Transcript for:
Early Muslim Expansion and Internal Struggles

In the first half of the 7th century, the Muslim  caliphate burst out of the Arabian peninsula,   defeating both the Eastern Roman and Sassanid  Empires in a series of decisive battles,   shocking the ancient world and changing the  status quo of the region forever. In our   previous two videos on the early Muslim expansion,  we described these events in detail. By the middle   of the century, the conquests continued, but  the cracks started to show. In this episode,   we will talk both about these conquests that  brought the caliphate to its largest extent   from France to Central Asia and the internal  strifes that first ended the Rashidun caliphate,   bringing the Ummayad dynasty to power and starting  early sectarian divisons, weakening the Ummayads   in the process. Welcome to the third long-form  video in our series on the Early Muslim Expansion.   These long videos are difficult to make, and the  algorithm is currently unkind, so we ask for your   support to continue producing our videos -  please like, share, comment and subscribe!  Initially, the reign of Caliph Uthman ibn Affan  was a time of progress for the growing Rashidun   Caliphate. The governor of Egypt, Abdullah ibn  Sa’ad, had used the new standing navy of the   Caliphate to secure a steady tribute from the  island of Cyprus in 649, before defeating the   Eastern Romans at sea in the Battle of the Masts.  Meanwhile, the advancing armies of Ahnaf ibn   Qais and Abdullah ibn Aamer were making further  headway in the rapidly-crumbling Sassanid Empire.   Yazdegerd III, last of the Persian King of Kings,  had been reduced to little more than a fugitive,   fleeing from city to city ahead of the  conquerors. After the fall of Fars province   between 649 and 650, attempts to raise support  in first Kerman and then Sakastan each failed,   with the governors of these provinces  refusing to pay taxes to a destitute   and powerless Emperor or harbour him from the  advancing Arabs. Withdrawing finally to Merv,   he made a last-ditch effort to stem the tide by  appealing to his allies among the Hephthalite   principalities. Some soldiers were indeed sent  to support him, but they would never see battle   against the Arabs - unwilling to continue throwing  lives away in a hopeless war after the desertion   or surrender of Yazdegerd’s vassals, his last  general Farrukhzad abandoned him in 651, with   Merv’s governor Mahuy Suri turning against him  as well shortly after. With his last supporters   defeated by Suri’s own Hephthalite allies, the  King of Kings finally met his end hiding in the   home of a humble miller outside Merv, murdered  for his jewelry. While local resistance would   continue in Tabaristan for years to follow, the  once-great Sassanid Empire had ceased to exist,   its dynasty continuing only through a  family of exiles taking refuge in China.  But for all the military victories of the  Caliphate during Uthman’s twelve-year reign,   its domestic policies would soon beget internal  turmoil for the young and rapidly expanding state.   The aging Caliph’s nepotism and unpopular economic  policies created growing opposition to his rule   from various strands of society. During Umar’s  reign, laws had been set in place forbidding   Arab soldiers from buying land in conquered  territories, keeping soldiers strictly separated   from local populations both to prevent foreign  influences on the faith of his victorious armies   and to protect the property of the conquered.  Under Uthman, these restrictions were removed,   causing many soldiers in the caliphate’s armies  to buy up huge tracts of land in Syria and Iraq,   in some cases abusing their power and authority  in order to drive inhabitants out and resell the   same land at large profits, creating a new  class of wealthy ex-soldiers establishing   lavish estates across the Caliphate. This  new taste for luxury among the conquerors   drove up taxes and created great resentment  among both non-Muslims and non-Arab converts.  On top of economic friction, Uthman also created  for himself a theological controversy through his   creation of a unified, official version of  the Qur’an. Prior to this, the ad-hoc nature   by which the Prophet’s revelations were recorded  and transmitted by his closest companions meant   that many Qur’ans had minor variations in the  text from one to the next, undermining a faith   based on an eternal and infallible word of God. To  correct this, Uthman had a gathering of religious   scholars determine the canon account of the  Prophet’s words, gathering and burning as many   of the variant Qur’ans as possible. The Qur’an  of Uthman remains unchanged as the holy text for   Muslims around the world today - but during his  reign, some Muslims disagreed with the decisions   Uthman’s scholars reached or saw the destruction  of any Qur’an as sacrilegious, adding their   voices to the growing opposition to his rule. The long-simmering resentment against Caliph   Uthman boiled into open rebellion in 656. In  Egypt, Kufa and Basra, disaffected soldiers   from local garrison towns gathered and marched  on Medina to demand Uthman’s deposition and the   election of a new Caliph. Having been told by  agents that the grievances against him were   frivolous and a revolt unlikely, Uthman was caught  unprepared when the bands of soldiers converged on   Medina. Though he refused to step down as Caliph,  Uthman attempted to reach a peaceful settlement,   sending Ali ibn Abi Talib - the Prophet’s  son-in-law and one of the first Muslims - to   negotiate with the rebels on his behalf. The  smaller Kufan and Basran detachments were   convinced to make peace with Uthman, while the  larger Egyptian force was mollified with a promise   to remove their unpopular governor, Abdullah, from  governorship, in favour of Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr,   the son of the first caliph. With Ali as guarantor  of the agreement and ibn Abi Bakr leading them,   they began their return to Egypt, apparently  ending the immediate danger for Uthman. But on   their return journey, the soldiers waylaid  a messenger bound for Egypt with orders to   have the rebel leaders executed. Taking it  as a sign of treachery on Uthman’s part,   the rebels returned to Medina and surrounded  Uthman’s home, besieging him within and once   again demanded his resignation. Whether Uthman  really ordered the rebels executed is unclear,   with most accounts crediting the message not  to Uthman, but to his cousin and secretary, the   future Caliph Marwan ibn al-Hakam. Whatever the  truth of the matter, the rebels cut off water to   Uthman’s house and gave increasingly threatening  demands for his abdication, until one of Marwan’s   servants slew one of the rebel spokesmen with  a stone from the balcony on June 16th, making a   bloody end to the affair all but inevitable. Abandoned by most of his Umayyad clan,   with the Iraqi rebels and notables of Medina  remaining neutral, Uthman ordered his remaining   defenders to stand down in hopes of avoiding  bloodshed between Muslims when the rebels   attacked the house the following day. Regardless,  Marwan and the children of Ali refused this order   and attempted to save the life of their Caliph.  As Uthman sat for his noon prayers, Muhammad ibn   Abi Bakr and a few of the Egyptian rebels climbed  into his home from the roof of a neigboring house,   threatening the Caliph at swordpoint. Though  accounts differ on the specific events and   on ibn Abi Bakr’s role in particular - the final  outcome was the same. Uthman was the first Caliph   to be murdered by his fellow Muslims, an event  that would shake the Muslim world to its core.  Following the murder, the rebel bands effectively  controlled Medina, and under their influence,   particularly the Iraqis, Ali was elevated  to the role of Caliph. As the Prophet’s   son-in-law and one of the major candidates in  the previous election, Ali seemed a safe and   popular choice. However, his reign would be  saddled with the scandal of Uthman’s murder,   and demands for justice placed the new Caliph  in a difficult position. Given Ali’s efforts   to defuse the rebellion and the injuries his  own son Hasan suffered in Uthman’s defense,   it is incredibly unlikely he had any role in his  predecessor’s murder. But many of the rebels who   had opposed Uthman were now his most important  supporters, so punishing them would have alienated   his powerbase and potentially led to his own  demise. Stuck in a trap, Ali allowed Uthman’s   murder to go unpunished, which led to accusations  of weakness and complicity, particularly from   Uthman’s powerful Umayyad clan, laying the  groundwork for the first Islamic civil war.  The first stirrings of conflict came from  Talha ibn Ubayd Allah and Zubayr ibn al-Awwam,   Ali’s main competitors in the election that had  brought him to the throne. In the past, the two   had fought alongside Ali as comrades. But, despite  Talha’s own previous opposition to Uthman, they   had been among the most vocal for action against  the rebels, and were quick to make common cause   with another of Ali’s detractors - Aisha, the  widow of the Prophet himself. With Aisha as the   unifying spiritual figurehead of the rebellion,  funding from numerous Umayyad governors deposed   by Ali at the beginning of his reign, and several  prominent Muslim leaders including Marwan and the   murdered Caliph’s son Aban ibn Uthman flocking  to her banner, Aisha’s rebel army represented   a significant challenge to Ali’s leadership. Unfortunately for the so-called Mother of the   Faithful, a number of crucial mistakes would  undermine her cause. A great deal of effort was   wasted trying to rally support in Iraq, despite  most of the region being loyal to Ali. Then,   when rebel leadership left Mecca to gain support  in Basra in mid-October 656, internal discord   fomented within their cause. Talha and Zubayr  were jockeying against each other for authority,   while the secrecy of the army’s destination  created resentment from Marwan and the Umayyad   clansmen within the army, who saw the insurgency  more as a blood feud than a rebellion and would   have preferred to simply march to Medina and  execute the conspirators who had slain Uthman   rather than waging a campaign to topple Ali. The anti-Ali movement was dealt another blow   in December, when Aisha and her followers arrived  in Basra. After hearing the speeches and calls to   arms of Zubayr and Talha in the marketplace  outside the city, the reaction of the Basran   populace was divided, with some offering support  while others denounced her. The first fighting   of her rebellion occurred immediately after, when  numerous market goers loyal to Aisha or Ali began   to scrap in the marketplace and strike each other  with the soles of their shoes. More important than   any marketplace brawl, however, was the response  of Basra’s governor Uthman ibn Hunayf, who   remained loyal to Ali. However, reluctant to bring  bloodshed to his city, he allowed the rebels to   camp the night while he waited for word from Ali,  who was now on his way from Medina. A message from   the Caliph soon arrived, instructing ibn Hunayf to  give the rebels an ultimatum of loyalty to Ali or   warfare, but by then, Aisha’s army had already  managed to entrench themselves in a defensible   camp near the local garrison’s storehouse. It should be noted that even after Caliph Uthman’s   murder, the thought of outright warfare between  Muslims remained almost unthinkable to most,   and so the prominent poet and scholar Zalim ibn  Amr al-Du’ali was sent to make a last entreaty   for peace and an end to the rebellion. When it  was refused, Basra’s cavalry commander Hukaym   ibn Jabala stormed out with the governor’s local  forces. A short and bloody battle around Aisha’s   camp ensued, many on both sides died, but  the rebels were not dislodged. Afterwards,   an uneasy ceasefire was signed,  intended to last until Ali’s arrival.  The ceasefire would be short-lived, however.  If Aisha remained unwilling to submit,   Ali’s arrival would only leave the rebels  hopelessly outnumbered, so on Talha’s advice,   a party of rebels captured the Basran governor in  a surprise raid as he led the evening’s prayers   in the mosque, giving him 40 lashes and plucking  his beard and eyelashes before imprisoning him.   The following morning, Zubayr’s son Abdallah led  the rebels in an attack on the storehouse, killing   forty converted ex-slaves from Sindh who had been  posted as guards and seizing the grain meant for   the townsfolk’s winter provisions. Hukaym arrived  shortly after in a great rage, demanding Abdallah   release the governor and berating him for the  killing of Muslims innocent of any role in   Uthman’s murder. When Abdallah refused, Hukaym  attacked with the 700 men remaining to him,   finding himself quickly surrounded and overwhelmed  by the larger rebel army. Though he fought   fiercely until the end - fatally striking  one of the rebels with his own severed leg,   according to one rather fanciful account - Hukaym,  his son, and many of his soldiers were killed,   with the rest fleeing or surrendering and  leaving the rebels in full control of Basra.  With Ali en route, the victorious rebels  had little time to gather support for   their movement. Though control of the city and  its treasury brought most of the surrounding   tribes at least nominally under Aisha’s banner,  emissaries sent North to Kufa had less success.   While the province’s governor Abu Musa ibn  Asha’ari attempted to remain neutral, Kufan   notable Zayd ibn Suhan, after receiving a message  from Aisha fondly addressing him as a beloved son   as befitting her title of Mother of the Faith,  responded that her beloved son would prefer her   to stay safely at home. Ali’s efforts were more  fruitful. Sending his son al-Hasan to Kufa, Abu   Musa was soon deposed, and more than six thousand  men were gathered for the retaking of Basra. With   these joining Ali’s 700 from Medina and close to  two thousand who had gathered from various tribes   along the caravan route, Ali arrived at Basra  on December 5 with just under ten thousand men,   met by Aisha’s comparable army of Basrans and  Meccans. After three days of standoff and attempts   to sway the Basran tribes, a horseman was sent  between the armies by Ali with a Qur’an at the end   of his lance to exhort both sides to an honorable  combat. When he fell dead, pierced by arrows,   battle was joined and the two cavalry-heavy  armies came crashing together like thunder.  Despite Aisha having, by most accounts, at least  as large an army as Ali prior to his arrival,   defections of several Basran tribes both  before and during the battle weakened her   force significantly. In the center of Ali’s army,  Abu Qutada al-Nu’man led the Kufan foot soldiers   while Ali’s son Muhammad ibn Hanafiyyah carried  his father’s standard. On the right wing of Ali’s   army, Malik al-Ashtar led the bulk of the Kufan  cavalry, soon routing the tribesmen of the Banu   Hanzala leading Aisha’s left. And on Ali’s left,  the storied companion Ammar ibn Yasir is said by   some to have driven Zubayr, who had been given  overall command of the rebel army, to abandon   his army and leave without fighting. Zubayr’s  desertion is a matter of some mystery - despite   his past victories and talent as a commander, all  accounts agree he abandoned his army and retreated   very early in the battle, though there are a  variety of reasons given. Some suggest that secret   correspondence from Ali convinced him he had taken  the wrong path, or that the Prophet had once said   that Ammar would die at the hands of a band of  wicked men, leading Zubayr to question his role   when the two came face-to-face on the battlefield.  Others point to Aisha’s refusal to acclaim him as   Caliph on the eve of the battle, suggesting  that she favored Talha and that Zubayr’s role   in rebellion had been a self-serving grab for the  throne. Either way, his desertion left Talha to   take command of a rapidly-worsening situation.  Leading a strong force of Basran cavalry,   he made a number of charges against Ali’s left  and center, at first with great success. But once   Ali’s right wing punched through his lines, he  found his mobile cavalry bogged down and risking   envelopment. Turning about to withdraw and regroup  for another charge, he was mortally wounded by an   arrow to the back of his knee - not at the hands  of Ali’s forces, but of his supposed ally Marwan,   apparently as a spiteful act of vengeance for  Talha’s opposition to Uthman now that their   alliance to punish Ali and Uthman’s murderers had  come to naught. After firing the treacherous shot,   Marwan was taken prisoner by Ali’s victorious  forces, while Aisha’s leaderless forces collapsed.   Named the Battle of the Camel after the camel  Aisha had observed her defeat from the back of,   this climactic battle in Basra had ended the  first major challenge to Ali’s caliphate,   though further conflict remained ahead.  Various figures are given for the casualties,   with generally accepted figures hovering  around 400 for Ali’s army and 2500 for Aisha’s,   the latter number being particularly high given  that Ali pardoned all but one of the prisoners   taken after the battle, but still plausible  given the accounts of many rebels fighting on   long after the army had fallen into disarray  and defeat out of zealous devotion to Aisha.  Of the three rebel leaders, only Aisha survived  the battle and its aftermath, being escorted   back to Medina by her brother Muhammad ibn  Abi Bakr, where she would live her days out   in comfort but with her political activity  greatly curtailed. Zubayr was found shortly   after the battle’s end by a trio of tribesmen  and murdered while apparently trying to escape   to his ally Mu’awiya, the governor of Syria. At its foundation, the Caliphate had been ruled   and organized largely through the consensus of the  companions in Medina, but for all Uthman’s merits,   his reign brought a definite shift away from  the ideals of justice and Islamic unity the   early Caliphate inherited from the Prophet.  