The four years’ reign of Yazid II, who had beforehand been appointed Omar’s successor by his brother, Suleiman, ran its course in the midst of civil and foreign strife. Scarcely had Yazid, Muhallab’s son, learned of the death of the caliph when he escaped from prison and fleeing to Irak, where his brothers and other kindred possessed a large following, raised the standard of revolt. He was overcome, however, by the Syrian army under Maslama at Akr, on the left bank of the Euphrates, and sought and found death on the battle-field. His brothers were also overpowered by the hostile forces at Kerman, their wives and children were sold as slaves and the rebellious cities of Bassora and Wasit were heavily punished. At the same time wars, desertions, and conspiracies were rife in the remaining provinces, especially in northern Africa; while even in Spain and southern France the Moslem arms no longer met with their former success. Meanwhile the caliph in Damascus was giving himself up completely to the pleasures of love and song, and in the arms of a favourite slave was seeking restoration from the fatigues and hardships of a ruler’s life.
[724-744 A.D.]
Yazid’s brother and successor, Hisham, adopted an entirely different course. Simple in taste, just and pious like both the Omars, he banished from his court the luxury and extravagance in which most of his predecessors had freely indulged. But the house of Omayyad had too many enemies even among the believers themselves, and passions had been too deeply stirred by the recent civil war to make it possible that the twenty years’ reign of a prince who in spite of many praiseworthy qualities had by his avarice and suspicion incurred the enmity of all the city authorities, could run its course without suffering violence from storms and accidents. The abhorrence felt in Cufa toward the cruel and rapacious governor Khalid, had moreover revived in the minds of the mercurial inhabitants of Irak, all their former aversion to the Omayyads, and incited the Shiites to fresh revolt. Khalid was indeed deposed from office and forced by torture to disgorge his ill-got wealth, but the conspiracy was already too widespread to be completely uprooted. Zaid, a grandson of Husein, headed a revolt in the streets of Cufa, which resulted in a sharp struggle during which the leader and most of his followers lost their lives. Zaid’s body was mutilated and his head sent to the caliph at Damascus. But the new glory of martyrdom served only to enhance the importance and sanctity of the Alids, and to strengthen the hopes entertained by the Abbasids, their kinsmen, of entering the succession and getting the sovereignty away from the Koreishites to secure it to the house of Hisham to which alone, in the opinion of strict believers, it rightfully belonged. They had a large following in Khorasan and Transoxiana; and the Kharijites who, in consequence of the recent campaigns, had spread over the entire realm, served them in India and in Africa in the execution of their ambitious plans against the Omayyads.
The insurrections, conspiracies, and civil wars which under Hisham broke out with ever increasing violence in the provinces, multiplying acts of rapacity and revenge, and dealing death-blows to the welfare of country, state, and people by the destruction of agriculture, industry, and trade, were so many indubitable signs that the unity of the kingdom was about to be dissolved, that the might of the Omayyad dynasty in Damascus was nearing its end. The subjugated populations were beginning to recover from their surprise and to bethink themselves of former times; and though the majority still remained faithful to the new religion, the consciousness of their national identity and remembrance of the past were not to be blotted from their minds, and the bold leader who could best evoke these secret feelings could count upon warm sympathy and a crowd of followers. The dissimilar elements that religious zeal had served to bind together in the first enthusiasm of the “Sacred War,” strove in the course of time, as other interests came uppermost and smothered passions again broke loose, to separate naturally and once more become distinct. These strivings on the part of the people towards independence were effectually aided by the divisions and hostilities that existed between the various commanders, by the machinations of the Abbasids, and their co-religionists and by the avarice of the caliph who, though observing the closest parsimony in his own mode of living, loved to feast his eyes on full state coffers.
[744-750 A.D.]
