SIEGE OF MECCA
[683-684 A.D.]
Hosein was slain, and his family sent captives to Damascus, where they were well treated by Yazid; who sent them under careful convoy to Medina. The anniversary of the martyrdom of Hosein is kept with great solemnity in Persia and Media; and in after years a splendid mausoleum was erected on the spot where he fell, called by the Arabs the “Meshed Hosein” (the sepulchre of Hosein). The death of Hosein furnished his friend and survivor, Abdallah the son of Zobair, with a fresh claim to the caliphate, and a subject, capable, in his able hands, of being well turned to account in working upon the feelings and faith of the Islams. He was soon proclaimed caliph by the house of Hashem, possessing at the same time a majority in his favour at Mecca and Medina.
Open rebellion broke out, and Yazid with difficulty found one infirm old general to espouse his cause. The veteran Muslim quitted Damascus with twelve thousand horse and five thousand foot. Arriving at Medina, he found the place securely entrenched and fortified. On the fourth day the city was stormed, and compelled to surrender. Ali, the son of Hosein, and the partisans and household of Omayyah, were despatched under careful escort to Damascus, and then the place was given up to three days’ pillage. In the sixtieth year of the Hegira, 683 A.D., Muslim, whose memory is execrated by all devout Moslems, died on his march to Mecca; and the command was assumed by Hosein ben Numair, a Syrian by birth. This general besieged Mecca for forty days; and just as the inhabitants feared to share the same fate as the people of Medina, news arrived that Yazid had expired at Hawwarin, in the thirty-ninth year of his age, 684 A.D. This event changed the fortunes of war. Numair offered allegiance to Abdallah; but this latter, fearing treachery, simply permitted the Syrian general and his troops, without arms, to march in procession round the ruins of the Kaaba, which had been destroyed during the siege by fire. Part of the family of Omayyah, then at Mecca, accompanied the Syrians on their return to Damascus.
All the sectarians of Ali hold the memory of Yazid in abhorrence, as the instigator of the murder of the two brothers, Hassan and Hosein; and charge him with sacrilege, in ordering the sack of Medina and Mecca.
Moawiyah II, son of Yazid, was proclaimed at Damascus eighth caliph of the Moslem empire, being the third of the house of Omayyah, a man feeble in mind and body, and one of the sect of Kadarii, maintaining the free will of men against the dictates of wiser counsels and better conscience. This second Moawiyah was in his twenty-first year when he reluctantly assumed the caliphate; for his health was so bad, that he was compelled (most probably from weak eyes) to shut himself up in darkened apartments, whence the Arabs named him Abu Laili—the Father of Night. His chief counsellor was one Omar Aheksus, who is said to have counselled him to abdicate, after a short sway of six months’ duration; for which advice the Omayyads buried the unfortunate man alive. This youthful caliph refused to nominate a successor, declaring that his grandfather had been a usurper, his father unworthy of so high a trust, and himself unwilling and unfit to undertake it. Soon after his abdication he died, the wreck of a diseased frame and morbid temperament.
[684-689 A.D.]
Again was Syria rent with civil discord. The people of Damascus favouring the claims of Merwan, the secretary, as regent during the minority of Khalid, Yazid’s son; whilst Egypt, Babylonia, Arabia, Khorasan, Medina, and Mecca acknowledged Abdallah ben Zobair as caliph. Meanwhile, Obaidah ben Zehad, the same that had caused Hosein to be slain, thought the present an auspicious moment to secure for himself an independence. After many fatigues he arrived at Damascus, in time to take an active part in the election of Merwan as caliph, while Bassora declared its allegiance to Abdallah. The claims of the former were admitted only in Syria, and there were even there two factions. A conflict ensued between the two factions; and the victory sided with Merwan, who was proclaimed caliph and obliged to marry the mother of Khalid, Yazid’s wife.
Merwan speedily marched against Egypt, but twice returned; and again twice faced about, tidings having reached him about the prowess of his lieutenant, another Amru, who ultimately subjugated Egypt. The people of Khorasan refused to acknowledge either caliph; they appointed Selim, a younger brother of Obaid Allah, to act as regent, till affairs should be finally settled. The fickle people of Cufa seemed to awaken from a prolonged lethargy, and declared in favour of the descendants of Ali; only, however, the next day to repudiate them. Four thousand men, under an aged general, did absolutely start on a fanatical expedition to destroy both claimants to the caliphate and their adherents; and so, rushing upon their fate, they were all slain.
Meanwhile, the fate of the heroic Achbar on the plains of Numidia was known at Damascus and Medina. At this time reinforcements arrived from Egypt, which helped to revive the courage of the Moslems. This only endured for a while; a large force from Constantinople, under experienced generals, landed on the coast of Africa. The Egyptians deserted their standard, Kairwan was vanquished, and the Moslems compelled to fall back upon Barca. Abdul-Malik, the eldest son of Merwan, marched to the succour of the discomfited Islam general; and the two forces combined marched upon Kairwan, defeating the enemy in every action, and finally replanted the standard of Islam in Kairwan. After this Abdul-Malik returned to Damascus, where Merwan, having caused him to be proclaimed as his successor, died after a reign of about eleven months, in the sixty-second year of the Hegira, 685 A.D.