In Pre-Islamic Arabia, life had been divided   sharply along clan lines, but under the Caliphs  Abu Bakr and Umar, brotherhood under Islam had   superseded the tribal loyalties that existed  before their faith. In his speech upon becoming   the first Caliph, Abu Bakr had emphasized to the  gathered Muslims of Medina that he was not the   greatest among them, and that he would welcome  the help and truthful advice of his subjects,   even if meant speaking against his own  suggestions - and though Abu Bakr had adult sons,   he had passed the Caliphate on to his advisor  and fellow Companion Umar rather than attempt   to create a ruling dynasty. Umar had famously  lived the same humble lifestyle as Caliph as he   had before his coronation, sleeping on a bed of  palm leaves and taking part in the same labours   as his subjects in service of the needy. Under Uthman, however, the nepotistic clan   politics of the pre-Islamic past began to return  to the fore. Relatives of Uthman were frequently   granted positions of wealth and authority, with  first his foster brother Walid ibn Uqba and later   his uncle Sayyid ibn Aas being given governorship  of Kufa. And while few could accuse Abdullah ibn   Sa’ad of incompetence after his conquests in North  Africa and victories at sea in the Mediterranean,   the fact that he had replaced Amr ibn Al-Aas,  Egypt’s conqueror and previous governor,   largely by virtue of being another of Uthman’s  foster brothers did much to stir discontent among   other companions of the Prophet and long-serving  Muslims of Medina who saw themselves being   denied advancement in favour of Uthman’s Umayyad  clan. Thanks to these and several other Umayyads   appointed to prominent positions, the clan swiftly  grew to become one of the most powerful political   entities within the Caliphate, with governors  of numerous far-flung provinces tied by family   bonds and ready to resist any threat to the  power they shared. The most prominent figure   in this narrative, however, is Uthman’s cousin  Mu'awiya, once a minor regional governor during   Umar’s reign who Uthman had granted lordship of  all Syria. It had been on Mu'awiya’s suggestion   that Uthman had ordered the Caliphate’s navy  built, and its raids in Cyprus, Rhodes and   Crete brought significant wealth pouring into  Syria’s coffers, making Mu'awiya the most powerful   out of a powerful family and the most likely  rival to Ali in the wake of Uthman’s killing.  Conflict between Mu'awiya and Ali had long been  an inevitability, as one of the first actions   Ali had taken after his election as Caliph had  been to order Mu'awiya and many of Uthman’s other   appointed governors deposed. Mu’awiya alone  had been sufficiently powerful and secure   in his position to refuse the order, and those  governors that had been successfully deposed had   flocked to back Mu'awiya with whatever wealth or  support they could offer. Confident in his power,   Mu'awiya had publicly rebuked Ali over Uthman’s  murder and tacitly claimed the Caliphate as the   murdered Caliph’s next of kin, effectively a  declaration of war. Mu'awiya’s position was   further strengthened by an unlikely ally: Amr  ibn al-As, the conqueror and former governor   of Egypt. Despite Amr’s previous enmity towards  Uthman, his popularity in Egypt made him a perfect   candidate to tear the richest province in the  Caliphate out of Ali’s hands. With Amr promised   lifetime governorship of Egypt in exchange for  his support, Mu'awiya removed Egypt’s current   governor Qays ibn Sa’d through a masterful piece  of deceit. He forged a letter from Qays to himself   agreeing to join his cause, and ensured Ali’s  spies learned of it. Deceived by this forgery,   Ali deposed the competent and, by most  accounts, loyal governor shortly after,   with the inexperienced Muhammad ibn Abi  Bakr taking his place too late to muster   significant Egyptian support for Ali in the  battle to come. Amr also helped Mu’awiya forge   an important alliance with the most powerful  tribe of Yemen, the Himyar, who had once ruled   a powerful independent kingdom in pre-Islamic  times. With Amr as his closest advisor, allies   across the Caliphate rallying to his banner,  and Ali weakened by Aisha’s recent rebellion,   Mu'awiya was in an incredibly secure position.  Thus, when Caliph Ali departed Medina in late   May 657 with his armies behind him to depose the  recalcitrant governor, he would have a far tougher   fight ahead of him than he perhaps expected. Before the two main armies met in battle,   a series of cavalry pursuits and skirmishes  took place at Harran and Raqqa, pitting Malik   al-Ashtar against Abd al-Rahman ibn Khalid, son  of the unrivaled general Khalid ibn al-Walid,   as Ali’s army tested Mu'awiya’s strength and  resolve and found both unbending. The first   true struggle would take place at Siffin, on  the banks of the Euphrates river. When Ali’s   army arrived on June 5, they found Syrian cavalry  blocking them from reaching the only accessible   watering area for miles. This was against the  advice of Amr, and proved to be a blunder on   Mu'awiya’s part. When rallying his armies for  the campaign against Mu'awiya, Ali had found it   difficult to motivate his men, many were reluctant  to see so much more bloodshed between brothers in   faith to bring a governor back into the fold. But  Mu'awiya’s ill-advised attempt to deny his foes   water in the desert heat lost him any sympathy he  or his forces might have enjoyed in Ali’s ranks,   and set the stage for a vastly bloodier  confrontation than had stained the sands at Basra.  The numbers involved are a matter of debate.  Al-Tabari puts Ali’s army at 70,000, a likely   inflated number, given that it counts more than  60,000 Kufans under his banner while al-Hasan had   only been able to raise a tenth that number for  the Battle of the Camel. But even taking a more   conservative estimate of twenty to thirty thousand  for Ali with Mu'awiya’s army slightly larger,   the Battle of Siffin was one of the largest and  most impactful battles of Islamic history, and   played out in a number of phases over the weeks to  follow. Upon finding the accessible water blocked,   Ali’s advance guard led by Al-Ash’ath ibn Qays  fell upon the Syrian force blocking their path   with a vengeance, driving them back and securing  the water for the thirsty army behind them.   Following the Day of the Euphrates, as this small  victory was known, the armies stood for two days   of tense standoff and failed negotiation, followed  by more than a week of daily raiding and personal   duels between noble commanders lasting until  June 18th, each army testing the other’s mettle   but reluctant to commit its full strength. June  19th saw a new ceasefire agreement forged, lasting   more than a month, in a last attempt to reach a  peaceful agreement or at least convince opposing   leaders to defect, but these overtures were no  more successful than the previous ones - envoys   went back and forth for weeks between the two  armies with messages and bribes, but the stalemate   remained largely unchanged. Finally, on July 26th,  the two armies met in a battle that would last   three days and three nights nearly unbroken. The  first day of the battle was inconclusive, mostly   consisting of exchanges of arrows and cavalry  raids, with casualties mounting but neither side   gaining an overwhelming advantage. The second day  saw Mu'awiya come very close to routing Ali, with   Habib ibn Maslama leading a massive attack that  drove Ali’s right wing to flight and pushed hard   against his center, driving his army into disarray  before reinforcements led by Malik al-Ashtar could   halt the Syrian advance. Abd’Allah ibn Budayl, who  had been in command of Ali’s right, attempted to   press their momentary advantage by bringing his  cavalry in a charge towards Mu'awiya’s tent only   to be surrounded and killed by Mu'awiya’s elite  forces. Also killed was Ammar ibn Yasir, whose   presence had so frightened Zubair in the Battle  of the Camel - fulfilling, according the hadith,   the supposed claim of the Prophet that Ammar  would die at the hands of a wicked band of men.  The third day saw Mu'awiya redouble  his efforts to break Ali’s right wing,   sending his Himyarite allies against it under the  leadership of Ubayd’Allah ibn Umar: the disgraced   son of Caliph Umar, whose name had been tarnished  by an unlawful honor killing, but whose parentage   nevertheless made him a useful political prop for  the would-be Caliph Mua’wiya. This time, however,   Ali’s right held firm, killing both Ubayd’Allah  and chief Dhul-Kala of the Himyar and inflicting   terrible casualties. As the day drew on, the two  armies were finally drawn into a general melee,   the duels, maneuvers and archery exchanges that  had defined the previous days giving way to a   confused clash of swords and lances that continued  through much of the night. As morning approached   after the bloodiest night of the civil war, Ali’s  army appeared to have the upper hand, having   driven Mu'awiya’s forces back and even forced  him to relocate his tent to a safer location   after another charge on his camp. But it would  not, in the end, be strength of arms that decided   the battle’s outcome. As morning arrived, a number  of envoys from Mu'awiya rode between the armies,   Qur’ans on their lances as a flag of truce,  appealing Ali to allow binding arbitration to   settle his and Mu'awiya’s dispute. Though Ali held  the advantage in battle, many of his soldiers,   exhausted after the long battle and reluctant  to continue fighting their brothers in faith,   felt the offer provided an honorable alternative  to further fighting and ignored the encouragement   of Malik al-Ashtar and others to continue  fighting. His hands tied, Ali accepted Mu'awiya’s   truce and call for arbitration, bringing an end  to the battle. While he had been on the verge   of winning the war, Caliph Ali now stood on the  brink of losing everything in the peace to follow.  Each side nominated an arbitrator - Amr  ibn al-As for Mu'awiya and, strangely,   deposed Kufan governor Abu Musa al-Ash’ari for  Ali, who despite his personal enmity with Ali,   was a popular choice among Ali’s largely Kufan  army. The two armies departed the battlefield,   with agreements for the two arbitrators to meet  over the coming months to judge the murder of   Uthman and rightful Caliph fairly with the Qur’an  as their guide. However, a portion of Ali’s   supporters staunchly opposed the arbitration,  seeing it as a betrayal of God to put the decision   in the hands of fallible humans rather than  allowing God to pick a victor on the battlefield.   Before Abu Musa departed for the first round  of arbitration, two of Ali’s followers, Zur’ah   ibn al-Burj and Hurqus ibn Zuhayr, confronted  Ali demanding he abandon the negotiations and   return to war with Mu’awiyah. Ali rebuked them,  claiming that he would have preferred to fight on   at Siffin but was now bound to honor the covenant  he had reached. Unsatisfied, they took up the   slogan “Authority belongs to God alone”, with new  adherents converting to their viewpoint over the   months to follow. Following the return of Ali’s  forces to Kufah, these al-Khawarij or Kharijites,   as they would later be called, would prove a major  thorn in Ali’s side, heckling and criticizing   him as he led the prayers from the mosque and  declaring both Ali and Mu’awiyah unfit to rule.  As this discontentment grew, the two arbitrators  met twice over the year that followed, both times   for weeks on end, finally returning a verdict in  Mu'awiya’s favor ordering Ali deposed as Caliph   in April of 658. Ali refused to abide by the  decision, declaring it a political attack rather   than a true religious judgment, but the decision  greatly damaged his legitimacy and weakened his   position in the ongoing cold war against Mu'awiya.  Meanwhile, in Kufah, the Kharijite movement was   developing from a mere vocal opposition into  a new rebellion, with Abdallah ibn Wahb taking   command of the movement. Departing Kufah in small  groups to avoid detection, ibn Wahb regrouped his   forces by the bridge crossing the Nahrawan, a  great canal drawing water from the Tigris River   north-east of al-Mada’in. Meanwhile, other  bands of Kharijite sympathizers across Iraq,   having received secret letters from the leadership  in Kufah, departed their homes to join ibn Wahb’s   band with savage fighting breaking out near  Basrah between loyalists to Ali and a band   of five hundred departing Kharijites. It seems ibn  Wahb intended to continue marching once his forces   had assembled, to conquer al-Mada’in or carve  out an independent powerbase among the Zagros   mountains. However, after compelling his remaining  supporters to reaffirm their oaths of loyalty to   him, Ali was quick to depart Kufah in pursuit of  the Kharijites, arriving at Nahrawan in July 658.   Despite their treachery, Ali attempted to avoid  battle, pointing out that he now stood poised   to return to war with Mu’awiyah as they had wished  and requesting they return to his cause. Some did,   but a majority of the roughly two thousand  rebels remained stubbornly entrenched,   leading to some disagreement within Ali’s ranks.  Many of his followers felt the Kharijites were a   minor problem, and should simply be ignored until  after Mu'awiyah’s defeat. But after several local   villagers were slain by Kharijites, Ali’s reaction  would be swift, with his much larger army engaging   the Kharijites on July 17th. Zealously devoted to  their cause, the Kharijites did not falter, but   with now less than two thousand facing fourteen  thousand, the outcome could be little in doubt.   Ali’s horsemen formed his front line under the  command of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, with archers and   footmen lined up behind them. When the Kharijites  charged, Ali’s horsemen split into two groups down   the middle and rushed off to the left and right,  allowing the archers to shower the onrushing   Kharijites with arrows as the horsemen wheeled  about and fell on their flanks. After a short,   bloody, and largely one-sided confrontation the  rebel army was broken - little of the mercy Ali   had shown Aisha’s rebels after the Battle of the  Camel would be forthcoming, and the majority of   the Kharijites to take the field would perish. The Battle of Nahrawan was a decisive victory for   Ali, but also a hollow one, with the embattled  Caliph forced to put his own former followers   to the sword as Mu’awiyah grew ever more powerful.  The following two and a half years of uneasy truce   saw Mu'awiya take great strides, toppling Muhammad  ibn Abi Bakr in Egypt and rewarding Amr ibn al-As’   loyalty by returning him to power as promised  while also securing new alliances across the   Caliphate, many now seeing him as the legitimate  Caliph. By the beginning of 661, after receiving   the counsel of his remaining supporters, Ali  decided to embark on a second invasion of Syria   while he still had the strength to challenge  Mu'awiya, gathering his forces in preparation   for another campaign. The planned offensive would  never take place, however. Meeting in Mecca, three   Kharijite conspirators made a pact to assassinate  the three men they viewed as responsible for the   civil war - Ali, Mu'awiya and Amr ibn al-As.  Two of the three assassination attempts failed,   but on January 28th, as Ali sat praying in the  Great Mosque of Kufa, the third assassin - Abd   al-Rahman ibn Muljam- struck him from behind with  a poisoned sword, mortally wounding the Caliph and   avenging his comrades fallen at Nahrawan. With  Ali dead, few remained who could deny Mu'awiya   the Caliphate - Ali’s eldest son al-Hasan was  pressured into surrendering his claim to the   throne, and Mu'awiya took power nearly unopposed. Beyond the simple change in leadership, the First   Fitna, as the civil war came to be known, would  have a massive impact on Islam’s history. It   split a religious and cultural movement that,  united, had conquered mighty empires. Even today,   the divisions between the major sects of Islam  can still be traced to the First Fitna and the   death of Ali. Ali’s closest supporters denied  the legitimacy of Mu'awiya and his successors,   elevating Ali and his family line to the role of  divinely-inspired Imams. Known as the Party of Ali   or Shi’at Ali, their movement remains strong today  as Shia Islam, now divided into sects of its own.   The majority of Muslims, accepting Mu'awiya’s  ascension, are known as Sunni - harkening to   the Sunnah, the traditions and examples derived  from the Prophet. Spreading and taking hold in   North Africa, the Kharijites remained a maligned,  antagonistic force often in conflict with their   fellow Muslims and what they saw as corrupt and  illegitimate Caliphs. Though their sect remained   small, it would be at the heart of numerous  uprisings and rebellions during the Umayyad   period and in the following centuries as well.  It was from within their ranks, though, that   the more moderate and neutralist Ibadi community  would arise, a faith now dominant in Oman. The   nature of leadership in the Caliphate would be  forever changed as well, with the elections that   had chosen the first four Caliphs giving way to  dynastic succession - power would remain within   the Umayyad clan for the following 90 years,  marking the end of the Rashidun Caliphate.  During the early years of the Umayyad Caliphate  the reigning Emperor in Constantinople was   Constans II, who faced an increasingly dire  situation on numerous fronts. In 655 he had   commanded the fleet that met disaster at the  Battle of the Masts, only narrowly escaping with   his own life. Uthman’s murder and the beginnings  of the First Fitna the following year might have   seemed like an opportunity for Constans to avenge  his previous defeats against a divided foe - but   Constans’ attention was primarily turned to the  West, where the Slavs and Lombards threatened   Byzantine holdings in Greece and Southern Italy.  