During his father's lifetime, he received the bayʿa (pledge of allegiance) for the caliphate. When his father died on the third of Ramadan, he was again given the bayʿa in the regions affiliated with Damascus and Egypt. He maintained his authority over the lands ruled by his father. Before his death, his father had sent two military units to Iraq and Medina to seize two territories under the control of Ibn al-Zubayr. The commander of the unit sent to Iraq was ʿUbayd Allāh b. Ziyād. On the way, ʿUbayd Allāh b. Ziyād encountered the army of the Tawwābūn under the command of Sulaymān b. Surad in the region of ʿAyn al-Warda, and the battle described on previous pages took place between these two forces. Ultimately, ʿUbayd Allāh b. Ziyād defeated the Tawwābūn army, killing their commander and many soldiers.
The unit sent to Medina was under the command of Hubaysh b. Dulja. He set out for Medina. Upon his arrival, the governor appointed by Ibn al-Zubayr, Jābir b. Aswad b. ʿAwf, fled. This governor was the nephew of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf. The governor of Basra appointed by Ibn al-Zubayr, Ḥāris b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Rabīʿa, also prepared a military unit in Basra against Ibn Dulja, who was in Medina, and sent it out. Hubaysh b. Dulja heard that this unit was advancing towards them. Ibn al-Zubayr also sent ʿAbbās b. Sahl b. Saʿd from Medina as governor and ordered him to capture Hubaysh. He pursued Hubaysh and his soldiers, eventually catching up with them at Rabadha. Yazīd b. Siyāh b. Ḥabashiyya shot and killed him with an arrow. He also killed some of his companions, and the rest were defeated. Five hundred of them took refuge in the fortress in Medina. Later, they submitted to the rule of ʿAbbās b. Sahl, who then massacred them. The defeated soldiers of Hubaysh returned to Damascus.
Ibn Jarīr said: When Yazīd b. Siyāh al-Aswarī, the killer of Hubaysh b. Dulja, returned to Medina with ʿAbbās b. Sahl, he was wearing a white garment and riding a bay horse. Soon, his garment and mount darkened due to people touching him and sprinkling much perfume and musk upon him.
Also in this year, the power of the Khārijites increased in Basra.
In this year, a battle took place between Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraq, the leader of the Khārijites, and Muslim b. ʿUbayd, the leader of the Basran cavalry. As a result, Rabīʿa al-Salūṭī killed Nāfiʿ. About five other commanders were also killed between these two. In the Khārijite battle, Qurra b. Iyās al-Muzanī, known as Abū Muʿāwiya, one of the Companions (ṣaḥāba), was also killed. After Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraq was killed, the Khārijites appointed ʿUbayd Allāh b. Maʿjūr as their leader. He gathered them and took them to al-Madāʾin, where they fought the people of al-Madāʾin. Then they took control of Ahwaz and other towns. Benefiting from reinforcements from Yamāma and Bahrain, they gathered wealth. Afterwards, they marched towards Isfahan, which was under the administration of ʿAṭṭāb b. Warqāʾ al-Riyāḥī. ʿAṭṭāb b. Warqāʾ fought them and defeated them. When the leader of the Khārijites, Ibn Maʿjūr, was killed, they appointed Qutri b. Fajāʾa as their leader.
According to Ibn Jarīr, Qutri b. Fajāʾa fought the Basrans at a place called Dolāb. When Qutri was victorious in this battle, the Basrans feared the Khārijites would enter the city. Ibn al-Zubayr dismissed his governor, ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥārith, known as Babba, and appointed Ḥārith b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Rabīʿa, known as Kubbaʿ, as governor of Basra. He also appointed Muhallab b. Abī Ṣufra al-Azdī as governor of Khurasan. When Muhallab arrived in Basra, the people said to him, "Only you can fight the Khārijites." He replied, "The Commander of the Believers, Ibn al-Zubayr, has sent me as governor of Khurasan. I will not go against his command." Thereupon, the people of Basra secretly agreed with their governor Ḥārith b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Rabīʿa and wrote a letter in the name of Ibn al-Zubayr to Muhallab, ordering him to oppose the Khārijites and prevent them from entering Basra.
