One day ʿAbd al-Malik delivered a sermon in Kūfa, saying:

“If ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Zubayr were truly a caliph, as he claims, he would have come out and laid down his life instead of burying his tail inside the Sacred Precinct.

“I have appointed my brother Bishr ibn Marwān over you and ordered him to show kindness to those who obey and firmness toward those who disobey. Therefore, listen to him and obey.”

As for Basra, when news of Muṣʿab’s death reached its people, the governorship was disputed by Ḥumrān ibn Abān ibn ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān ⦗1⦘ and ʿUbayd Allah ibn Abī Bakra. Ḥumrān prevailed, the townspeople swore allegiance to him, and he was considered the more distinguished of the two.

A Bedouin said, “By Allah, I once saw Ibn Abān’s cloak slip from his shoulder and both Marwān and Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ rushed forward to see who would replace it upon his shoulders.”

Another narrator said, “One day Ḥumrān stretched out his leg, and Muʿāwiya and ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿĀmir hurried to see which of them would massage Ibn Ḥumrān’s foot first.”

The narrator continues: ʿAbd al-Malik then sent Khālid ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Khālid ibn Asīd as governor of Basra. He wrested the city from Ḥumrān, appointed ʿUbayd Allah ibn Abī Bakra as his deputy there, and removed Ḥumrān ibn Abān from office.

They further relate that ʿAbd al-Malik ordered an abundant banquet for the people of Kūfa. They ate from his spread while ʿAmr ibn Ḥurayth sat beside him on the dais. ʿAbd al-Malik said to him, “How pleasant our life would be—if only anything endured! Yet, as the earlier poet said:

Every new thing, O Ummaym, is fated to decay,
And every man, one day, will come to be ‘he was.’

When the meal was finished, he rose, strolled through the palace, and kept asking ʿAmr ibn Ḥurayth about its condition—who had built its halls and apartments—and ʿAmr informed him. He then returned to his seat, reclined, and recited:

Work at a measured pace, for you are sure to die;
Strive for yourself, O son of man.
What has passed seems never to have been once it is gone,
And what is yet to be seems already to have happened.

Ibn Jarīr ⦗2⦘ reports that in the same year—according to al-Wāqidī—ʿAbd al-Malik returned to Syria.

He also states: In that year Ibn al-Zubayr dismissed Jābir ibn al-Aswad from Medina and appointed Ṭalḥa ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAwf in his place. He was the last of Ibn al-Zubayr’s governors there until Ṭāriq ibn ʿAmr, a client of ʿUthmān, arrived on behalf of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān.

That year ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Zubayr led the people in the pilgrimage, though he no longer held authority over Iraq.

Al-Wāqidī further relates: In the same year ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Marwān, the governor of Egypt, commissioned Ḥassān al-Ghassānī ⦗3⦘ to campaign in Ifrīqiyya. He marched forth with a large force and captured Qurtājanna (Carthage), whose inhabitants were Byzantine idol-worshippers ⦗4⦘.