Not only did these European threats prevent him   from taking advantage of the Islamic civil war,  but they also necessitated a rise in taxes in   provinces such as Sicily and North Africa and  the seizures of church assets in Italy, sparking   discontent and resentment towards Constans among  both the provincial populations and the court in   Constantinople. This political turmoil was  worsened by another sort of conflict in the   capital - a growing religious schism dating back  to the reign of Heraclius. Efforts to reconcile   differences between the Armenian and Greek  Orthodoxies led to the creation of the Monothelite   movement, a sort of religious compromise followed  which failed to sway the majority of the Byzantine   populace. By Constans’ reign, this movement  that had been intended to reconcile Armenian   and Greek religious divides had simply created new  divides within the capital, with Constans’ attempt   to quell the schism by banning all discussion of  the controversy - even forcing Pope Martin I into   exile after his condemnation of Monothelitism  - only creating new enemies for the embattled   Emperor. In 663, two years after the end of the  First Fitna and the renewal of Arab attacks into   Anatolia, Constans abandoned Constantinople  and its hostile court and moved the Byzantine   capital to Syracuse in Sicily. Unfortunately,  the move would not long forestall his downfall.  After relocating the capital, Constans moved into  Italy with all the forces the Empire could muster   in hopes of defeating the Lombards and securing  Southern Italy. His efforts were foiled at every   turn, however, with the Lombards defeating  him in a series of battles and forcing him   to withdraw in shame back to Syracuse while his  son and co-Emperor Constantine IV kept order in   Constantinople. His legitimacy tarnished, he was  unable to prevent Armenia from falling back into   Arab suzerainty, and despite its new prominence  as the seat of the Byzantine Empire, Sicily would   suffer a devastating naval raid in 666 led by  Abdullah ibn Qais that saw huge amounts of plunder   enriching Muawiyah in Damascus. Caliph Mu’awiyah,  a veteran of the Battle of the Masts himself and   staunch enemy of the Byzantines, was now making  increasingly aggressive moves at sea with his   expanded navy, with similar raids carried out on  Rhodes while Arab fleets secured naval bases along   Asia Minor’s Mediterranean coast in preparation  for a planned siege Constantinople. Even among   Constans’ own subjects he faced danger at every  turn, and in 667 he was forced to contend with an   Umayyad-backed rebellion by the turncoat Armenian  general and would-be Emperor Saborios that briefly   took control of much of Anatolia. The rebellion  would soon come to naught after Saborios’   accidental death in a riding mishap shortly before  battle near Hexapolis, but this would not be the   end of Constans’ woes, as Fadalah ibn Ubayd -  an experienced Muslim general who had briefly   operated as a liaison and ally to Saborios - soon  laid siege to Constantinople’s Anatolian suburb of   Chalcedon. Though they succeeded in capturing many  prisoners, a lack of supplies and support caused   this first siege attempt to founder - in their  original plan, they would have been operating   in territory under the sway of their rebel ally,  able to rely on local supply routes and bolstered   by Saborios’ own forces. Forced to operate alone  in hostile territory, disease and hunger soon set   in and the army was forced to withdraw, with even  the arrival of reinforcements under Muawiyah’s   son Yazid failing to turn the tide. It does  appear the initial Arab intention was to return   to besiege Constantinople proper the following  year, as a sizable garrison - 5,000 according to   Theophanes the Confessor - was left behind in the  captured fortress of Amorion to provide a forward   base for a later attack. However, Amorion would  be recaptured during the bitterly cold winter   that followed, with a eunuch chamberlain named  Andrew leading a force through the heavy snows   that regained control of the fortress and put its  garrison to the sword, delaying the planned attack   on Constantinople and denying the Arabs their  first major inland foothold in western Anatolia.  This small victory was to be Constans’ last,  however, with the Emperor not long outliving   his would-be usurper. Constans II was struck on  the head with a bucket and assassinated by one of   his servants as he took his bath early in 668,  with further rebellion breaking out in Sicily   as the conspirators in his murder acclaimed  general Mezezius their Emperor in opposition   to Constantine IV. The young Constantine would  thus be forced to confront both the rebels in   Sicily and the still-looming Arab attack on  Constantinople in the first years of his solo   reign. Of these two challenges, the rebellion  of Mezezius would be the swiftest dealt with,   though it would still leave the Empire  weakened in ways that would soon cause further   disaster. Constantine called troops up from the  embattled frontiers of North Africa and Italy,   bringing an end to the rebellion in Sicily after  seven months and ending its brief heyday as the   Empire’s capital. With Constans’ murder and  Mezezius’ acclamation so closely tied to the   ongoing religious schism, the general failed to  command widespread support in Sicily beyond the   soldiers under his command or rally supporters  beyond the island’s shores - by the account of   Theophanes the Confessor, even Mezezius  himself had not wished to become Emperor,   and had been chosen as a figurehead leader  against his will on account of his good looks.   But however easily the rebellion might have  been suppressed, the recalling of soldiers   from North Africa did leave the Byzantine forces  in Carthage far less able to resist the pressure   of the Arabs in Tripoli, creating an opportunity  for the conquest of the Maghreb - stalled since   before the First Fitna - to resume. 668 and 669  saw renewed Arab raids capture many thousands   of prisoners from the remaining Byzantine  territories in modern Tunisia as the uneasy   stalemate the two sides and their respective  Berber allies had settled into broke down,   with the continuing Arab presence in Anatolia  further distracting the overstretched Byzantines   from the defense of their frontier provinces. Meanwhile, despite Mu’awiyah’s Western focus and   enmity towards the Byzantines, smaller conquests  still continued apace along the former frontiers   of the Sassanid Empire. In 670, Muhallab ibn  Abi Sufra conquered Kabul and took at least   nominal control of all Khorasan, one of the only  regions formerly under Persian domination to have   remained outside of Arab control. And despite  some staunch resistance from Turkic hill tribes   that nearly saw one force surrounded and wiped out  during its return to Kabul, he also successfully   penetrated the Khyber Pass to begin the first  inland conquests into modern Pakistan, previous   Muslim incursions into the Indian subcontinent  having been limited to the more easily-traversed   coastal lowlands. Politically, some unrest still  continued to flare up as Mu’awiyah attempted to   crack down on lingering support for Ali,  with the respected general Hujr ibn Adi   and several of his compatriots being executed  for refusing to denounce the deceased Caliph,   an act shocking to most. Still, the next major  prize for the largely unified Caliphate - and the   single-minded focus that would define Mu’awiyah’s  later years as Caliph - was Constantinople,   with the campaign to take it beginning in earnest  in 672. A massive Umayyad fleet was outfitted and   launched, wintering in the naval bases prepared  in Smyrna and Cilicia while the Byzantines hurried   constructed great biremes and dromons for the  city’s defense, equipped with a new and deadly   anti-ship weapon - Greek fire. With the coming of the spring,   the fleet embarked for Constantinople, clashing  almost daily with Byzantine ships in the waters   just South of the Dardanelles from April until  September. Compared to the Battle of the Masts,   which saw the Arab fleet score victory in  a pitched battle between two massed fleets,   the presence of greek fire would have made any  full fleet-on-fleet engagement near-suicidal for   the Arabs despite the greater size of their navy,  leaving it infeasible for the Umayyad fleet to   attempt to break through the Dardanelles or bring  its full force to bear against Constantinople.   Under the command of Yazid, Umayyad armies were  ferried to land to surround the city, but a lack   of effective naval support made overcoming the  city’s formidable defenses a truly daunting task.   Though Arab forces under Yazid, Fadalah and  Abdallah ibn Qays did see success in various   skirmishes in the surrounding region and in  Crete, and were able to honor the passing of the   venerable commander Abu Ayyub al-Ansari by pushing  to the Theodosian Walls themselves to bury him at   their base, for five full years of campaigning the  Umayyads failed to break through the Dardanelles   and cut Constantinople off from supplies while  the Greek Fire-equipped ships inflicted mounting   casualties with every engagement. Finally, ten  years into Constantine’s tumultuous reign in 678,   flagging morale and a large rebellion of  Mardaite Christians and escaped slaves in   the Nur mountain range North of Alexandretta  forced Mu’awiyah to abandon the campaign,   the greatest military disaster the seemingly  unstoppable Caliphate had suffered since it   had first exploded onto the world stage some  four decades prior - yet the successful defense   did little to change the overall balance of  power, with the struggling Romans still on the   defensive against the still-expanding Arabs. The following years would give a much-needed,   if brief, reprieve to the Byzantines as Caliph  Mu’awiyah’s death in 680 was swiftly followed   by a new period of turmoil and civil war. At  the center of the new conflict was Mu’awiyah’s   attempt to secure the succession of his son Yazid,  when Caliphs had been chosen by election prior to   his reign. Yazid was indeed acclaimed as Caliph in  Medina, but when the governors and notables of the   Caliphate were summoned to give him their oaths of  allegiance, two important figures refused to swear   the oath - Husain ibn Ali, son of Caliph Ali,  and Abdullah ibn Zubayr, son of the Zubayr who   had opposed Ali at the Battle of the Camel some 24  years prior. Despite the rivalry of their fathers,   the two men were united in their opposition to  Yazid, and fled from Medina to Mecca to raise a   rebellion against him. Offers of support soon  arrived from Ali’s former powerbase of Kufa,   giving Husain hope his murdered father’s  cause could be revived. A cousin of Husain’s,   Muslim ibn Aqil, was sent to Kufa ahead of  Husain and his party to determine the strength   of their support in Kufa and out of suspicion  the offers might be a trap by Yazid or a local   notable attempting to curry his favor. Upon his  arrival, he found the offers of support genuine,   and as many as 12,000 flocked to Muslim’s side  to pledge their loyalty to Husain. Upon receiving   this news, Husain departed Mecca to join his  cousin in Kufa - a journey he would never   complete. Despite his recent, rocky succession  to the throne, Caliph Yazid was determined to   stamp out the rebellion before it could grow  to challenge him, and upon learning that Kufa’s   governor Noman ibn Bashir had chosen to remain  neutral and allow Husain’s supporters to gather,   swiftly took matters into his own hands.  Noman was transferred to a different province,   with Yazid’s loyal supporter Ubaidallah ibn Ziyad  replacing him and initiating a harsh crackdown on   the growing rebel band, with Muslim ibn Aqil and  several of its other leaders being murdered and   the demoralized rebels being scattered under  intense pressure from local military forces.   By the time Husain received word of this disaster  he was already near today’s Rifai, far from the   safety of Mecca, with only a few supporters  around in him increasingly hostile territory.  Husain might still have turned back and returned  to Mecca at this point, but opinions among his   supporters were divided, with some of his tribal  supporters offering him sanctuary in the mountains   of Northern Najd while many in his own family  encouraged him to continue to Kufa and avenge   his murdered cousin. Eventually, Husain took the  latter decision, and though many of his supporters   deserted him, his march towards Kufa continued.  Soon, at the plains of Karbala, his tiny band of   supporters was chased down by Ubaidallah’s army.  Husain requested to be allowed to return to Mecca,   while Ubaidallah demanded Husain surrender and  pledge his loyalty to Yazid. When Husain refused,   the Umayyad forces surrounded Husain’s  party, cutting them off from the water   to force their surrender. When this too failed,  the surrounding army attacked on October 10, 680,   killing Husain and his supporters in a hopelessly  unequal struggle. The battle had been short,   and its outcome little in doubt, but the killing  of Husain - the Prophet’s grandson - would   shock the Muslim world, with the date of the  battle immortalized by Shia Muslims as a day   of mourning and Karbala as a pilgrimage  site. Galvanized by Husain’s martyrdom,   major revolts led by Abdullah would arise in Mecca  and Medina in the following years, with Yazid’s   experienced Syrian forces under Muslim ibn Uqba  inflicting defeats on the rebels but failing to   regain the loyalty of the populace - the siege and  bombardment of the holy city of Mecca itself in   683 only created further outrage, with Yazid dying  the same year under unexplained circumstances.   His son and successor, the sickly Mu’awyiah II,  would rule only a few months before abdicating,   leaving an empty throne and a Caliphate divided  once more, ushering in the Second Fitna.  The years to follow would see numerous figures  claim the Caliphate. In the Hijaz, Abdullah ibn   Zubayr was acclaimed Caliph, with a majority of  the Muslim world initially backing him. Ubaidallah   ibn Ziyad, the general who had martyred Husain  at Karbala, established a powerbase in Basra   and briefly claimed the Caliphate as well, but  failed to win the same widespread support and   was soon driven from Basra by an uprising of  Kharijites. And in Syria, the only region still   loyal to the Umayyad dynasty, Muawiyah II was  eventually succeeded by Marwan, Caliph Uthman’s   secretary and cousin, with Yazid’s young but  popular son Khalid being sidelined. Ubaidallah   would return to Umayyad service after the failure  of his own bid for power, seizing eight million   dirhams from Basra’s treasury before he fled, and  would lead Marwan’s armies in the coming struggle.  Marwan’s first challenge in defeating the more  popular Adbullah was to secure his hold over   Syria against a powerful foe uncomfortably  close to home - Dahhak ibn Qays, the governor   of Damascus province, who had loyally served  Mu’awiyah during the First Fitna, even leading   his infantry at Siffin, but had now defected to  Abdullah in opposition to the Umayyads, bringing   much of Syria with him. Marwan did have several  major advantages - though some fighting broke out   in the streets after Dahhak and the young Umayyad  prince Khalid ibn Yazid each delivered speeches in   favour of their faction during the leading of  prayers, the Umayyads retained control of the   city of Damascus itself and by extension the vast  treasury of the Caliphate, allowing Marwan to win   the loyalty of many local tribes through bribery.  Dahhak also retained some degree of loyalty to   the dynasty he’d served so long, even briefly  returning to Umayyad service after negotiating   with Khalid and Ubaidallah, making him a rather  reluctant and indecisive opponent spurred on only   by pressure from his overwhelmingly anti-Umayyad  supporters in the Qaysi tribal confederation. Even   so, Dahhak and the Qaysi were able to amass a  sizable army of 20,000 or more at Marj Rahit,   at the edge of the desert to the East of Damascus,  joined by supporters from across Syria. Marwan,   on the advice of Ubaidallah, gathered his  own loyalists from the Kalb confederation   and from the remnants of the once-powerful  Ghassanids and rode out to challenge him,   with the two armies meeting on July 29th, 684. With his own supporters numbering some 6,000,   Marwan was outnumbered greatly by Dahhak’s forces.  Nevertheless, his infantry-heavy army was able to   hold firm over the course of nineteen days of  raiding and skirmishing from Dahhak’s largely   mounted force. Marwan’s left was commanded by  Ubaidallah and his right by ‘Amr ibn Sa’id,   also known as al-Ashdaq, an Umayyad clansman whose  ambitions would lead him to attempt his own grab   for the throne in the years following. Dahhak  gave command of his right to Ziyad ibn Amr,   with other notable commanders including Thawr  ibn Ma’n of the Banu Sulaym, on whose insistence   Dahhak had finally broken from the Umayyads.  On August 18th, the fighting grew fiercer,   and the skirmishing gave way to charges and  hand-to-hand combat. Despite coming from so   many disparate groups, the morale and discipline  of Marwan’s forces won out, with his hard-pressed   infantry weathering numerous disorganized attacks  until a mighty champion from among the Kalb named   Zuhnah ibn Abdallah slew Dahhak in the midst of  a heated melee. Neither side at first realized   the governor had fallen, with Zuhnah throwing  himself back into the fray unaware of the victory   he had won. But another soldier, marveling  at the warrior’s prowess, soon discovered   Dahhak’s body and returned his head to Marwan.  Despite still holding a numerical advantage,   the Abdullah loyalists quickly dissolved after  their leader’s defeat, the cavalry of the various   tribes under Dahhak’s banner melting away and  returning home or swearing obedience to Marwan.  Many battles still lay ahead for the Umayyads  - even with Syria now firmly in their grasp,   most of the Caliphate still recognized Abdullah  as Caliph, and as the Second Fitna drew on more   factions and challengers would arise to  complicate the struggle for the throne.   