allegiance to Khālid ibn Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiya.

They and Ḍaḥḥāk met at Marj Damascus and fought for several days in Dhu al-Ḥijja. Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays commanded sixty thousand men, while the Umayyads had thirteen thousand. At ʿUbayd Allah’s suggestion they asked Ḍaḥḥāk for a truce; when he accepted, Marwān launched a sudden attack, and Ḍaḥḥāk was killed together with a number of Qaysī horsemen.

The Kharijites meanwhile rose up in Egypt, calling the people to Ibn al-Zubayr, thinking he was of their number. Ibn al-Zubayr therefore appointed ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Jaḥdam al-Fihrī over Egypt and placed ʿĀmir ibn Masʿūd al-Jumaḥī in charge of Kufa. He demolished the Kaʿba and rebuilt it, lowering both its doors to ground level and incorporating six cubits of the ḥijr into the building (1).

Most of the Syrians, however, pledged allegiance to Marwān at the beginning of the year 65 AH. Ibn al-Zubayr dispatched al-Muhallab ibn Abī Ṣufra to Khurasan, where he fought the Kharijites and routed them.

He then marched