—“we or the Umayyads?” He answered, “They were of greater benefit to the people, whereas you are more steadfast in observing the prayer.” Al-Rashīd thereupon gave him six thousand.

They also said: This Marwān possessed abundant nobility and was much taken with himself. He was fond of diversion and music, yet warfare kept him from indulging in them.

Ibn ʿAsākir (1) relates: I read, in the handwriting of Abū ʾl-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muqallad ibn Naṣr ibn Munqidh ibn al-Amīr, in one of his compilations, that Marwān ibn Muḥammad wrote to a slave-girl of his whom he had left in Ramla when he fled, defeated, toward Egypt:

What I behold keeps urging me to patience, yet I refuse—
for what I carry for you within my breast draws me back.

Hard it is that you should pass the night while a curtain lies between us;
now you are ten nights distant from me.

And—by Allah—more painful to the heart, know this,
is that if you double those nights they become a month!

Greater than both, by Allah, is my fear
that we may never meet again throughout the ages.

I shall weep for you, withholding none of the flood of tears,
seeking from patience no reward that comes by patience.

Someone else recounted: As Marwān was fleeing he passed by a monk. The monk looked out at him and offered the greeting of peace. Marwān said, “Monk, do you have knowledge of the vicissitudes of time?” “Indeed,” he replied, “I know many hues of its changefulness.” Marwān asked, “Can the world treat a man so harshly as to make him a slave after he has been a master?” “Yes,” the monk answered. “How so?” He said, “Through his love of it, his eagerness for its pleasures, his neglect of prudence, and his failure to seize opportunities. If you love the world, then whoever loves it is its slave.” Marwān asked, “What is the path to emancipation?” He replied, “By detesting it and turning away from it.” Marwān said, “That can never be.” The monk replied, “Yet it will be; so hasten to flee from it before it is snatched from you.” Marwān then asked, “Do you know who I am?” “Yes,” he said, “you are the king of the Arabs, Marwān. You will be killed in the lands of the blacks and buried without a shroud. Were death not in pursuit of you, I would have shown you the place of your escape.”

Some people said: In those days a saying went around: “ʿA b. ʿA b. ʿA [b. ʿA] will kill M b. M b. M.” They meant that ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās would slay Marwān ibn Muḥammad ibn Marwān.

Others said: Marwān once sat surrounded by his enemies, while a servant stood over his head. He said to one of those he was addressing, “Do you not see the plight we are in? Alas for a hand whose favor went unmentioned, a blessing unacknowledged, and a dynasty unassisted.” The servant said, “O Commander of the Faithful, whoever leaves the little until it grows much, the small until it becomes big, the hidden until it appears, and postpones today’s work until tomorrow—something worse than this will befall him.” Marwān replied, “Those words are harder on me than the loss of the caliphate.”

It is said that Marwān was killed on Monday, thirteen days having passed of Dhu l-Ḥijjah, in the year 132 AH, when he was past sixty, indeed close to eighty. Others say he lived only forty years; the first report is the sounder. His caliphate lasted a little over five years, and he was the last of the Umayyad caliphs; with him their rule came to an end.