But with his victory at Marj Rahit Marwan had  rescued his dynasty from the edge of total defeat,   and with the armies of Syria and the treasury of  the Caliphate behind him, he now stood poised to   reclaim the empire Yazid had lost. In many cases throughout the Empire,   local notables had nominally sworn loyalty to ibn  al-Zubayr while remaining functionally neutral,   using the breakdown of authority to avoid  Umayyad taxation. In others, Zubayrid authority   was reliant on unsteady alliances with Kharijites  and Shi’ites, and though these groups might have   made common cause with ibn al-Zubayr at first in  order to topple the Umayyads, an alliance with the   Kharijites would never be a lasting one unless  he adopted their beliefs - alienating his other   supporters in the process - and the Shia refused  to name him Caliph, seeking for a descendant of   the murdered Caliph Ali to take his place on the  throne. Thus, while Marwan controlled a secure   Syrian powerbase and the Caliphate’s treasury, ibn  al-Zubayr struggled to create a united front among   his supporters, leaving the Umayyads stronger  and the Zubayrids weaker than their lopsided   territorial control would suggest. Indeed, shortly  after the Umayyad victory in the Battle of Marj   Rahit, Marwan was able to take Egypt largely  unopposed, with his clansman Amr ibn Sa’id   entering Fustat and rallying its population  back to the Umayyad cause while Marwan stood   in standoff with Egypt’s Zubayrid governor Abd  al-Rahman ibn Jahdam outside the city - a major   step towards reunifying the Caliphate and  a sign of ibn al-Zubayr’s hollow authority.  Meanwhile, other outbreaks of civil strife were  occurring across the Caliphate, most prominently   in the Khorasan region. With Abd Allah ibn Khazim  having never been appointed governor by any   Caliph, instead forcing out Umayyad governor Salm  ibn Ziyad thanks to anti-Umayyad sentiments among   the army, the power vacuum allowed numerous local  communities and factions within the army to drive   out officials and seize control across Khorasan.  However, ibn Khazim’s effectiveness and brutality   in suppressing both rebels and opportunistic  Hephthalite raiders - reportedly ordering   his forces to execute prisoners until the sun set  after one victory - quickly ended any opposition,   allowing him to rule with little regard for either  faction during the following years of civil war.   And in Kufa, a militant Shi’ite movement known as  the al-Tawwabin or Penitents was gathering steam.  While the death of al-Husayn had caused shock  and outrage across the entire Muslim community,   the impact had been greatest among the Shia  community of Kufa, whose support Husayn had   been travelling to enlist, with many seeking  either vengeance or martyrdom to compensate   for failing to aid him. With the outbreak of  the Second Fitna, propagandists were sent to   garrison towns across Kufa, calling for vengeance  and the turnover of power to the family of the   Prophet. The movement began to split, however,  with the arrival of Mukhtar al-Thaqafi on May   7 684. Mukhtar claimed to be a follower of  Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah, a son of Caliph   Ali through a different wife than the Prophet’s  daughter Fatimah. Al-Mukhtar’s claims that ibn   al-Hanafiyyah was the promised mahdi or the guided  one, and the prospect of serving an heir to Ali,   served to sway a portion of the Penitents away  from their leader Sulayman ibn Surad and create a   bitter divide. When the Zubayrid governor Abdallah  ibn Yazid arrived on May 15, it was all he could   do to prevent violence breaking out between  the two factions or against their erstwhile   Zubayrid allies. Further weakening ibn al-Zubayr,  his Kharijite allies in Mecca deserted him during   this same period. Tiring of al-Zubayr’s vague  claims of ideological support, they relocated   to Basra and the Al-Yamamah region to raise a  rebellion of their own under the leadership of   Abu Talut. They would remain a major thorn in  the side of the Zubayrids, even conquering much   of the Arabian peninsula in the coming years. Of all these groups, the first to engage in   a major campaign would be Sulayman ibn Surad’s  Penitents, who began their long-awaited invasion   of Syria on November 15, 684. However, despite the  lingering grief over Husayn’s death and years of   propaganda work, Sulayman was greatly disappointed  by the turnout when this call to arms finally   came, with only 5,000 out of 16,000 whose support  had been promised materializing and many of these   deserting in the coming months. Nonetheless  - despite Abdallah ibn Yazid’s attempts to   convince them to remain in Kufah in unity with  the Zubayrids - he wasted no time in departing,   leaving Kufah on the 17th, first to Husayn’s tomb  at Karbala for a day and night of mourning and   then on to al-Qarqisiya. Here they were provided  supplies and information by the sympathetic Qaysi   chieftain Zufar ibn al-Harith, one of the Zubayrid  commanders during the disaster at Marj Rahit.  The Umayyad army, returning from the subjugation  of Egypt, had recently left Raqqa and was marching   towards the town of Ayn al-Warda on their way  to invade Iraq. Informed of their whereabouts   by Zufar and enjoying superior mobility with his  mounted army, Sulayman made haste to reach the   site before his foes, arriving five days before  the Umayyads and camping to the West of the city   in order to cut them off from food and water.  Having reinforced in Egypt and numbering close   to 20,000, the Umayyad army held an advantage in  numbers, but was divided against itself. While   Ubaydallah ibn Ziyad was in overall command of the  army, he was not present during its march through   what was thought to be friendly territory, leaving  two of his commanders - al-Husayn ibn Numayr and   Ibn Dhi al-Kala - to squabble over leadership,  traveling and camping separately as they   marched unknowingly towards the Penitent’s ambush. When they arrived at the beginning of January 685,   it was Ibn Dhi al-Kala’s smaller contingent that  first saw battle, with the Penitents being led   to his camp by a local bedouin and launching a  surprise attack. Though outnumbered, surprise   and confusion allowed Sulayman’s charging  horsemen to put al-Kala’s forces to rout,   with many being run down and slain and their camp  abandoned to be looted. This initial engagement   would do little to even the odds, however, and  ibn Numayr was sent with a larger force of 12,000   on January 4. During a brief standoff before the  battle, the demands of each side were conveyed,   with the Penitents demanding ibn Ziyad be turned  over to them for his role in Husayn’s death,   and the Umayyads demanding Sulayman swear  fealty to Marwan - but these demands were   little more than formality, the two armies  coming together in battle after their refusal.  The Penitents put their mobility to  good use, following advice from Zufar,   reinforcing or withdrawing contingents as they  came under attack rather than confront the larger   Umayyad force head-on. Both commanders led their  respective centers, with elements of Sulayman’s   horsemen dismounting to support their comrades  from the ground where the fighting was thickest.   This skirmishing was won by the Penitents in  the short term, though not without losses,   and ibn Numayr’s forces withdrew in good order  to regroup with those of Ibn Dhi al-Kala. Now   reunited, with ibn Ziyad chastising al-Kala for  his earlier defeat and stripping him of command   to end the feud, the Umayyad army now stood poised  to bring their full numbers to bear, leading to   a day of bloody fighting on the 5th that took  a heavy toll on the already outnumbered Shia.  When fighting resumed on the 6th, the exhausted  Penitents soon found themselves pressed from all   sides, unable to prevent the Umayyads from  flanking and surrounding their separated   cavalry contingents, the same tactics that had  previously enabled them to avoid the full weight   of the Umayyad numbers now allowing them to  be defeated piecemeal. Sulayman ibn Surad and   several of his close companions were slain by  punishing volleys of arrows, with a series of   spirited charges by Sulayman’s second in command  al-Musayyab ibn Najabah and the late arrival of   reinforcements from Basra doing nothing to turn  the tide. The destruction of the Penitent cause   brought the Umayyads one step closer to recovering  their Caliphate, though Marwan would not long   outlive it, dying in the Spring of 685, either by  plague or assassination carried out by his queen,   depending on which accounts you believe.  He was succeeded by his son Abd al-Malik.  Ayn al-Warda did not mark the end of  Shia participation in the Second Fitna,   however - with their leaders dead, survivors from  Sulayman’s movement turned to Mukhtar al-Thaqafi,   who had been growing in power in Iraq by appealing  to traditionally disadvantaged non-Arab converts.   Though he continued to characterize himself as a  mere follower of ibn al-Hanafiyyah, their actual   ties remained tenuous, with Mukhtar even using a  falsified letter of support from his figurehead   to sway local leader, Ibrahim ibn al-Ashtar,  to back his coup according to some accounts   and acting to isolate ibn al-Hanafiyyah from the  movement championing him - but whatever Mukhtar’s   motivations, October saw him break any remaining  ties with ibn al-Zubayr and oust his governor,   Abdallah ibn Muti, taking control of most of  Iraq and Armenia. Further Kharijite uprisings   toppled Zubayrid authority in Southern Persia  and Bahrain, leaving both sides of the Persian   Gulf in Kharijite hands and ibn al-Zubayr’s  would-be Caliphate smaller than ever. But as   weakened as he may have been, he was still  far from helpless, defeating both an Umayyad   push on Medina under the Quda’a tribal leader  Hubaysh ibn Dulja and a Kharijite attack on   Basra to secure his remaining holdings, leaving  the final victor of the civil war still in doubt.  The next few years would see some of the Umayyad’s  momentum reversed. The invasion force that had   routed Sulayman’s Penitents made slow progress  after this victory, delayed by Marwan’s death and   uprisings from the Qaysi tribes that had supported  Dahhak at Marj Rahit. When they finally launched   their invasion of Iraq a year and a half later in  the summer of 686, al-Mukhtar was at something of   a disadvantage, as his attempts to appease both  the Arab tribal nobility and non-Arab converts,   or mawali, had fallen through and led to  attempts by the tribal nobility to depose him   over perceived erosion of their privileges. This  conflict was further stoked by ibn al-Zubayr’s   brother and governor of Basra, Mus’ab, who  courted these disgruntled Kufan nobility in   an attempt to regain Iraq. The death of one of  Mukhtar’s commanders to plague shortly after   his victory over an Umayyad probing force near  Mosul sparked rumours his army had been defeated,   with an opportunistic revolt breaking out in late  June. Nevertheless, the besieged Mukhtar was able   to both put down this coup attempt - holding  out in his palace long enough for Ibrahim ibn   al-Ashtar’s army to return from the Umayyad  front and relieve him - and mobilize a large   army of predominantly Persian-speaking mawali and  Shia partisans to confront the Umayyads, meeting   them at the beginning of August some 15 miles  East of Mosul on the banks of the Khazir River.  While Ziyad’s army has been estimated to number  as high as 80,000, this figure is far out of   proportion with the same army’s numbers during  the Battle of Ayn al-Warda or similar armies   raised out of Syria, and is likely reflective of  historian Abu Mikhnaf’s anti-Umayyad leanings -   though no fully reliable figure exists, the true  number was likely little higher than 30,000, even   allowing for reinforcement from the remains of the  failed push on Medina. Even so, the Umayyads held   a definite numerical advantage over the 13,000  under Ibrahim ibn al-Ashtar - but were as weakened   by division as before. The commander of their  left wing, Umayr ibn al-Hubab, held a meeting   with Ibrahim the night of August 5th to offer his  defection in the coming battle. Following Umayr’s   advice, ibn al-Ashtar wasted no time in bringing  the battle to the Umayyads the following morning,   ignoring the normal protocol of raiding and  skirmishing as his smaller army came crashing   into their larger yet still disorganized foe. The initial stages of the battle went in the   Umayyads’ favour, with the Umayyad right wing  under ibn Numayr slaying the commander of ibn   al-Ashtar’s right and putting them to flight.  However, the fallen banner was quickly taken up by   Abdallah ibn Warqa, nephew to one of the Prophet’s  companions, who rallied enough of the fleeing   soldiers back to his side to stall the Umayyad  advance. On the Umayyad left, accounts conflict   on Umayr’s role, with the historian al-Kalbi  claiming the promised defection never materialized   and Umayr remained loyal to ibn Ziyad, while  others hold he deserted the battlefield - As he   and ibn al-Ashtar conversed peacefully after the  battle, the latter is likely closer to the truth,   but either way he took a rather passive role, his  inaction leaving the Umayyad center open for the   Kufan right and center to launch a desperate  flanking attack. Crucial in this effort was   Sharik ibn Jadir al-Taghlibi, a warrior who had  fought under Caliph Ali in the First Fitna, whose   furious cavalry charge carved open a path to Ubayd  Allah ibn Ziyad and toppled the Umayyad banners.   With the death of ibn Ziyad and the continuing  dissension and rivalry within the Umayyad ranks,   the great army quickly dissolved, Umayr’s forces  departing peacefully while many others drowned   trying to flee across the Khazir River. The short  but brutal battle would delay any further Umayyad   move against Iraq for several years, but do  little to secure Mukhtar’s unstable position,   with the Zubayrids and his own tribal  nobility still conspiring against him.  Some months later, most likely in the late autumn  of 686, Mus’ab ibn al-Zubayr would march out of   Basra for his own invasion, bolstered by exiled  Kufan noble rebels. Given little time to recover,   Ibn al-Ashtar’s army made haste to meet them,  though without the leader that had carried them   to victory against the Umayyads. Ibn al-Ashtar  himself - now the Zubayrid-friendly governor   of Mosul - abandoned Mukhtar’s cause under  unclear circumstances in Khazir’s aftermath,   the coinciding defection of Umayr suggesting a  likely pact between the two. Ahmar ibn Shumayt   took command, though lacking his predecessor’s  experience his army soon met with disaster just   north of Basra at Madhar, with resentment  among the tribal nobility in both armies   towards the mawali making up the bulk of Mukhtar’s  forces coming to the fore in gruesome fashion.  While non-Arabs were traditionally barred from  serving as mounted warriors, Mukhtar had relaxed   this rule and increased their pay to earn their  support - yet at the Battle of Madhar, ibn Shumayt   once more required them to dismount and fight as  foot soldiers. When ibn Shumayt was slain and his   army routed, the Kufan horsemen escaped while huge  numbers of the mawali infantry were run down and   slaughtered by the vengeful exiles, suffering a  massively disproportionate death toll with few   escaping and no prisoners taken. This disaster  shook faith in Mukhtar’s messianic movement,   and total collapse was not long in coming. The  Zubayrid invasion force made haste by boat and   horse towards Kufa. Hastily assembling another  army and attempting in vain to delay the invaders   by flooding the canals along the Euphrates,  Mukhtar would personally lead his army in the   second desperate clash against the Zubayrids at  Harura on Kufa’s outskirts. Mukhtar and his forces   fought bravely, with the battle initially in the  balance - Muhammad ibn al-Ash’ath, leader of the   Kufan exiles fighting under Mus’ab, was slain, and  the highland Hejazi tribesmen making up a fifth of   the Basran force fled early in the battle. However, these initial successes would be   brought to naught when the Basran left wing -  which, under the cautious al-Muhallab abi Sufrah,   had initially held back from the fighting - swung  forward, crushing and routing Kufan forces already   bloodied and exhausted from most of a day’s  fighting. Though Mukhtar narrowly escaped, his   army and hopes were destroyed and his supporters  executed en masse by the victors, with the four   month palace siege in Kufa only dragging out  the inevitable. On April 3, 687, Mus’ab’s forces   stormed his palace and executed him, swiftly  restoring Armenia and Iraq to the Zubayrid fold.  Other than Kharijite raiding and small border  confrontations, the resulting Umayyad/Zubayrid   stalemate would persist for the next four  years, with both sides exhausted by the long   civil war and no major battles between the  two occurring until 691. During this time,   the long-neglected frontiers saw action once  more, with an Umayyad army under Zuhayr ibn Qays   dispatched to the mountains of Algeria where the  Byzantine-allied Berber king Caecilius had taken   advantage of the civil war to overrun much of  Ifriqiya. Defeating and killing him in 688, Zuhayr   retook Kairouan and reestablished the Caliphate  as the dominant force in the region, with only   the Byzantine stronghold of Carthage remaining a  threat. And Abd al-Malik remained active against   his Zubayrid rivals during the apparent lull as  well, engaging in intrigue and diplomacy with   Zubayrid supporters across the Caliphate, taking  advantage of ibn al-Zubayr’s weakness and the   growing apathy towards his predecessors’ misdeeds  after nearly a decade of war to chip away at his   foes’ support base. Though his next attempt to  invade Iraq in 689 was interrupted by his kinsman   Amr ibn Sa’id short-lived coup attempt, the end of  the civil war would almost come as an anti-climax   after the fierce battles of its first years,  with the majority of Mus’ab’s army defecting   and abandoning him to die when Abd al-Malik  finally recaptured Iraq in October 691. Abd   al-Malik had Mus’ab and his son Isa buried with  honor, lamenting the tragedy of the civil war,   but despite his poetic words he remained  ruthless in rooting any remaining opposition,   besieging Mecca and mopping up Abd Allah  ibn Zubayr’s last supporters the following   year. Though putting down the Kharijite rebels and  independents such as ibn Khazim would take several   more years, the Umayyad Caliphate had emerged  victorious against its first would-be usurper.  