even though they themselves were only nine hundred. They withdrew to Tadmur, and Marwān maintained the siege of Ḥimṣ for a full ten months. When calamity pressed upon the inhabitants and humiliation clung to them, they begged him for safe-conduct, but he would grant it only if they surrendered entirely to his judgment. They thereupon asked for security on condition that they hand over to him Saʿīd ibn Hishām (1) together with his two sons, Marwān and ʿUthmān, the al-Saksakī who commanded his army, and a certain Ḥabashī who had been slandering and reviling him. Marwān accepted their terms, guaranteed their safety, and put those men to death. He then marched against Ḍaḥḥāk.

ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, the governor of Iraq, had already concluded a truce with the Kharijite Ḍaḥḥāk over that part of Kūfah and its districts which he controlled. Marwān’s cavalry (2) now advanced toward Kūfah, where they were met by the city’s deputy on behalf of Ḍaḥḥāk, Milḥān al-Shaybānī. Fighting broke out, Milḥān was killed, and Ḍaḥḥāk appointed in his stead al-Muthannā ibn ʿImrān of Banū ʿĀʾidah. In Dhū al-Qaʿdah Ḍaḥḥāk marched to Mosul, while Ibn Hubayrah headed for Kūfah and wrested it from the Kharijites. Ḍaḥḥāk sent an army to Kūfah, but it found nothing there.

In this same year Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays al-Shaybānī rose in revolt. The cause was that a man called Saʿīd ibn Bahdal, himself a Kharijite, took advantage of the people’s distraction after the killing of al-Walīd ibn Yazīd and, with a band of Kharijites in Iraq, rebelled. Four thousand men rallied to him—a number no Kharijite had previously assembled. Government forces advanced against them and bitter fighting followed, victory passing now to one side, now to the other. Saʿīd ibn Bahdal then succumbed to a plague, and after his death command of the Kharijites devolved upon Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays. His followers rallied to him; he confronted a large army and the Kharijites prevailed, killing great numbers, among them ʿĀṣim ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, brother of the Iraqi governor ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, who later composed elegies for him.

Ḍaḥḥāk then advanced with a detachment of his men toward Marwān. Passing by Kūfah, he was opposed by its inhabitants, but he routed them, entered the city, and seized control of it. He appointed over it a man named Ḥassān, and later—during Shaʿbān of that year—replaced him with Milḥān al-Shaybānī. He then set out in pursuit of the governor of Iraq, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz; numerous engagements took place between them, too many to recount in detail.

During this year as well, a group of propagandists (duʿāt) for the House of al-ʿAbbās assembled around Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad, the Imām; with them was Abū Muslim al-Khurāsānī. They supplied him with abundant funds, giving him one-fifth of their wealth, but their movement failed to cohere that year because of the widespread unrest and the turmoil afflicting the people.

That same year, in Kūfah, Muʿāwiyah ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib rose in rebellion, calling people to his own cause. He marched out to fight the governor of Iraq, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. Lengthy battles ensued between them until he was expelled from the city; he then fled to the mountains and gained control of them.