When Muhallab read this letter, he stipulated that his soldiers be reinforced with money from the Basran bayt al-māl (public treasury) and that the spoils taken from the Khārijites' property be given to him. The Basrans accepted these conditions. According to another narration, the Basrans had proposed this situation to Ibn al-Zubayr by letter, and Ibn al-Zubayr accepted it, after which Muhallab opposed the Khārijites. Muhallab was a brave, valiant, and heroic man. When he decided to fight the Khārijites, they advanced rapidly against him with unprecedented equipment, armor, weapons, and many horses, as they had consumed the revenues of those regions and thus grown strong. They were men who never submitted, possessing an unstoppable force and a heart ready to plunge into the fire of battle.
When the two sides met at a place called Salwasal Abri, they began to fight fiercely. Both sides displayed dazzling sabr (patient endurance) and perseverance. There were nearly 30,000 soldiers. Then the Khārijites launched an unprecedented attack. Muhallab's soldiers were routed. Fathers did not look back for their sons, nor anyone for another. Some of Muhallab's soldiers, having been defeated, reached Basra. Muhallab, however, pursued the fleeing and defeated soldiers, got ahead of them, climbed to a high place, and called out: "O servants of Allah, come to me." About 3,000 brave cavalry gathered around him. He addressed them as follows:
"O people! Indeed, Allah sometimes causes a large crowd to be defeated because they are deceived by their own nafs (the lower self), while He sends down His help to small groups, and they are victorious. By my life, you are not few in number now. You are warriors of sabr and people of victory. I do not want any of those who have been routed and fled to be among you now. If they had gone out to battle with you, they would only have tried to disrupt you. {If they had gone forth with you, they would not have increased you except in confusion.} (al-Tawba 9:47) Now, I command each of you to take ten stones and come with us to the enemy camp. For they are now confident. Their cavalry has left the garrison to pursue your defeated brothers. By Allah, before their cavalry returns, you will kill their soldiers and destroy their commanders."
The soldiers obeyed Muhallab's command. Muhallab b. Abī Ṣufra, together with the soldiers who took stones, attacked the Khārijite group. He killed about 7,000 of them. ʿAbd Allāh b. Maʿjūr also killed many of the Azāriqa. They seized a great deal of their wealth. Muhallab also blocked the road with some cavalry to prevent the returning Khārijite horsemen from rejoining their defeated comrades. The routed Khārijite soldiers fled towards Kirman and Isfahan. Muhallab stayed in Ahwaz for a few days. Then Musʿab b. al-Zubayr came to Basra and dismissed Ḥārith b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Rabīʿa from the governorship of Basra. An explanation regarding this will be given soon.
Ibn Jarīr said: In this year, before his death, Marwān b. al-Ḥakam sent his son Muḥammad to al-Jazīra. This was before his arrival in Egypt.
I say: The aforementioned Muḥammad b. Marwān is the father of Marwān al-Ḥimār, the last Umayyad caliph. The Abbasids took the caliphate from him. Further explanation about this will be given in the following pages.
Ibn Jarīr said: In this year, ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr dismissed his brother ʿUbayd Allāh from the governorship of Medina and appointed his other brother Musʿab in his place. This was because ʿUbayd Allāh had delivered a speech in which he said: "You have seen what Allah did to the people of the Prophet Ṣāliḥ because they slaughtered a camel worth 500 dirhams." Upon hearing these words, his brother ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr said, "This is affectation," and dismissed him. For this reason, ʿUbayd Allāh was called the appraiser of the value of the Prophet Ṣāliḥ's camel.
At the end of this year, ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr dismissed the governor of Kufa, ʿAbd Allāh b. Yazīd al-Ḥutamī, and appointed ʿAbd Allāh b. Muṭīʿ in his place. When ʿAbd Allāh was deposed, he had been the commander of the Muhājirūn at the Battle of Ḥarra.