The Second Fitna had been a long and bloody  affair, and marked a further departure from   the unity of the Rashidun era - even during the  First Fitna, the prospect of Muslims fighting   Muslims remained a painful aberration, with  concerted efforts at mediation preceding battles   and the conflict being brought to religious  arbitration. But during the Second Fitna,   the sectarian schisms arising out of the  First and the blood feuds that accompanied   them made violence and retribution all too easy to  accept. But shaken though it might have been, the   Caliphate remained whole, with further victories  still lying ahead in Africa, Asia and even the   unsuspecting Visigothic Kingdom of Iberia. Following Ibn al-Zubayr’s death and the   surrender of his forces at the end of  an eight-month-long siege of Mecca,   the immediate aftermath of the Second Fitna  would see Caliph Abd al-Malik dispatch armies   to suppress the Kharijite uprisings that had been  such a thorn in his would-be usurper’s side. The   Kharijite army ruling Yemen and central Arabia  had already begun to fragment and dissolve even   before the Umayyad victory in the civil war,  with their leader Nadja ibn ‘Amir al-Hanafi   having been executed by his own disillusioned  forces over his supposed secret negotiations with   the Umayyads. Many of the Kharijites dispersed  before the Umayyad reconquest, making for Persia   or North Africa. With that said, the Kharijite  remainder led by Abu Fudayk put up staunch   resistance to general Umar ibn Ubaydallah’s  Iraqi army when they met in battle in Bahrain,   driving back the Basrans making up the Umayyad  left wing and seriously wounding Umar. However,   they were held at bay by the Kufan right wing  and the Syrian cavalry making up the center,   then driven back to their camp when the Basrans  rallied and returned to the fray. With the wind   at the Umayyads' backs, the Kharijite camp was set  alight, with the smoke and heat panicking horses   and reducing the Kharijite defence to chaos. With  Abu Fudayk slain on the battlefield, those of his   followers that remained fled to the fortress of  al-Mushaqqar, but with no relief or reinforcement   coming, the walls of the ancient fortress did  little more than entrap them - lacking supplies,   surrender came swiftly, and little mercy  was shown, the mass executions of most of   Abu Fudayk’s followers ending the brief period of  Kharijite dominance in Arabia in grisly fashion.   Though Kharijites still held sway in parts of  southern Persia and would be behind further   uprisings in the future, this would be their  last major bid for power within the Caliphate.  A more serious challenge to the reunified Umayyad  realm would come in the North, with the breakdown   of the peace treaty with Byzantium. Under Emperor  Justinian II’s leadership, the Byzantines had not   been entirely uninvolved in the Caliphate’s civil  war, extorting tribute from the Umayyads and even   taking control of Armenia from the Zubayrids.  They also backed and supported uprisings of   Christians within the divided Caliphate. In the  Nur mountains, where Anatolia and the Levant meet,   the Mardaite community had risen up along with  thousands of escaped slaves in 688, launching   raids into Syria and forcing the overextended  Umayyads to make even greater concessions to   quell a threat uncomfortably close to their seat  of power. Though no major battles were fought and   it is unlikely this Byzantine involvement  greatly impacted the civil war’s course,   Justinian II was able to secure a great deal of  tribute - and, more importantly, the Mardaites   themselves, who were relocated to regions of  Southern Anatolia left depopulated by Arab   raiding to help rebuild the Byzantine powerbase. However, while the relocation of the Mardaites was   a major economic boon for the flagging Byzantine  Empire, it also removed an obstacle from the path   of a renewed Caliphate offensive after the civil  war’s end. Surprisingly, despite the favorable   terms of the 689 treaty, it was Justinian that  broke it and made the first move, attempting to   regain full control of Cyprus and its revenues  after decades of shared ownership. This action   could be seen as a defensively-minded preemptive  strike, with Justinian expecting Abd al-Malik to   break it as soon as his strength was replenished  - or Justinian may have simply underestimated   the Caliphate’s strength, hoping to secure even  greater concessions after a battlefield victory.   Either way, the renewal of hostilities quickly  backfired for the Romans. Though precise dates   are unclear, the later months of 692 saw two  clashes take place - a smaller army of 4,000   invading Armenia under Uthman ibn al-Walid, and  a push into Anatolia by the bulk of the remaining   Umayyad armies under the Umayyad prince Muhammad  ibn Marwan, a younger brother of the Caliph.  Both of these clashes would end in Umayyad  victory. The latter and larger battle would   see Muhammad opposed by the Byzantine general  Leontios and a sizable, but rather irregular,   army. The bulk of the force was composed of Slavs,  recently conquered and relocated by Justinian from   Macedonia to Opsikion, with a sizable tribute of  soldiers among the terms imposed by Justinian upon   their defeat. The forced resettlement of these  Slavs did little to encourage loyalty, however,   and at Sebastopolis their leader Neboulos, spurred  by generous bribes, defected to the Caliphate with   the majority of his soldiers. The battle that  had initially seemed in Leontios’ favor, swiftly   turned into a crushing defeat and in short order  undid the years of gains the Byzantines had made   during the Caliphate’s civil war. Interestingly,  the greatest damage to the Byzantine empire to   come as a result of Sebastopolis was dealt  not by Muhammad ibn Marwan, but by Leontios.   After his defeat to Muhammad at the Cilician  town of Sebastopolis, Leontios was imprisoned   as punishment by Justinian, who also harshly  punished the remaining loyal Slavic soldiers for   the battlefield defection of their kin, selling  many families into slavery. These insults did not   long go unavenged, though, as after Leontios  was released in 695 he soon deposed Justinian   through rebellion and seized power as Emperor  himself, setting off a period of instability   that saw six Emperors rise and fall in relatively  quick succession over the next twenty-two years.  On the home front, Abd al-Malik worked  aggressively to consolidate power in former   rebel strongholds. A figure of central importance  during this period was Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf,   who rose to prominence as the leader of the  Caliphs’ personal forces and became famous for   his keen military mind. Following the Second  Fitna, he was rewarded with the governorship   of Yemen and the Hejaz - a major display  of Abd al-Malik’s trust for the general,   given the lingering anti-Umayyad sentiments in  the former Zubayrid powerbase. Though only in the   position two years, Al-Hajjaj swiftly reasserted  Umayyad control through harsh, unforgiving   leadership and displays of force that both helped  cow the rebellious nobility of the Hejaz and   allowed Abd al-Malik to demonstrate his mercy  through occasional more lenient interventions.   Leaving Arabia behind in 694, he was sent next to  Iraq, taking over as governor of Basra and Kufa   from the Umayyad prince Bishr ibn Marwan and  working to reassert control over a fractured   and rebellious Persia, where he would soon find  himself on the frontlines of another rebellion.  Meanwhile, on the western frontiers’ expansion  was beginning anew. While the Caliphate had been   the dominant power in North Africa for decades,  the continuing Byzantine presence in Carthage   left their hold over the region tenuous at best.  Additionally, outside of fortified cities such   as the aforementioned Carthage and Qayrawan, the  native Berbers held effective control of most of   the Maghreb, with different groups entering  into alliances with either the Caliphate or   Byzantines based on shared religion or political  expediency. So long as the Byzantines represented   an opposing power bloc, they could forge  alliances with Berber kingdoms and tribes   that had not yet converted to Islam and back  native opposition to the Caliphate’s expansion.  To finally stamp out this threat, Abd  al-Malik dispatched Hassan ibn al-Nu’man   with 40,000 Syrian, Egyptian and converted Berber  soldiers in 694 to capture Carthage. Initially,   the invasion met only success, with the city’s  fleet and garrison abandoning Carthage for Sicily   before Hassan’s arrival in early 695 and allowing  the city to fall without resistance. Hassan   had more enemies in North Africa than he knew,  however - following the death of King Caecilius,   or Kusaila, to the armies of Zuhayr ibn Qays,  a new ruler had emerged to reunite the Berber   kingdom Zuhayr had shattered. Known as Queen Dihya  to the Berbers, she was called al-Kahina - the   oracle - by the Arabs, with rumors of her future  sight a mark of her strategic prowess. As Dehiya   united many Berber groups across religious  lines in opposition to Hassan’s advance,   she entered into an alliance with Constantinople  cemented by her marriage to a Greek husband.  Learning of Dihya’s prestige and determined  to suppress Berber resistance, Hassan swiftly   departed Carthage to march against her in Algeria,  seemingly expecting another easy victory. Instead,   when he engaged the large army Dihya had raised  near Baghaya, he saw the previous year’s progress   rapidly undone in a shocking military defeat.  The precise details of the so-called Battle of   Meskiana, named for the shallow river valley the  two armies clashed in, are rather unclear - though   it is known that even among converted Muslim  Berbers a sizeable portion favored Dihya’s cause,   chafing at the inferior treatment non-Arab  converts within the Caliphate’s military   received just as the Persian converts of Iraq had  during the Second Fitna. The defection of Berbers   in Hassan’s army before or during the battle could  go some distance towards explaining the defeat of   his larger and better-armed force, though whatever  the cause of this disaster, the stung Hassan would   abandon the campaign to await reinforcements  in Tripolitania, not to challenge Dihya for   another five years. He did, however, clash once  more with the Byzantines during his retreat,   who under general Apsimar had recaptured Carthage  by sea in a surprise attack while Hassan had been   marching against Dihya. This time, Hassan took no  chances - after years of Byzantine resistance and   fleet activity out of the city, he chose to raze  the Carthage to the ground as Scipio Africanus   the Younger had centuries prior, conclusively  ending the Byzantine foothold in the Maghreb   and stripping Dihya of a crucial ally. For his  part, rather than continue the resistance in North   Africa, Apsimar commandeered the Carthage fleet  for a voyage to Constantinople, where he overthrew   Emperor Leontios and seized the throne as the new  Emperor Tiberius III, compounding the internal   strife and instability that had already weakened  the Byzantine resistance over the past years.  Accompanying these temporary setbacks in the  West was a new breakout of rebellion in the   East. The Hephthalite-descended Zunbil kingdom of  Afghanistan was proving a formidable roadblock to   governor al-Hajjaj’s expansion attempts, and the  first campaign against them in 698 ended in utter   failure when Ubaydallah ibn Abi Bakrah’s army was  lured into the heart of the mountainous kingdom,   cut off from retreat, and destroyed. The greatest  threat to al-Hajjaj and the Umayyads would not   come from the Zunbils, though, but from the  general sent to lead the second invasion - Abd   al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ash’ath.  When he attacked the Zunbils in early 700,   they fell back without battle, abandoning large  swathes of their territory to the invaders.   Fearing the same trap that had doomed Ubaydallah’s  army, al-Ash’ath opted not to push on into their   mountainous heartland, planning to consolidate his  conquests and continue cautiously expanding over   the years to follow. But when al-Hajjaj learned  of this, he accused Abd al-Rahman of cowardice,   demanding he complete the conquest of the Zunbils  before he or any of his men would be allowed home   to Iraq. Here the harshness he had so often shown  while subduing the Hejaz would backfire, as the   soldiers in Abd al-Rahman’s army, wary of the  danger ahead and angered by their poor treatment,   opted to follow Abd al-Rahman back to Iraq to  depose al-Hajjaj rather than pressing on into   Afghanistan as ordered. Reaching an accord with  the Zunbils - promising them tribute exemption   should he be victorious, in exchange for safe  haven should he be defeated - he began his   march West through Persia, defeating al-Hajjaj’s  loyal commander Atiyyah ibn Amr al-Anbari in a   series of cavalry engagements along the way. At this point, Abd al-Rahman’s rebellion was   strictly targeting al-Hajjaj, and no threats  towards Abd al-Malik or claims for the title   of Caliph had been made. But after receiving  word of the mutiny, Abd al-Malik opted to back   his unpopular governor, sending several thousand  experienced Syrian cavalry with all haste to Basra   to reinforce him. In a last-ditch effort to turn  back the rebels, al-Hajjaj sent two thousand of   these new arrivals to block the mutineers from  crossing the Dujail river in the lowlands of   Khuzestan. But while they initially saw success  against a three-hundred strong advance force,   the rebel army - raised and outfitted for  conquest, and certainly outnumbering the Syrians,   even if the reported strength of 100,000 is a  clear exaggeration - soon forded the shallow   river, forcing their way across and putting the  Syrians to rout. In the aftermath of this clash,   the rebels expanded the scope of their  movement, now disavowing Abd al-Malik   and seeking his overthrow along with that of  al-Hajjaj. It is possible Abd al-Rahman had   intended this from the beginning and simply  used the battle as justification, but whether   this was the case or not, he now represented  a major threat to the overextended Caliphate,   with so much of Abd al-Malik’s core Syrian army  away fighting in North Africa. Arriving in Basra   in February of 701 after al-Hajjaj had fled  North towards Kufa, Abd al-Rahman took advantage   of the departed governor’s unpopularity to  secure oaths of loyalty from much of Basra,   fortifying the city and engaging in a month  of skirmishing with al-Hajjaj’s forces   before sallying forth to do battle in mid-March. Initially, the Iraqis held the upper hand. Though   the two armies met in the open, al-Hajjaj’s loyal  forces - drawn from the Qurayshi and Thaqif tribal   confederations of the Hejaz - and the caliph’s  Syrian reinforcements were soon forced to retreat   to the defensive trenches they had prepared  to foil the enemy’s cavalry charges. Fierce   fighting took place for most of the day, with the  spearmen on al-Hajjaj’s flanks falling back in   disarray and the center on the verge of rout. But  on the very brink of defeat, an unexpected charge   by Sufyan ibn al-Abrad al-Kalbi - leading  the forces of Syria’s powerful Kalb tribe,   one of the few to remain loyal to the Umayyads  at the start of the Second Fitna - impacted the   Iraqis’ right wing, the trench fighting breaking  up formations and confusing their defense. With   the pressure lessened, the Syrian and Hejazi  forces rallied, splitting the Iraqi army in   two and setting them to flight - Abd al-Rahman  immediately retreating North with the Kufan   soldiers and most of his cavalry, while one of  his lesser commanders - ibn Abd al-Muttalib - led   the Basran forces in a three-day fighting  retreat before finally escaping al-Hajjaj’s   pursuit and taking off after his departed general. But despite this defeat and al-Hajjaj’s subsequent   recapture of Basra, Abd al-Rahman’s mutiny was  still a major concern for Caliph Abd al-Malik,   especially once the people of Kufah rose up to  depose al-Hajjaj’s loyal overseer, Ibn al-Hadrami,   and offer Abd al-Rahman their support upon his  arrival. A year later, when al-Hajjaj marched   North again after pacifying Basra and receiving  further Syrian reinforcements, he found a greatly   bolstered rebel army awaiting him outside Kufah. With both forces now wary of a decisive   engagement, they each entrenched themselves on  April 4, 702, with weeks of low-intensity raiding   and probing attacks following. This drawn-out  exchange favoured the Iraqis, who could easily   resupply from Kufah while al-Hajjaj’s army  struggled to feed itself in the unfriendly   territory - and when word of the ongoing stalemate  reached Abd al-Malik, he went as far as offering   to remove al-Hajjaj in exchange for peace. Yet  surprisingly, Abd al-Rahman and his companions   chose to refuse this offer, his army redoubling  the pressure on al-Hajjaj’s trenches with daily   attacks. This back and-forth skirmishing between  the trenches continued until mid July, though the   morale of the rebels began to flag after the death  of their cavalry commander Jabalah ibn Zahr. With   no quick victory in sight, some of Abd al-Rahman’s  commanders began to question the wisdom of   refusing the Caliph’s peace offering, with some  possibly reaching out in secret to the Umayyads   in hopes of receiving pardons for their defection. When the two armies finally came together again in   pitched battle on July 15th, both armies held  firm through the fierce fighting until midday,   seemingly evenly matched. But like in the previous  battle, it would be a charge by al-Kalbi that   decided the outcome - rushing out with his  cavalry from behind the Syrian right wing,   he attacked the Iraqi left wing under the command  of al-Abrad ibn Qurrah, a leader normally noted   for his bravery. Here, however, ibn Qurrah fell  back in retreat almost immediately, leading to   unconfirmed accusations in some accounts that his  desertion had been negotiated with the Umayyads   before the battle. With the collapse of the left  wing, many in the rebel center began to flee as   well, despite Abd al-Rahman’s best efforts to  rally a defense. After an impassioned call to   arms from his pulpit, his commanders and some  of the retreating infantry flocked to his side   for a last stand, but with the tide of battle  now firmly in their favor, the Umayyads simply   showered him and his defenders with arrows rather  than charge the well-defended trenches. With   his position besieged and the battle lost, Abd  al-Rahman fled East to the safety of the Zunbils,   marking the end of his attempt on the Caliphate. Back in the Maghreb, though seemingly unchallenged   following her victory at Meskiana, Dihya  unwittingly planted the seeds of her own   downfall by embarking on a scorched earth  campaign in the territory she had driven   Hassan from. Likely viewing the Caliphate’s  renewed invasion as simply ambitious raiding,   she may have hoped to dissuade them from returning  by stripping the border regions of plunder,   or to demoralize them further after their defeat  with a display of brutality. Unfortunately,   this move would quickly backfire, for many under  Dihya’s banner, especially those who lived in the   affected lands or used them for grazing, were  angered by the wasteful and self-destructive   action - and without the immediate unifying threat  of the Caliphate Dihya’s Berber kingdom began to   fragment. As these events are filtered through  the interpretations of non-Berber outsiders,   it is even possible the fragmentation had begun  earlier, and what Arab observers saw as a scorched   earth campaign was in reality an attempt to  stamp out brewing tribal rebellion. Thus,   despite her massive victory in battle, Dihya  would never reach Qayrawan as her predecessor   Caecilius had, with her dominance of the Maghreb  reduced to little more than her homeland in the   Aures Mountain highlands by the time Hassan  returned with reinforcements in late 702.  