The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate ad 661-750

(al-‘a’idh bi’l-bayt),
 denouncing Yazid and joining with other
opposition groups against Yazid. After the failure at Karbala’ in 680
of Husayn’s attempted revolt, which will be discussed shortly, there
were two opposition movements in particular which were in contact
with Ibn al-Zubayr. One was a revolt of the people of Medina, who
had publicly withdrawn their allegiance to Yazid, in spite of his
attempts to conciliate their leaders, in reaction, we are told, to the
caliph’s personal unsuitability for his office—charges such as
enjoyment of singing girls and playing with a pet monkey are
brought against him in the tradition. The other opposition movement
involved Kharijites, apparently from both Basra and parts of Arabia.
Towards the end of his life, in 683, Yazid raised an army to go to the
Hijaz, with the aim of crushing both the Medinese opposition and
that of Ibn al-Zubayr. The commander was a Syrian Arab of the
‘northern’ confederation of Qays, Muslim b. ‘Uqba al-Murri. This

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The Second Civil War
army defeated the Medinese at the battle of the Harra (summer 683)
and subsequently occupied the town, allegedly plundering it and
exacting oaths of allegiance to Yazid from the Medinese. This sack
of the town of the Prophet, which Muslims come to see as the home
of the 
Sunna,
 is one of the major crimes charged against the
Umayyads in tradition.
4
Having subdued Medina, the army continued to Mecca but
Muslim b. ‘Uqba died on the way and command was taken over by
Husayn b. Numayr al-Sakuni. When Husayn reached Mecca, and Ibn
al-Zubayr refused to submit, a siege of the town was begun and
catapults erected to bombard it. At some stage in the course of the
siege the Ka‘ba caught fire and was badly damaged. The
circumstances are quite obscure but, as one might expect, there is a
tendency in the sources to attach blame to the besieging army, and
this siege and bombardment too figure prominently in the lists of
Umayyad crimes. Before the siege could be brought to a successful
conclusion, however, news reached the Syrians of the death of the
caliph Yazid in November 683, upon which Husayn b. Numayr
entered into negotiations with Ibn al-Zubayr. It is reported that
Husayn offered to recognise Ibn al-Zubayr as caliph if he would
leave Mecca and return with the army to Syria. This, however, Ibn
al-Zubayr refused and consequently the Syrian army returned home,
leaving him in control of Mecca.
5
After the death of Yazid, although events in Syria are rather obscure,
it is clear that Umayyad authority collapsed almost everywhere and Ibn
al-Zubayr was able to extend his authority over most of the Arab lands,
eventually appointing his brother Mus’ab b. al-Zubayr to be governor of
Iraq. The extent of Ibn al-Zubayr’s authority is attested by coins bearing
his name from the Persian provinces of Fars and Kirman. Even in Syria
the ‘northern’ confederacy of Qays recognised his caliphate. At this
point he was, in fact, the generally recognised caliph of the Muslims,
Umayyad authority being limited to central and southern Syria. Once
the hiatus in the Umayyad line had been closed with the accession of
Marwan to the caliphate in 684, however, Zubayrid authority began to
be pushed back. A start was made already by Marwan, who recaptured
Egypt for the Umayyads during his nine-month tenure of power (he
died in 685). The final Umayyad victory came under the caliphate of his
son ‘Abd al-Malik (685–705), partly as a result of the political and
military measures which he undertook, but in large measure because of
Ibn al-Zubayr’s inability to maintain firm control of those areas,
notably Iraq, which had initially recognised him. In 691 ‘Abd al-Malik

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The Second Civil War 
49
was able to march into Iraq, defeating and killing Ibn al-Zubayr’s
governor Mus‘ab, and following this he sent an army under the
command of al-Hajjaj against Ibn al-Zubayr in Mecca. The second
siege of Mecca, by al-Hajjaj, is reported in terms very similar to the
earlier siege led by Husayn b. Numayr. Again catapults were erected
and the town bombarded. This time, though, the siege was pressed
home and eventually, probably in November 692, Mecca fell, and Ibn
al-Zubayr, now aged about 70 (he had been the first child born to those
who had made the 
hijra
 to Medina with Muhammad in 622), fell in the
final attack.
6
This marked the end of the second civil war. Ibn al-Zubayr does not
seem to have espoused any distinctive religious or political programme
in the manner of the Shi‘ites and the Kharijites (we are told that his
alliance with the Kharijites foundered when he refused to accept their
religious and political programme), and it seems that he won support
mainly because of his status as one of the first generation of Muslims
and a member of Quraysh at a time when the Umayyads were weak and
opposition to them strong in different quarters. One thing that is
notable, however, is the strong association between him and the Muslim
sanctuary at Mecca. We have seen that he fled to Mecca, called himself
al-‘a’idh bi’l-bayt,
 and refused to leave it when offered the caliphate by
Husayn b. Numayr. In the traditions the Umayyads often refer to him as
‘the evil-doer 
(mulhid)
 at Mecca’. After the end of the first siege, we are
told, he rebuilt the Ka‘ba and made some significant changes to its
form, citing the authority of the Prophet for them. When al-Hajjaj had
killed Ibn al-Zubayr and recaptured Mecca, the Umayyad commander
destroyed the changes which had been made by Ibn al-Zubayr and
restored the Ka‘ba to the form it had had before. While the struggle with
Ibn al-Zubayr was at its height, ‘Abd al-Malik undertook the
construction of the unique sanctuary of the Dome of the Rock in
Jerusalem. The interpretation of these developments is certainly
debatable and to some extent obscure, but one may suggest that an
argument about the sanctuary, its nature and its site, was an important
element in the conflict between Ibn al-Zubayr and the Umayyads.
7
Apart from Ibn al-Zubayr, the second civil war also saw attempts to
gain power by, or on behalf of, descendants of ‘Ali and although they
had only limited success, in the longer term they turned out to be very
important.
While Yazid was still alive and Ibn al-Zubayr had not yet put
himself forward as caliph, Husayn, the son of ‘Ali and the Prophet
Muhammad’s daughter Fatima, was persuaded to make a bid for

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The Second Civil War
power. Since the death of his brother Hasan, he was the most
prominent of ‘Ali’s children and, as we have seen, was one of those
who refused to accept the caliphate of Yazid. In 680, after fleeing
together with Ibn al-Zubayr from Medina to Mecca, he was told that
he could expect to receive substantial support in Kufa, his father’s
former headquarters and already scene of the abortive revolt of Hujr
b. ‘Adi, if he would only go there. Thus encouraged, he set out, but
the Umayyad authorities got wind of what was going on. Husayn
and his small band of followers were never allowed to get into Kufa
but were surrounded at Karbala’ in the desert to the north of the
garrison town where they were all killed after fighting broke out.
Seventy heads, including that of Husayn, are said to have been
displayed in Kufa afterwards, and Husayn’s was then forwarded to
Damascus where Yazid had it put up for show. The Umayyad
governor of Iraq at the time was ‘Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad and he, in