already on the march towards Irak. When these Syrians
came to Rosafa (Rusafa), Suleiman b. Hisham persuaded them to proclaim
himself caliph, and made himself master of Kinnesrin. From all sides
Syrians flocked to his aid till he had 70,000 men under his orders.
Merwan immediately ordered Ibn Hobaira to stop his march and to wait for
him at Durin, and marched with the main force against Suleiman, whom he
utterly defeated at Khosaf in the district of Kinnesrin. Suleiman fled
to Homs and thence to Tadmor and on to Kufa, leaving his brother Sa'id
in Homs. The siege of this place by Merwan lasted nearly five months.
After the victory the walls were demolished, and likewise those of
Baalbek, Damascus, Jerusalem and other towns. Syria was utterly crushed,
and therewith the bulwark of the dynasty was destroyed. Not until the
summer of 128 (A.D. 746) could Merwan resume his campaign against Irak.

The governor of this province, Abdallah, the son of Omar II., was a man
of small energy, whose principal care was his personal ease and comfort.
An ambitious man, Abdallah b. Moawiya, a great-grandson of Ali's brother
Ja'far, put himself at the head of a band of Shi'ites and _maulas_, made
himself master of Kufa and marched upon Hira, where, since Yusuf b.
Omar, the governor and the Syrian troops had resided. The rebels were
defeated, and Kufa surrendered (October 744) under condition of amnesty
for the insurgents and freedom for Abdallah b. Moawiya. This adventurer
now went into Media (Jabal), where a great number of _maulas_ and
Shi'ites, even members of the reigning dynasty and of the Abbasid
family, such as the future caliph Mansur, rejoined him. With their help
he became master of a vast empire, which, however, lasted scarcely three
years.

Ibn Omar did not acknowledge Merwan as caliph. For the moment Merwan
could do no more than send a new governor, Ibn Sa'id al Harashi. This
officer was supported only by the Qaisite troops, the Kalbites, who were
numerically superior, maintaining Ibn Omar in his residence at Hira.
There were many skirmishes between them, but a common danger soon forced
them to suspend their hostilities. The general disorder after the death
of Hisham had given to the Khawarij an opportunity of asserting their
claims such as they had never had before. They belonged for the greater
part to the Rabi'a, who always stood more or less aloof from the other
Arabs, and had a particular grudge against the Modar. Their lead