Dihya mustered what loyal forces remained to  her, picking an advantageous battleground to   await Hassan’s arrival - Tabarka, on the coast  north of the modern Tunisian city of Jendouba,   where the Aures mountains and Mediterranean  sea formed a natural chokepoint. The choice of   the battlefield was sound - the terrain would  constrain and hamper the numerically superior   Muslim army, while the presence of the Byzantine  fleet at Sicily prevented Hassan from simply   bypassing the chokepoint by sea. Nevertheless,  when the battle was joined early in 703,   Dihya would see first her army and then her  kingdom shatter - with no more Byzantine gold   to sway tribes to her banner and with her actions  having alienated most of the lowlanders, many of   those who had fought with her at Meskiana deserted  her or chose to join Hassan now that the Caliphate   was the only remaining power bloc in the region.  Though she narrowly escaped the disastrous defeat,   she was pursued into the Aures mountains  and slain soon after, ending the years of   back-and-forth fighting to conquer the Maghreb. To aid in the rebuilding of the devastated region   after Carthage’s razing and Dihya’s scorched  earth campaign, thousands of Coptic Christians   were resettled from Egypt, taking up residence  in newly-founded Tunis to work in Hassan’s new   shipyards for the growing Caliphate. In a cruel  twist of irony, though, Hasan would not get to   enjoy the spoils of his great victory any longer  than Dihya had, as a dispute over jurisdiction   with Abdulaziz ibn Marwan - governor of Egypt  and brother to the Caliph - ended with Hassan   losing his hard-earned governorship and returning  to Syria in disgrace and poverty scarcely a year   later, while Abdulaziz expanded his own power  on the back of Hasan’s success by installing   his loyal servant Musa ibn Nusayr in his place.  It was Musa, not Hassan, who would push West to   the Atlantic coast in the following few years,  converting and assimilating most of the Berber   tribes in his path and waging war against those  that refused, finally standing poised for the   next great conquest of the ever-growing Caliphate  - Visigothic Spain. In the East, meanwhile, the   unrest sparked by Abd al-Rahman’s rebellion would  continue for years, with his former companions   splitting up and raising later uprisings in Sistan  and Khorasan even after the Zunbils caved to the   Caliphate’s demands and executed him. Iraq and  Persia would remain centers of anti-Umayyad   discontent, and Afghanistan unconquered, for  the rest of the Umayyad era - with the same   racial and sectarian tensions that had fueled  first al-Mukhtar’s and later Abd al-Rahman’s   rebellions eventually leading to their downfall. Hitting the Atlantic ocean was a huge milestone   for the Umayyad Caliphate. Not only had the  power of the caliph and the practice of Islam   reached one of the ends of the earth, but  this would have felt like an even vaster   achievement given the difficulty of travel  from the eastern deserts to the western seas. As Musa stood on the shores of northwestern  Africa, any business he had in any city of   the caliphate, or at home, was a world away. He  needed one extra piece to complete his power,   and it would be well over a thousand years  before it came along: he needed NordVPN,   and he needed to go to nord vpn dot com  slash kings and generals for a special deal. Then he would be able to do his banking in Cairo,  buy dyes from Tunis, and see a show in Bagdad,   since NordVPN connects you to IP addresses the  world over to access local services. But more   importantly for Musa, it would be completely  secure; impossible for his enemies to intercept   any sensitive information he needs transferred  across the world to conduct his business. If you’re going to be traveling,  using unfamiliar networks,   or simply want access to a piece of the  internet reserved for someplace else,   download NordVPN at NordVPN dot com slash  kings and generals. With this link you’ll get   four bonus months added on top of a two year  plan, with a thirty day money back guarantee   to make it risk free. Check it at the link in the  description, and you’ll be ahead of Musa already. The years immediately following the Berber Queen  Dihya’s defeat would be marked by both victory   and some turmoil, particularly in Khorasan  and Transoxiana, where Caliphal authority   had still not been fully restored since the  Second Fitna. Between 692 and 705 the largely   independent governor, Musa ibn Abdallah, had  expanded his powerbase: first by conquering   local Hephthalite and Sogdian city-states, even  clashing with forces of the Tibetan Empire over   influence in the region, then later forging local  alliances in order to expand at the expense of   other Arab governors in the region despite his  nominal loyalty to the Caliph. Musa was eventually   brought to heel and slain in a campaign ordered by  al-Hajjaj and led by al-Mufaddal and Mudrik, both   sons of Khorasan’s previous governor al-Muhallab  ibn Abi Sufra, with the aid of the Arab-friendly   monarch Tarkhun, ruler of Samarkand and the most  powerful of the Sogdian rulers. However, the   episode highlighted the increasing difficulty of  maintaining control over such distant frontiers,   and much of the following decades would see  the Umayyads attempting to centralize their   vast realm with varying degrees of success. A different sort of turmoil simmered in the   capital during this same period, with Caliph Abd  al-Malik now aged and sickly, thorny questions   surrounding his succession began to arise.  Though Abd al-Malik favored his sons al-Walid and   Sulayman as successors, his brother Abd al-Aziz,  governor of Egypt, was the preferred candidate   for many despite his advanced age, particularly as  their father Caliph Marwan, now dead twenty years,   had previously declared that Abd al-Aziz should  succeed his brother. Abd al-Malik’s request for   his brother to renounce this claim and withdraw  from succession drove a wedge between the two,   with Abd al-Malik seemingly fearing another  civil war as evidenced by his attempts to   compel tribute from Abd al-Aziz and chip away  at his traditionally very autonomous power base.   These fears were quelled when Abd al-Aziz died  in late 704, though the continuing uncertainty   surrounding succession spurred Abd al-Malik  to make an unprecedented move: summoning his   vassals to take their oath of allegiance to his  son al-Walid while he still lived. Though power   in the Caliphate had now been dynastic for 24  years, swearing fealty to a designated heir   before his succession marked a further departure  from the elective tradition of the Rashidun and   was disliked by many, with the respected judge  and scholar Sa’id ibn Musayyib even being jailed   and beaten for his refusal to swear the oath. Despite this dissatisfaction, al-Walid’s reign   would be one of the most successful of any Umayyad  caliph, and he took the throne after his father’s   death in October 705 without serious opposition.  New conquests would swiftly follow on three   main fronts. In the East, governor al-Hajjaj, a  trusted companion and advisor to the new Caliph,   would grow ever more influential, ruling  Iraq and Persia like a kingdom of his own and   appointing his own governors to oversee further  expansion. The most significant of these frontier   governors were Qutayba ibn Muslim, who replaced  al-Mufaddal as governor of Khorasan and continued   the conquest of Transoxiana, and Muhammad ibn  al-Qasim, governor of Fars, who would oversee   the greatest Arab victories in India to date. In  the West, Musa ibn Nusayr ruled the frontier as   Governor of Ifriqiya, with Visigothic Spain the  next target of the Caliphate’s unstoppable march.  The first conquests of al-Walid’s reign would  be undertaken by Qutayba, who skillfully took   advantage of the feuding and conflict between the  Sogdian principalities of the region to bring them   into the Caliphate’s sway. Tish al-A’war, ruler  of Chaghaniyan, was facing aggression from the   neighboring principalities of Shuman and Akhrun to  the North at the base of the Hissan mountains. To   preserve his throne, he offered his tribute and  fealty when Qutayba’s army arrived in late 705,   lending his strength to that of the Arabs in  their swift campaign against his rival princes and   against Balkh, the power center of the Tokharistan  region. The disunity of the many princes of   Transoxiana made it relatively easy for Qutayba to  compel tribute from the region and bring it under   the suzerainty of the Caliphate, though his power  in the region remained a delicate balancing act,   as demonstrated by difficult campaigns such  as his months-long conquest of Paykand,   a mercantile city whose great wealth allowed  it to attract soldiers and mercenaries from   across Sogdh to resist Qutayba for some time  before its fall and brutal sacking. Indeed,   he would be forced to wage several costly  campaigns over the next few years as individual   rulers or small coalitions came into conflict  with the new lords of the Oxus, with further   fighting in Bukhara following Paykand’s sacking. 706 also marked the beginning of a new set of   hostilities against the Byzantines, undertaken by  al-Walid’s son Abbas ibn Al-Walid and half-brother   Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik. For the most part,  resistance to these raids was on a local basis,   the same Syrian Mardaites that had been  resettled two decades ago by Justinian   II fighting without significant aid from  Constantinople. One exception, and the   largest clash during this period of hostilities,  was the siege of Tyana, near today’s Kemerhisar,   in either 706 or 708. Tyana was well-fortified,  and a crucial strongpoint in the Cappadocian   frontier, and Maslama’s siege would not be an  easy one nor a challenge the Byzantines could   ignore. The past years of civil strife  had not been kind to the Byzantine army,   though. Justinian II, whose overthrow at the  hands of Leontios had set off the crisis,   had since returned to power with the aid of the  Bulgars and had embarked on a purge of any he saw   as complicit in his downfall or as threats to his  recently-regained throne. This purge had ended the   lives or careers of many capable officers, with  many hanged from Constantinople’s walls even as   the war-weary empire needed their talents most.  This purge, and Justinian’s fear of a single   military leader winning glory and prestige enough  to overthrow him, meant that the relief army sent   to Tyana was hampered by ineffectual and divided  leadership. The two officers in command, Theodore   Karteroukas and Theophylact Salibas, are recorded  as jockeying with each other for authority and   disagreeing on tactical matters, undermining the  army’s morale and cohesion. Furthermore, the poor   state of the army showed in the presence of a  sizable but untrained peasant militia making up a   portion of the Byzantine ranks, a far cry from the  well-organized system themes normally entrusted   with defense on the frontiers. In the end, the  relief army’s arrival would mean more harm than   help for the defenders of Tyana. Not only did its  disorganized attack on the besieging Arabs fail,   with the Byzantines being routed with great loss  of life, but the supplies seized from the relief   force allowed the hungry besiegers to wait out the  defenders until Tyana finally surrendered. Having   suffered from significant supply problems through  the winter, the Arabs would likely have otherwise   abandoned the siege and withdrawn, but after  a nine-month siege Tyana finally surrendered,   by most accounts in the spring of 709. Victorious,  Maslama had the fortress razed and the bulk of the   Mardaites resettled into Syria once more, leaving  the Cappadocia region depopulated and defenseless.  Following these victories, the Caliphate would  enjoy four relatively peaceful years, with   al-Walid appointing new governors and ensuring  his authority as the new Caliph was recognized   across his vast realm. However, the years 711 and  712 would see two major campaigns erupt almost   seven thousand kilometers away from each other,  on opposite sides of the Caliphate. While on the   western front, Musa ibn Nusayr and Tariq ibn Ziyad  brought the might of the Caliphate to Visigothic   Hispania, the topic of our next video, a recent  string of failures in the East had galvanized   al-Walid and al-Hajjaj to redouble their efforts  in India. Sindh had long been a base for pirates,   who preyed on vessels in the Indian Ocean,  and of further concern was the sanctuary many   Sassanid loyalists and various defeated rebels had  received upon fleeing Umayyad territory for India.  The apparent inciting incident for the campaign  occurred when pirates seized eight ships traveling   from the Kingdom of Anuradhapura in modern Sri  Lanka, whose hulls contained jewels, pearls,   slaves, and other gifts from King Manavamma to  the Caliph, as well as Muslim women on pilgrimage,   who were taken captive. Details on the first  punitive expedition are scarce, but following   the seizure of the ships and King Dahir of Sindh’s  refusal or inability to have them recovered from   the pirates, Hajjaj petitioned a reluctant  al-Walid for support in an invasion, which was   finally granted. Led by a general named Buzail,  3,000 men sailed to the port city of Nerun,   near Pakistan’s modern city of Hyderabad, before  marching with a vengeance on the prominent pirate   haven of Debal. The garrison and local forces  would crumble rapidly before the small Arab army,   but this initial victory would last only until the  arrival of Prince Jaisiah of Sindh with 4000 men,   mounted on camels and accompanied by war  elephants. Though the Arabs fought valiantly,   the elephants drove many of the Arab cavalry’s  horses to panic, including Buzail’s own steed,   leading to the general’s death and the  defeat of his already outnumbered army.  Dahir and Sindh’s victory would be very  short-lived, however. Even before the launching   of the second invasion, cracks were beginning to  show in the kingdom. Fearing another invasion,   the governor of Nerun began paying tribute to  al-Hajjaj, a sign of the breakdown in central   authority in Sindh that had allowed the  kingdom to become such a haven for pirates,   and which would later see the Caliphate gather  significant support from within its borders. In   addition, various tribes and communities existed  effectively independently within Sindh borders,   most notably the nomadic Jat people and  the Meds of Balochistan, who lived along   the coasts as fishermen and pirates. During the  reign of Rai Chach, who established the Chacha   dynasty in Sindh around the same time Islam  was first emerging in Arabia, humiliating and   discriminatory decrees had been leveled against  such tribal groups, the Jat in particular. These   included bans on their wearing of silk and  carrying of swords, with children of prominent   Jat leaders held hostage to enforce these rules. By the time of al-Walid and Dahir, these grudges   still ran deep, but the crown of Sindh seemingly  no longer had the power or authority to control   its coasts or its populace, leaving large minority  populations and disloyal vassals within the nation   ready to take up arms against the state at the  first showing of weakness. This opportunity would   come swiftly when in late 711, a second army was  raised with al-Walid’s direct support, al-Hajjaj   using the soldiers from Buzail’s army still held  prisoner in Sindh as a further grievance to goad   the Caliph into war. Under the leadership of  Muhammad ibn Qasim, the still-teenaged governor of   Fars and al-Hajjaj’s brother-in-law and counting  6,000 horsemen from the Caliphate’s core Syrian   army, an equal number of camel-mounted irregular  warriors joining at Shiraz, and a further 3,000   at Makran lead by the province’s elderly  and sickly governor Muhammad ibn Harun,   this army would greatly outnumber Buzail’s. And  though his family ties and personal loyalty to   al-Hajjaj seem to have contributed more to the  young governor’s selection as leader than his   military experience, particularly with al-Hajjaj  having suffered near-defeat at the hands of one   rebel general already, he would rapidly prove  his skill as a commander in the years to follow.  