The caliph then came to Damascus and ordered that Thābit and his companions—already maimed—be crucified at the city gates. He spared none of them save one man, ʿUmar ibn al-Ḥārith al-Kalbī, for, it was alleged, he knew the whereabouts of valuables that Thābit ibn Nuʿaym had deposited with certain people.

With the exception of Tadmur, the whole of Syria now lay securely in Marwān’s hand. He therefore set out from Damascus and encamped at al-Qasṭal in the district of Ḥimṣ. Word reached him that the people of Tadmur had blocked the water sources that lay between him and them; his anger against them flared, and he was accompanied by massed ranks of troops. At this point al-Abrash ibn al-Walīd—Tadmur was his people—addressed him, asking leave to go to them first so that he might discharge his duty of counsel. Marwān instead sent al-Abrash’s brother ʿAmr ibn al-Walīd, but when he arrived the inhabitants paid him no heed and refused to listen, so he returned. The caliph was on the point of dispatching the army, whereupon al-Abrash requested permission to go personally; Marwān agreed.

When al-Abrash reached them, he spoke with them and coaxed them toward obedience. Most complied, though some held back. He wrote to the caliph explaining what had happened, and the caliph ordered him to pull down part of the city wall and to bring to him all who had obeyed. This he did. When they had presented themselves, Marwān marched with the troops who were with him toward al-Ruṣāfah by the desert route, accompanied by leading members of the House of Umayyah: the deposed Ibrāhīm ibn al-Walīd, Sulaymān ibn Hishām, and a number of the sons of al-Walīd, Yazīd, and Sulaymān. He remained at al-Ruṣāfah for a few days, then set out for al-Raqqah. There Sulaymān ibn Hishām asked leave to stay behind a short while so that he might rest and secure his rear; Marwān granted him permission.

Marwān continued down-river and halted at Wāsiṭ on the bank of the Euphrates, where he stayed three days. He then went on to Qarqīsiyā, where Ibn Hubayrah was stationed, intending to send him to Iraq to fight the Kharijite Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays al-Shaybānī, the Ḥarūrī. While Marwān was occupied with this matter, ten thousand cavalry—men he had earlier detached on a raid—came riding by al-Ruṣāfah, where Sulaymān ibn Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik was still encamped with the caliph’s leave. They invited him to swear allegiance to himself, depose Marwān ibn Muḥammad, and fight him. Satan led him astray; he consented, declared Marwān deposed, and marched with the forces toward Qinnasrīn. He also wrote to the people of Syria, and supporters converged upon him from every direction. ⦗1⦘

Sulaymān then wrote to Ibn Hubayrah—whom Marwān had equipped for the campaign against Ḍaḥḥāk—ordering him to march to him; about seventy thousand men assembled around him. Marwān dispatched against them ʿĪsā ibn Muslim with a comparable force of roughly seventy thousand. The two armies met on the plain of Qinnasrīn and fought a fierce battle. Marwān himself arrived while the fighting was in progress, engaged them with even greater intensity, and routed them. On that day he killed Ibrāhīm, the eldest son of Sulaymān ibn Hishām, and slew slightly more than thirty thousand of their men.

Defeated, Sulaymān withdrew to Ḥimṣ, where the remnants of the routed army gathered around him. He encamped there and rebuilt the stretch of wall that Marwān had previously demolished. Marwān came up against them, besieged the city, and set up a little over eighty catapults. In this manner he remained for eight months, bombarding them night and day; each day the defenders would sally out, fight, and then retire.

Meanwhile Sulaymān, together with a contingent of troops, had gone to Tadmur. On the road they intercepted one of Marwān’s columns, hoping to annihilate it and seize its baggage, but they failed. Marwān prepared to meet them and fought a battle in which they killed close to six thousand of his men,