Walid II, Hisham’s successor, scattered the hoarded treasures of his predecessor, and delighted flatterers, courtiers, generals, and troops by his boundless liberality. He disgraced himself, on the other hand, by his licentiousness and excesses, and gave offence by running counter to all the accepted Mohammedan customs and religious laws. However loudly smooth-tongued poets, in whose company he squandered the wealth that was his by oppression as well as by inheritance, might sing his praises, the people were wroth with the unworthy ruler who spent his time in hunting and debauchery, found all his pleasure in wine, song, and dance, indulged in unnatural vices and flouted public decency by carrying with him dogs and wine on a pilgrimage to Mecca. When, therefore, this godless caliph sent to the governors a circular letter filled with pious maxims of the strictest orthodoxy, calling upon all the people to acknowledge and swear allegiance to his two minor sons, Hakam and Othman, as their future rulers, the unheard-of innovation excited the liveliest dissatisfaction. Especially loud in their complaints were the sovereign’s own kinsmen, who had each in secret cherished the hope of succession; so that now another and more threatening danger was added to those by which the royal house was already beset; disunion within itself. The sons of Hisham and Walid I allied themselves with the enemies of the Omayyads, and accused the caliph, whom they had also personally affronted, of “unbelief, free-thought, and incest.” Even Khalid, hitherto steadily devoted to the House of Omayyah, hesitated at swearing allegiance to two children who “did not yet know how to pray, and could not be accepted as lawful witnesses.” The caliph thereupon gave him into the hands of his mortal enemy Yusuf, governor of Cufa, who caused his members to be broken one after another until he died under the torture. By this act Walid increased the number of his enemies. A widespread conspiracy was formed in Damascus and its vicinity, under the leadership of Yazid, son of the former caliph Walid I, as a result of which the commander of the faithful was attacked by a troop of insurgents in his castle of Nadira, and after a brave resistance was overpowered and killed. The following day his head was carried on the end of a lance about the streets of Damascus, and his own brother Suleiman refused to his remains the honour of burial. The reign of Yazid III lasted but half a year. As a former rebel against the rightful sovereign, as an adherent of the doctrines of free-will, and as a parsimonious leader who curtailed the pay of his troops, he had made many enemies; and would certainly have succumbed to the arms of mighty Merwan, the Omayyad governor of Armenia and Aderbaijan, who advanced upon him with a large army, had he not died just previous to the encounter.
Merwan now entered Syria with his seasoned, experienced troops, captured Himso, and in a desperate engagement that took place in a narrow valley near Ain Diar defeated the Yemenite army that Hisham’s son, Suleiman, had led into the field against him. In this battle Suleiman left seventeen thousand men on the field of battle, and as many more fell into the hands of Merwan, while the rest of his army scattered in disorder. When the news of this battle reached Damascus, Ibrahim, whom Yazid III had designated as his successor, fled with Suleiman from the capital, after having put to death Walid’s sons and Yusuf, the earlier governor of Irak, who were in prison, and seized the state treasures. Merwan, who had hitherto acted only as Walid’s avenger and the protector of his sons, now found himself in a position where he could stretch out his hand towards the crown of caliph, and cause the oath of allegiance to be taken to himself. In order to give his pretensions the appearance of legitimacy he made known the statement of a fellow-prisoner of the murdered princes, who asserted that at his death the eldest of them had made over his right of succession to the throne to him, Merwan. In spite of this sanction, whether true or false, and in spite of the reconciliation which took place later with Ibrahim and Suleiman, Merwan’s rule never met with full recognition. The battle of Ain Diar had inflicted wounds too deep, had brought uppermost in too many minds the sacred duty of revenge, to allow Merwan, the usurper, to ever come to peaceful enjoyment of his power. The years of his reign were marked by uninterrupted struggles with hostile factions, who had again united and all over the realm were stirring up the people to revolt. Even the Syrians, who had hitherto been the Omayyad’s strongest prop, went over in part to the enemy, and Merwan, with all his military talent and the tireless activity that had won for him the rather doubtful title of Himar (Donkey), could not in the long run withstand such determined opposition. With insurrection, tribal feuds, and civil strife in every province the whole realm was in a condition of anarchy and lawlessness that destroyed all private peace, and awoke in every breast an intense desire for a firm hand at the helm of state that should guide it into less troubled waters. That such a ruler was no longer to be looked for among the members of the house of Omayyah, divided as it was, and having foot on no solid, religious ground, had lately become the settled conviction in the minds of all.