From Makran, the army marched into Sindh with  a vengeance, first conquering the Balochi city   of Armanbelah: today’s Bela, Pakistan.  Despite his youth and his larger army,   ibn Qasim proceeded with far greater caution than  Buzail had, wary of the Sindhi prince’s army that   had foiled the first expedition and constructing a  series of fortified camps as he advanced to guard   against ambush. Reaching Debal on October 28th,  711, ships arrived to unload vast siege engines   and catapults, along with frequent correspondence  from al-Hajjaj, and the ever-cautious commander   dug trenches around the besieged city to guard  against any relief army or sortie before beginning   a bombardment. While the 13th Century Chach Nama’s  account of the siege to follow is rather fanciful,   featuring a magical battle standard that rendered  the city unconquerable until its flagpole atop   the temple was shattered by a catapult  stone, among other obvious embellishments,   the basic overview of the brief siege is simple  enough. After seven days of bombardment from   mangonels and the enormous catapult known as  the ‘little bride’ the Caliph had provided,   the defenders of the city attempted to sally forth  against the besieging army, only to be driven   back easily. The following day, ibn Qasim’s army  assaulted the battered walls from every direction,   soon scaling the walls and storming the city. A  brutal sack followed, with the city nearly razed,   many killed as they sought refuge in the temple,  and far more carried off as captives. Leaving the   recently-freed prisoners from Buzail’s army in  charge of Debal, along with their former jailer   Kublah, who was spared thanks to his kind  treatment of the Muslim prisoners and swift   conversion to Islam upon their victory, the great  army swiftly departed their conquest to push on   towards Nerun, where Jaisiah was still encamped. Outnumbered by the approaching army and receiving   word of the fall of Debal, the prince  opted to withdraw to his father’s side,   commanding Nerun’s governor to resist the  approaching Arabs unaware of the tributary   agreement he had already reached. When ibn Qasim  arrived in Nerun soon after Jaisiah’s departure,   he found no resistance, instead being allowed to  rest and resupply while Jat and Med tribespeople,   hostile to the Chach monarchs and hearing word  of Qasim’s victory, flocked to his banner.  From here he went first north-west along the  West bank of the Indus, conquering Sehwan with   little more difficulty than Debal despite  the stubborn defence of its leader Bachera,   cousin to King Dahir. After another week-long  siege, its citizenry, frightened by tales of   Debal’s razing - favored surrender, eventually  driving Bachera out in order to do so. A few   days later at Budiah, Bachera attempted  another stand after fleeing Sehwan’s fall,   joining that city's headman Karah Kotak to launch  a night attack against the encamped Arab army. A   thousand of his best warriors split into four  groups for the raid under cover of darkness,   backed up by Jats loyal to Sindh. Confused orders  would see the nighttime attack come to naught,   however, with the four groups failing  to properly coordinate in the darkness,   some becoming lost and failing to reach the Arab  army while the rest were discovered and driven by   the alert sentries of the well-fortified camp. In the aftermath of this defeat, Karah Kotak   submitted to ibn Qasim as so many of Dahir’s  vassals had already, while Bachera and his   loyalists were slain, bringing almost the whole  of Sindh west of the Indus under the sway of the   Caliphate. The true test would be the crossing  of the Indus, however, and here Qasim’s army,   camped at Kohal, began to face difficulties. Dahir  and Jaisiah stood ready on the opposite bank, the   two armies at times within bowshot of each other,  guarding against a crossing. Despite nominally   commanding the loyalty of the nearby conquered  cities, Qasim’s position was still tenuous,   based on fear that might fade if the conquerors  showed too much weakness. Indeed, as the 50-day   standoff across the Indus drew on, the Arabs found  great difficulty in keeping themselves supplied,   with the army beginning to suffer from hunger  and disease and being forced to eat many of their   horses, while Sehwan rose in revolt behind them  and expelled its recently-installed Arab garrison.   Though this revolt was quickly suppressed and  2,000 fresh horses laden with supplies were soon   sent by al-Hajjaj, the long period of inactivity  was clearly weakening the Arab position. Thus,   on Hajjaj’s orders, the army departed towards  Thatta, most likely in May of 712. A successful   crossing was made at Jhim: today the site of  Keenjar Lake, but at the time a relatively   safe ford where a small island stood in the middle  of the Indus. Provided boats by the local leader   Mokah Basaleh, ibn Qasim had them filled with  ballast and connected by planks to form a bridge,   crossing before the unprepared Dahir could bring  his forces to bar their way and routing the paltry   force under Mokah’s loyalist brother Rasil. From here, Qasim marched swiftly North towards   the Sindhi capital of Aror, defeating several  Sindhi armies along the way. At a lake just south   of today’s Nawabshah, the first major engagement  was fought, with Jaisiah taking a strong force of   soldiers and elephants to oppose the invaders.  Though they fought bravely and the elephants   caused great chaos among the mounted Arabs, they  were swiftly enveloped and hemmed in by their   more mobile foes, with the majority of the army  being cut down while Jaisiah broke through the   foes surrounding him atop an elephant to escape  to his father’s side. This defeat further shook   the confidence of Dahir’s vassals, with Rasil  now defecting to join his brother in ibn Qasim’s   service and securing boats to cross the lake as  a sign of his new loyalty. Over the following   three days, Dahir, facing loyalty problems  and apparently allowing the readings of his   astrologers to inform much of his strategy, threw  several detachments against ibn Qasim to no avail,   allowing the Arabs to overcome these small forces  piecemeal and reduce the Sindhi numbers advantage.  On June 16 712, following the advice of Muhammad  ibn Haris, leader of the Muslim Alafi tribe,   which had fled Makran after a blood feud brought  them into conflict with al-Hajjaj, he finally   brought his full army to bear against ibn Qasim’s  army, which had crossed the lake lead by his   lieutenant Uwais ibn Kais. Arranging his horsemen  on his left, archers on his right, with foot   soldiers supported by war elephants in the center,  the Sindhi army numbered approximately 20,000   men to ibn Qasim’s 15,000. Though he initially  attempted to rout them with an elephant charge,   the Arabs and their mounts now had experience  fighting the great beasts, and divided into small   groups to confuse and frighten the war elephants  sent against them. Meanwhile, a cavalry charge by   the Muslim second in-command Muhriz ibn Sabat into  the enemy center saw significant success despite   Muhriz’s own death in battle, causing great damage  to the enemy before both forces were forced to   withdraw after the day’s bloody fighting. The following day would be the climax of   the conflict, with Dahir this time issuing forth  with his horsemen at the center of his army while   the Arabs shot arrows treated with flaming  Naphtha to panic the elephants. Initially,   the battle favored the Sindhis, with Shujah the  Abyssinian, a renowned champion in ibn Qasim’s   army, being killed with an arrow to the neck and  the Caliphal army beginning to retreat before the   cavalry onslaught. Ibn Qasim managed to rally  his forces, however, with Mokah Basayeh’s own   mounted detachment reinforcing his commander in  the center as the battle raged across the banks   of the lake. Soon, Dahir’s lack of authority  would be his undoing, with huge numbers of   his levied footmen and archers fleeing, leaving  mostly the dwindling noble-born cavalry to defend   their king as the rallying Arab army began to push  back. As the left wing of his army began to rout,   Dahir launched a last valiant charge from atop  his elephant, only for a flaming arrow to set the   litter he rode in aflame, causing the elephant to  panic and rush into the water of the lake. Some of   his remaining men attempted to rally about him  in the shallows, but now cut off from retreat,   the king and those about him were cut down by  a volley from the Arab archers along the banks.  While Jaisiah would escape to continue the war,  this victory shattered the Sindhi resistance,   with ibn Qasim executing every prisoner save  the merchants and artisans and few willing to   back Jaisiah in continuing a losing battle. Many  towns and cities would swear fealty to ibn Qasim   and the Caliphate in the immediate aftermath, with  Jaisiah holding out in Brahminabad until its fall   to a siege nearly a year later in November  713 officially ended the Chach dynasty and   the Kingdom of Sindh. This conquest, together  with the simultaneous campaigns in Iberia,   would soon bring the Umayyad Caliphate to near  its greatest extent, yet for all its power   the Caliphate was not invincible, and dangers  both internal and external continued to loom.  The Visigothic Kingdom of Iberia could trace  its roots back to Alaric, the famous general who   first fought for Emperor Theodosius against the  Franks, holding the Balkans as a Roman Foederati,   or semi-autonomous ally, before his relationship  with the Empire soured, and he became the first   person to sack the Eternal City in over 700 years.  The Visigoths had been one of several so-called   barbarian peoples to arrive in the territory  of the crumbling Roman Empire, with various   Gothic and other Germanic peoples found in great  numbers throughout the Empire and on its outskirts   as slaves, soldiers, and allies. In the aftermath  of Western Rome’s fall, the Visigoths were among   the first to carve out their own kingdom from  its ashes. Though Alaric’s power base had been   in the Balkans, the Visigoths would migrate ever  westward following his death, at times allies of   convenience to the collapsing Roman Empire and at  other times taking advantage of the West’s fall to   expand their power. It would be in the Aquitaine  region of Western France that the Visigoths would   first establish a true kingdom, from there pushing  into Suebi-controlled Hispania at Rome’s behest,   their kingdom encompassing Aquitaine and nearly  the entire Iberian Peninsula by the death of the   great warrior and lawmaker King Euric in 484.  The years that followed would be less kind,   however, as easy expansion against the backdrop  of a crumbling Rome gave way to new rivalries   against other powerful barbarian kingdoms, most  notably the Franks and Burgundians. It would not   be long after Euric’s death, during the reign  of his successor Alaric II, that the Visigothic   territories in France would fall to these Northern  rivals led by the Merovingian king Clovis,   leading to the establishment of Toledo as the  new Visigothic capital. With the Pyrenees now   forming a natural border, the Visigothic kingdom  would remain secure in Hispania for the next two   centuries, with occasional further conflicts  with the Franks and a revanchist Eastern   Roman Empire making little lasting change to  the status quo. As the 8th century dawned,   though, the Visigoths would unexpectedly find  a far greater danger arising to their South.  The Umayyad Caliphate’s border with the  Visigothic Kingdom had been an embattled   one since their first arrival, with raids into  Southern Iberia having begun as early as 706,   following the conquest of Tangier in today’s  Morocco. In fact, the campaign that would spell   the end of the Visigothic Kingdom likely began as  another of these large-scale raids, with the force   of some 1700 that crossed the Strait of Gibraltar  in 710 under the leadership of Tariq ibn Ziyad,   governor of Tangier, being quite sizeable for  a skirmishing party but smaller than would be   expected had they intended a campaign of conquest  from the beginning. But circumstances favored the   Muslims: following the recent death of King  Wittiza, the Visigothic Kingdom had entered   into a succession crisis, with Roderic in  control of Southern Iberia, pitted against   the poorly-documented Achila II in the North. However, this low-intensity civil war was only   indicative of larger weaknesses within the  Visigothic kingdom. While the Visigoths had   ruled Iberia independently for more than two  centuries at this point and had exercised great   autonomy under a weakened Rome for another  century before their independence, they had   continued to rule on essentially tribal lines  despite the scale of their kingdom rendering them   inefficient. The feudal systems that would allow  later kingdoms to efficiently raise armies through   local vassals did not yet exist in Iberia, and  while the landed aristocratic class of the Roman   period had essentially merged with the Visigothic  conquerors to form a unified ruling class, the   ethnic Visigoths that still made up most of the  readily-available warriors the various Visigothic   chiefs could draw on made up only a very small  minority in the larger kingdom. King Reccared’s   abandonment of the Arian sect of Christianity  traditionally followed by the Visigoths in 589   in favour of their kingdom’s majority Chalcedonian  Christian faith, accompanied by the abandonment   of the Gothic tongue as a church language,  had done much to unify the Visigoths with   their subjects. However, the Hispano-Roman  aristocrats had not been a warrior nobility,   and the kingdom lacked efficient administrative  systems by which to mobilize its peasantry to   war - while every denizen of the Visigothic  kingdom was theoretically required to provide   military service to the king on demand, this  duty was owed directly to the king rather than   to a more accessible local intermediary, making  it a duty only too easy to ignore for the vast   majority of the population outside Toledo and the  king’s own demesne. Thus, while the Caliphate had   been able to vastly expand its power through its  conquests, through recruiting large numbers of   converts in conquered territories for further  campaigns and by embracing the sophisticated   administrative systems left behind by the Romans  and Persians - coupled with the laws laid down in   the Qur’an - the military power of the Visigothic  kingdom was not fundamentally changed from the   tribal armies that had fought Rome under Alaric,  its army still made up in large part by the   personal warriors of Visigothic chiefs despite the  vastly larger Latin population they ruled over.  In addition to the relative unpreparedness of  their foes, the Arabs had an valuable ally on   their side - Count Julian of Ceuta, who was most  likely a Byzantine governor who had switched his   allegiance upon his Empire’s abandonment of North  Africa rather than attempting to fight a doomed   resistance against the Arabs. While it seems he  aided by providing his suzerain ships for the   crossing of the Strait of Gibraltar, his larger  role in the story is somewhat in question. Despite   his importance in later accounts - which claim he  had made the first attack on Iberia with his own   forces in 709, seizing loot with which to entice  the Arabs to destroy Roderic for him and avenge   his daughter’s rape at the Visigothic king’s  hands, no mention of this grudge exists in the   Mozarabic Chronicle of 754, the earliest surviving  account of the invasion, and neither Julian’s   subservience to the more powerful Arabs nor Musa’s  predictable decision to expand into the rich lands   of the Visigoths require any tales of vengeance  to explain. The accounts that paint Julian as   the architect of Visigothic kingdom’s conquest  also clash with both the Mozarabic Chronicle’s   assertion that Arab raiding had begun years before  the conquest and with the common narratives of   later Christian accounts, which claim that it was  enemies of Roderic within Iberia that requested   and facilitated the Muslim invasion. While any  of these stories might be at least partly true,   they are likely irrelevant - with North Africa  subjugated and inhospitable, difficult to traverse   desert to the South, the Caliphate’s invasion  of Hispania was an inevitability whether Roderic   was guilty of raping Julian’s daughter or not,  and Julian would have been compelled to support   Musa as a Caliphal vassal with or without any  personal grudge. Anecdotally, as a side note,   the modern name of the Strait of Gibraltar  is named for Tariq, in a corruption of the   Arabic Jabal Tariq, or Tariq’s mountain. The renewal of raiding in the South went   at first unanswered by the Visigoths, allowing  Tariq to establish a secure base of operations   on the site that would later become the town of  Algeciras, from there pushing deeper into Iberia.   They would face their first opponent shortly after  - Theodemir, a Visigothic count holding extensive   territories near Murcia, who with his force of  some 1700 men attempted to delay the invaders in   a series of skirmishes while sending reports and  pleas for aid back to Roderic. The establishment   of this base and the arrival of further Muslim  reinforcements quickly demonstrated to Roderic   that this was no common raid, and he began  assembling what forces he could muster at Cordoba,   sending a force of cavalry ahead to aid Theodemir  in his resistance and instructing the count to   withdraw northwards to join him,. Meanwhile,  he began his own much slower march south,   hindered by poor logistics, the slow arrival of  reinforcements from disloyal vassal chieftains,   and a lack discipline among the conscripted serfs.  