—namely Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, the Commander of the Faithful, as will be explained, if Allah wills.
Then the year 117 AH began.
During it, Muʿāwiyah ibn Hishām led the left-flank summer campaign (ṣāʾifah), while Sulaymān ibn Hishām led the right-flank campaign; both were sons of the Commander of the Faithful, Hishām.
In the same year Marwān ibn Muḥammad—known as Marwān al-Ḥimār (1)—was governing Armenia. He dispatched two detachments, captured several fortresses in the land of the Alans, and many of their people surrendered under a guarantee of safety.
That year Hishām also dismissed ʿĀṣim ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Hilālī from the governorship of Khurāsān and annexed the province to Khālid ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Qasrī together with Iraq (2), restoring to him what he had previously held by custom. This came about because of a letter from the deposed ʿĀṣim himself: he had written to the Commander of the Faithful, Hishām, claiming that Khurāsān could only be properly administered in conjunction with Iraq, hoping thereby to have it added to his own charge. The result, however, was the opposite: Hishām accepted the advice yet bestowed the province upon Khālid al-Qasrī.
Also in this year there died Qatādah ibn Diʿāmah al-Sadūsī (3), Abū al-Khaṭṭāb al-Baṣrī, who was blind—one of the distinguished scholars among the Successors and a practicing imam.
‘Abd al-Malik, and it is said ‘Isa ibn Muqsim, the mawla of al-Walīd by al-Walīd’s order’—the passage found in al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā (al-Qism al-Mutammim, p. 164) from al-Wāqidī, Muḥammad ibn ‘Umar, who reports: Muḥammad ibn ‘Abdullāh narrated to me from al-Zuhrī that Hishām appointed his son, Abū Shākir—whose name was Muslim ibn Hishām—to lead the Ḥajj in the year 116 AH, and ordered al-Zuhrī to accompany him to Mecca.
(1) In Siyar A‘lām al-Nubalā’ (vol. 6, p. 74), al-Dhahabī explains the epithet al-Ḥimār (the “Donkey”): “Marwān was a fearless hero, a shrewd and dignified strategist of formidable strength, able to march day and night without his mount flagging. He outwitted the Kharijites in al-Jazīra. It is also said that Arabs call each century a ‘donkey,’ so when the Umayyad dynasty neared its hundred-year mark, they nicknamed Marwān al-Ḥimār. The term likewise recalls the death of Uzair’s donkey (peace be upon him), which lasted a hundred years before God resurrected it.”
(2) In manuscript Q at this point there is an addition and a distortion; we have retained the reading found in manuscripts B and Ḥ.
(3) His biography is recorded in:
• Ibn Sa‘d, al-Ṭabaqāt (vol. 7, p. 229)
• Khalīfa, al-Ṭabaqāt (p. 213)
• Khalīfa, Tārīkh (pp. 232, 348)
• al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr (vol. 7, p. 185)
• al-Tārīkh al-Ṣaghīr (vol. 1, p. 318)
• al-Ma‘ārif (p. 462)
• al-Ma‘rifa wa-l-Tārīkh (vol. 2, p. 277)
• al-Jarḥ wa-l-Ta‘dīl (vol. 7, p. 133)
• Thiqāt Ibn Ḥibbān (vol. 5, p. 321)
• Ḥilyat al-Awliyā’ (vol. 2, p. 333)
• Ṭabaqāt al-Fuqahā’ (p. 89)
• al-Ansāb (vol. 7, p. 58)
• Sifat al-Ṣafwa (vol. 3, p. 259)
• Ibn al-Athīr, al-Mukhtār min Manāqib al-Akhyār (vol. 4, p. 224)
• Mu‘jam al-Udabā’ (vol. 17, p. 9)
• Tahdhīb al-Asmā’ wa-l-Lughāt (vol. 2, p. 57)
• Wafayāt al-A‘yān (vol. 4, p. 85)
• Tahdhīb al-Kamāl (vol. 23, p. 498)
• Siyar A‘lām al-Nubalā’ (vol. 5, p. 269)
• Tadhkirat al-Ḥuffāẓ (vol. 1, p. 122)
• Mīzān al-I‘tīdāl (vol. 3, p. 385)
• al-‘Ibar (vol. 1, p. 146)
• Marāt al-Janān (vol. 1, p. 251)
• Ṭabaqāt al-Qurrā’ (vol. 2, p. 25)
• Taqrīb al-Tahdhīb (p. 453)
• al-Nujūm al-Zāhira (vol. 1, p. 276)
• al-Kawākib al-Durrīya (vol. 1, p. 406; vol. 4, p. 508)
• Shudhūr al-Dhahab (vol. 1, p. 153).