and Egypt. After Yazīd’s death the people swore allegiance to his son, Muʿāwiyah ibn Yazīd. He was a righteous man, but his reign was brief: he remained in office for forty days—some say twenty—then died (may Allah have mercy on him).

Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam thereupon seized control of Syria and ruled it for nine months before he too died. His son ʿAbd al-Malik succeeded him, whereupon ʿAmr ibn Saʿīd al-Ashdaq contested the caliphate. ʿAmr had served as governor of Madinah during the days of Muʿāwiyah, Yazīd, and Marwān, and when Marwān died he claimed that the latter had appointed him to rule after his own son ʿAbd al-Malik. The new caliph found this intolerable (1) and continued to press him until, after ʿAmr’s power had grown considerable (2) in Damascus, he captured and killed him in 69 AH—some say in 70 AH.

ʿAbd al-Malik’s rule endured until he defeated Ibn al-Zubayr in 73 AH. Under his orders, al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf al-Thaqafī killed Ibn al-Zubayr at Mecca after a long siege that even required a catapult to be set up against the Kaʿbah because Ibn al-Zubayr had sought refuge in the Sacred Precinct. Al-Ḥajjāj pursued him relentlessly until he killed him.

After that, ʿAbd al-Malik decreed that the caliphate should pass to his four sons in succession: al-Walīd, then Sulaymān, then Yazīd, and finally Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik.

Imām Aḥmad said: Aswad and Yaḥyā ibn Abī Bakr narrated to us; Kāmil Abū al-ʿAlāʾ narrated to us; I heard Abū Ṣāliḥ—the freedman of Ḍubāʿah the muʾadhdhin, whose name was Mīnā—say: I heard Abū Hurayrah say that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Seek Allah’s protection from the dawn of the seventies and from the rule of boys.” He also said, “This world will not come to an end until it falls into the hands of Lukaʿ ibn Lukaʿ.” (3)(4) Aswad commented, “That means a base man, the son of a base man.”

Al-Tirmidhī likewise transmitted—through Abū Kāmil, from Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Abū Hurayrah—that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “The lifespan of my community is between sixty and seventy years.” (5) He then remarked that the report is ḥasan gharīb. (6)

Imām Aḥmad also related—through ʿAffān and ʿAbd al-Ṣamad, from Ḥammād ibn Salamah, from ʿAlī ibn Zayd—that someone who heard Abū Hurayrah told him that the latter said: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, “A tyrant from among the Umayyads will certainly stand bellowing”—ʿAbd al-Ṣamad’s version says bleeding from the nose—“upon this pulpit of mine,” and ʿAbd al-Ṣamad added, “until the blood runs down.” He said: Someone who had witnessed it told me that ʿAmr ibn Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ once stood on the Prophet’s ﷺ pulpit with a nosebleed that streamed down.

I say: The narration of ʿAlī ibn Zayd ibn Judʿān is odd and objectionable, and the man had Shīʿī leanings.