Ibn Jarīr said: In this year, a plague broke out in Basra. According to Ibn Jarīr's work al-Muntaẓam, the plague appeared in Basra in the sixty-fourth year of the Hijra. There is also a weak narration that it appeared in the sixty-ninth year. According to our shaykh al-Dhahabī and others, the greatest devastation of this plague was seen in Basra, and it lasted three days. On the first day, 70,000 died; on the second day, 71,000; and on the third day, 73,000 Basrans died. On the fourth day, very few Basrans remained. The vast majority of the people had died. It is reported that the governor's mother also died, and there was no one left to carry her funeral, so eventually four people were hired to do so.
Ḥāfiẓ Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣbahānī, who lived during this plague, narrated from a man known as Abū Nufayd, who said: "We would go around the tribes, burying the dead. When the number of dead increased, we no longer had the strength to bury them. We would enter a house, find that all its inhabitants had died, close the door on them, and leave them as they were. We entered one house, searched inside, and saw no one alive, so we closed the door on them.
After the plague ended, we began to go around the neighborhoods again, opening the doors we had closed and checking the houses. In one house, we saw a child in the middle of the room whose body had just been anointed with ointment, as if he had just been taken from his mother's lap. As we stood there watching the child in amazement, a dog came out of a crack in the wall, approached the child, and the child crawled to it and began to suckle from the dog's teat. Later, I saw that child grown up and being held by his beard in the mosque of Basra."
Ibn Jarīr said: In this year, ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr rebuilt the Kaʿba al-Muʿaẓẓama. That is, he completed its construction and included the entire Ḥatim within the Kaʿba. He also opened two doors in the Kaʿba, one for entering and one for exiting.
Ibn Jarīr narrated from Ziyād b. Jabal: "I was in Mecca during the administration of ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr. I heard him say: 'According to what my mother, Asmāʾ the daughter of Abū Bakr, told me, the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said to ʿĀʾisha: "If your people had not only recently left kufr (disbelief), I would have rebuilt the Kaʿba on the foundations of the Prophet Abraham and included the Ḥatim within the Kaʿba."'
ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr gave the order. The people of Mecca dug the foundations. They saw rocks the size of camels in the foundation of the Kaʿba. When they tried to move one of the rocks, a lightning bolt flashed, and seeing this, ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr said, "Leave the foundations as they are," and built the Kaʿba on those foundations. He made two doors in the Kaʿba, one for entering and one for exiting."
In this year, long wars took place in Khurasan between ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥazm and Ḥāris b. Hilāl al-Kuzayī.
Also in this year, ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr led the people in the ḥajj. The governor of Medina was Musʿab b. al-Zubayr, the governor of Kufa was ʿAbd Allāh b. Muṭīʿ, and the governor of Basra was Ḥārith b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Rabīʿa al-Makhzūmī.
Among the notable figures who died this year was ʿAbd Allāh b. Arar b. ʿĀṣ b. Wāʾil Abū Muḥammad al-Sahmī. He was among the distinguished, learned, and devout Companions (ṣaḥāba). He wrote and transmitted hadith from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). He became Muslim before his father and was only twelve years younger than him. He possessed deep knowledge and devoted himself to worship. He was an intelligent man. He reproached his father for cooperating with Muʿāwiya and was a corpulent man. He read both the Qur'an and the Torah. It is reported that he wept so much that he lost his eyesight. He spent his nights in prayer and his days fasting, fasting every other day. Muʿāwiya appointed him governor of Kufa, then dismissed him and appointed Mughirah b. Shuʿbah in his place. He died in Egypt in the sixty-fifth year of the Hijra.
In this year, a Companion (ṣaḥāba) named ʿAbd Allāh b. Saʿda al-Fazārī was killed in Mecca. Before coming to Mecca, he lived in Damascus. It is reported that he was not originally from Fazārah, but had been taken captive by the Fazārah tribe and later freed.