He finally regrouped with the battered remnants of   Theodemir’s force at Guadalete, their numbers  weakened after a series of skirmishes over at   least a month that greatly favoured the mobile  Berber cavalry making up the bulk of Tariq’s   forces, which had also been mercilessly raiding  the countryside so as to force Roderic into a   battle on the field. Guadalete would soon  be the site of a historically pivotal but   poorly-documented battle that has been the  basis for countless conflicting tales and   legends. The numbers involved are very much  in question, with later Christian chronicles   claiming as high as 187,000. Though the number  given for the Muslim forces in the Mozarabic   Chronicle - 7,000 in Tariq’s initial landing  force, with 5,000 reinforcements bringing the   total to 12,000 - is likely at least slightly  inflated as well, it is at least plausible   considering the readiness of converted Berbers  to join Musa’s forces across subjugated North   Africa. No figures are given for the Visigothic  forces under Roderic, save a similarly unlikely   100,000 claimed by later Arab chronicles.  The defenders did most likely outnumber the   invaders - with over 30,000 in the highest modern  estimates, though given the previously mentioned   challenges in mobilizing their Hispano-Roman  subjects, even a number half this is likely   generous - but faced problems of disloyalty  that undermined their small numbers advantage.  Some recurring themes found in both Muslim  and Christian sources may shed some light   on the events of the bloody July day. The  previously-mentioned Mozarabic Chronicle of 754,   though a useful source for information on the  Visigothic kingdom’s history and politics,   mentions the Battle of Guadalete only  in passing and elaborates little on the   tactics involved. It does, however, make  it clear that many of the more powerful   Visigothic tribal leaders had only feigned their  support when accompanying their king to battle,   intending to lead Roderic to his downfall and  claim the throne themselves. And while later   accounts are of questionable reliability, this  general narrative of betrayal surrounding the   kingdom’s fall remains a constant. Some accuse  Roderic of having had Wittiza assassinated in a   coup attempt, while many other accounts are quite  hostile towards Wittiza and his line as a result   of the late king’s anti-clerical policies, with  villainization of Wittiza growing harsher and more   common as time passed. Wittiza’s opposition to a  series of discriminatory decrees by the Spanish   church councils targeting Iberia’s large Jewish  population might have contributed to this, given   the growing hostility towards Europe’s Jews in  the era of the Crusades and Reconquista, a period   that had seen renewed interest in the fallen  Visigothic kingdom and to which many of these   later chronicles trace. Many of these chronicles  even suggested that two sons of Wittiza, seeking   to claim their father’s throne, had invited the  Arabs into Iberia, or that Iberia’s Jews had used   their close ties to the Jews of North Africa  to do the same, seeing an opportunity to end   their long suffering under the harsh anti-semitic  policies of the Visigothic kingdom and its church,   which since 694 had even allowed for any Jew  refusing baptism to be enslaved. Neither story   seems likely, especially considering Wittiza  was unlikely to have been older than twenty-five   himself when he died, making any children he  might have had rather young for such scheming,   but whatever the case, if anyone had hoped to take  advantage of the Muslim incursion to claim the   Visigothic throne, they would very disappointed. Roderic had his loyal Visigothic warriors,   armored and bearing axes and swords, split into  two contingents - the larger making up the center   of the vanguard and a smaller detachment held  in reserve. Behind these staunch defenders,   the ill-equipped levies he had raised from his  demesne around Toledo and during the mustering   at Cordoba were arrayed, in a particularly  sorry state even for peasant conscripts,   Roderic’s hurry to engage the invaders leaving  little time to see these slaves and serfs equipped   or drilled. On the wings were the forces of  allied chieftains, many of questionable loyalty,   and the kingdom’s comparatively meager cavalry  remaining after the losses inflicted during   Theodemir’s fighting retreat. Tariq, though  outnumbered, had far more cavalry than his   foe and fewer concerns of morale and loyalty.  Though the majority of the Arab warriors that had   come forth from Syria to conquer North Africa had  either returned home or remained behind with Musa,   he had a strong contingent of heavily-equipped  Arab cavalry making up his army’s center, with   Berber and Arab infantry behind them, while Berber  light cavalry on the wings and in the rearguard   made up the bulk of his army. Accounts vary  greatly, but it would seem that the first two days   of fighting remained more or less in the balance,  with both armies suffering mounting casualties and   with greater Visigothic numbers seemingly giving  them the edge at first. Both leaders encouraged   their forces with speeches - Tariq chastising  his forces for falling back during the second   day’s fighting, claiming that only by holding  fast and seizing victory could they hope to   survive to return home, and promising to lead  them to riches and glory on the following day.  When the third day’s fighting began, Tariq would  prove true to his word, personally leading his   heavier cavalry in a charge that broke through the  Visigothic warriors making up Roderic’s center.   With the enemy vanguard depleted by two days’  fighting, Tariq’s cavalry soon found themselves   with nothing but scattering serf levies between  them and the enemy leaders and rearguard, with   the Muslim infantry taking advantage of the breach  and following closely behind. The circumstances of   the following rout are unclear - a Visigothic  leader slain early in the charge seems to have   been mistaken by the Muslims for Roderic, starting  a false rumor of the king’s death that hastened   panic and desertion in an army already held  together by very little. Some accounts claim that   much of the Visigothic cavalry under the Bishop  Oppa - a possibly illegitimate son of Wittiza’s   father and predecessor Egica - defected to Tariq  as part of a prearranged betrayal, and while this   claim is rather doubtful, it is clear that many  did desert the king as the tables began to turn.   A general rout soon followed as the levies broke  and the Berber cavalry charged the enemy flanks,   running down fleeing soldiers. Though Roderic’s  personal forces put up a staunch defense despite   their broken lines, inflicting sizable casualties,  the premature rumor of the king’s death would soon   prove to have come only a few hours too early, and  by the fierce battle’s end the king and a sizable   portion of the Visigothic nobility had been slain.  Though nearly 3,000, close to a quarter of the   Muslim force, had been among the casualties,  losses had been far greater for the defeated   Visigoths, and their kingdom would not long  outlive their fallen king. With the Visigothic   kingdom so reliant on the military dominance of  its ruling minority and commanding little loyalty   from its subjects, this single crushing defeat  effectively spelled its end.. Tariq was quick   to march to Toledo in the aftermath, where Oppa -  who does not in fact seem to have been present at   Guadalete despite later claims of his battlefield  betrayal - had taken the Visigothic throne. Oppa   would prove a ready collaborator with the  conquerors, aiding them in capturing and   executing many of the remaining Visigothic chiefs  and nobility as they made to flee the capital.  712 would see Musa cross the strait with another  army to join his victorious underling in pacifying   the remainder of Iberia, with Tariq’s army  splitting into four in order to more swiftly   overcome what little scattered resistance  remained. Some cities would put up spirited   defences, with Seville requiring a three month  siege and Merida five for Musa’s army to capture,   and with Seville even rising shortly in late  713 in a rebellion crushed by Musa’s son Abd   al-Aziz. However, the Visigoths’ unpopularity  in the urban centers such as Cordoba left many   ready to accept their new conquerors, and even the  Mozarabic Chronicle - though quite hostile towards   the Arabs - makes note of Cordoba’s flourishing  after its later establishment as the capital of   the new Caliphal province of Al-Andalus in 716.  Though Oppa, Theodemir and some few other figures   from the old ruling class retained a degree  of their former status through collaboration,   there would be no more Visigothic kings, and  their lines quickly fade into obscurity - if Oppa,   Achila or any others had indeed conspired with the  Muslims to take the throne, their ploy had failed,   with the Visigoths being assimilated into the  larger Iberian Christian population and their   power broken. In their place, Musa placed  Arabs in most positions of power within the   newly-conquered state, though the Muslims did  also rely heavily on Iberia’s Jews to help hold   and administer their new territory. With the harsh  restrictions put in place by the Visigoths lifted,   Jewish communities were among the most  eager in accepting the change of rulership,   and many Jews rose to positions of prominence as  advisors and officials under the comparatively   even-handed governance of early Al-Andalus. However, this story would end in tragedy even   for many of the victors, and Musa and Tariq  would not enjoy the fruits of their success   for long. By 715, they had completed the initial  conquest of the peninsula, overrunning the lands   of the Basques and the northern territories  held by Achila, who disappeared from the   record - making his supposed collaboration with  the Arabs unlikely. But just as Musa had himself   taken power in North Africa after the political  disgrace of its conqueror Hassan ibn al-Nu’man,   Tariq and Musa - by this point feuding with each  other over the spoils and glory of the conquest,   a precursor for more Arab-Berber hostility to  come - would be summoned to Damascus by a sickly   and aging Al-Walid, only to find the Caliph  already on his deathbed upon their arrival,   with his brother Sulayman the acting monarch.  Mired in a rocky succession, with Al-Walid   having backed his son Abd al-Aziz ibn Al-Walid  for the throne, Sulayman ordered Musa to delay   his triumphant entrance into Damascus until after  Al-Walid expired and he properly became Caliph.   In doing this, Sulayman hoped to claim some of the  glory of the conquest to inaugurate his new reign.  Musa refused, however, entering and dedicating  his victory and the spoils to Al-Walid. This   did little to ingratiate him with Sulayman,  with predictable results after Al-Walid’s   death less than a week later. Tariq and Musa  were both first stripped of their wealth,   then disgraced and publicly paraded as traitors,  ostensibly in response to Musa’s complaints   towards the confiscation but in all likelihood  an inevitable part of the broader crackdown on   Al-Walid’s governors and loyalists that took  place upon Sulayman’s inauguration. The two   conquerors of Al-Andalus would live the rest of  their lives in obscurity, while Musa’s sons Abd   al-Aziz and Abd Allah - left behind as governors  of Al-Andalus and Ifriqiya respectively - would   both be killed on the Caliph’s orders.  Sulayman’s mishandled efforts to assert   his control over the far-flung provinces of the  empire would backfire in Al-Andalus, however,   with the death of Abd al-Aziz sparking a period  of self-destructive infighting, spurred largely by   resentment among the Berbers towards their lesser  treatment compared to their Arab coreligionists   despite playing such a vital role in Iberia’s  conquest. With the conquerors turned against   each other, their hold on Iberia would begin to  show cracks almost as swiftly as they had won it,   with the mountainous Northern territories  breaking away under the Visigothic noble   Pelagius to form the Kingdom of Asturias in 722. It was not the far-flung western frontier of   Iberia that Sulayman would spend his short  reign focused on, however. Eager to forge   his own legacy to match his brother’s in  the short time remaining to him, he would   soon turn the armies of the Caliphate towards  a prize long denied them: Constantinople.   Upon his ascension to the Caliphal throne,  Sulayman wasted no time replacing most of   his brother and predecessor’s loyal governors  and advisors, despite the monumental successes   many of them had achieved during the storied reign  of al-Walid. In Al-Walid’s last years of life, he   had attempted to remove Sulayman from succession  in favour of his son Abd al-Aziz without success,   even requesting his governors to swear fealty  to Abd al-Aziz before his death. However,   few saw fit to take this risky stance against  Sulayman, who was the horse with the best odds.   Moreover, the rocky succession and support  for Abd al-Aziz from al-Hajjaj, one of the   most powerful men in the Caliphate, created  deep divides in the Umayyad court and caused   Sulayman to see enemies around every corner. As  a result, after Musa refused to delay his entry   to the capital until after al-Walid’s death so  Sulayman might claim the glory, both Musa and   Tariq were stripped of their titles and disgraced. Qutayba ibn Muslim, who had brought Islamic rule   to most of Transoxiana through a combination  of military victories and shrewd diplomacy,   would be extended the offer to keep his  position by Sulayman, likely due to the   large powerbase Qutaybah commanded and the  threat of civil war. Despite this placation,   Qutayba, suspecting Sulayman would turn on him  as soon as he felt secure enough to do so and   resenting the appointment of his longtime rival  Yazid ibn al-Muhallab as the new governor of Iraq   and Persia, denounced Sulayman as illegitimate  and rallied his troops against the new Caliph.   Unfortunately for Qutaybah, his position had  never been as powerful or secure as Al-Hajjaj’s,   and his attempt to raise his army in rebellion  against Sulayman caused many of his soldiers,   particularly his fellow Arabs, to betray and  kill him under the leadership of Waki ibn Abi   Sud. Though Waki would take over as governor of  Transoxiana, the following years would see many   of Qutaybah’s successes in the region reversed  in a string of defeats and rebellions, and Arab   control of Transoxiana would remain unstable for  decades to follow. Meeting a similar end would   be the famous conqueror of Sindh, Muhammad ibn  al-Qasim. As another close ally of al-Hajjaj’s   who had opposed Sulayman’s ascension, ibn al-Qasim  was removed from power by Sulayman and promptly   placed under arrest by his replacement as  Governor of Sindh Yazid ibn Abi Kabsha,   and sent to ibn al-Muhallab’s custody to be  tortured and executed. Recently-conquered Iberia   would also see a similar power vacuum created with  the execution of Musa ibn Nusayr’s two sons, the   governors of Ifriqiya and Al-Andalus, leading to  a period of the same self-destructive infighting.  While ibn al-Muhallab quickly stepped into  the powerful role Al-Hajjaj had long filled   and prepared for new conquests in the East.  With anarchy reigning in the Caliphate’s   distant western frontiers, Sulayman’s focus  was far closer to home. For a Caliph looking   to make his mark on history, no possible victory  could outshine the conquest of Constantinople,   a city that had already beaten back a four-year  siege under Caliph Mu’awiya and was supposedly   the focus of prophecies from Muhammad himself. It  would seem preparations for the siege had already   begun before Sulayman’s ascension as Caliph,  either under the orders of Al-Walid directly   or during the period in which Sulayman served  as acting ruler for his dying brother - hardly   surprising, given the years of frequent coups  and turmoil that had weakened the Byzantines   during Al-Walid’s relative golden age. During  Al-Walid’s later years Arab raids had penetrated   ever deeper and more brazenly into Anatolia, with  his sons al-Abbas and Marwan ibn al-Walid and his   half-brother Maslama ibn Abd-al Malik penetrating  North of the Taurus mountains in 711 and 712,   conquering Misthaea in the Lycaeonia region and  raiding as far as Amasya and modern-day Çankırı   along the Black Sea by 715. By contrast, the  Romans in the same period saw three Emperors   deposed in coups during the same five-year period. 715-716 With Sulayman spending the year 715   consolidating his hold on the Caliphate and  building his strength, it would be in 716 that   one of the single largest expeditions in Caliphal  history would be launched, with a land army under   the command of Maslama: the brother of Caliph  Sulayman, supported by a fleet under Umar ibn   Hubayrah al-Fazari. Wielding the resources of a  Caliphate, which was far vaster than the greatly   weakened Roman Empire, the odds seemed stacked  far more firmly against the Romans. Unfortunately,   the vast expedition assembled by Sulayman and  Maslama shared one major weakness with Mu’awiya’s   earlier invasion: a reliance on collaboration  with Roman rebels. Mu’awiya had counted on the   rebel Armenian general Saborios, then in control  of much of Anatolia, to supply and aid his army   in the march to Constantinople, only for his  untimely death to undermine years of planning,   stranding the first Arab expedition in hostile  territory without supplies or allies, starvation   and attrition defeating them more surely than  the armies defending Constantinople’s walls or   the Greek Fire devastating their fleets in the  Bosphorus. Maslama, seemingly hoping to avoid   the Herculean task of besieging and storming  the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, planned   to avoid having to take the city by force by  getting directly involved in Byzantine politics:   taking advantage of the civil strife and frequent  palace coups that had weakened the Eastern   Roman Empire by backing his own claimant to the  Byzantine throne: the Strategos Leo the Isaurian,   whose role in the leadup to the siege varies  somewhat between Roman and Arab accounts.  In the Roman narrative, it is Sulayman ibn Mu’ad  who first reaches out to negotiate with Leo and   who first raises the possibility of Leo taking the  throne while besieging Amorion, offering to lift   his siege and spare the city if they would accept  Leo as their Emperor. According to this tradition,   Sulayman intended to capture Leo, knowing of the  Strategos’ enmity for Emperor Theodosius - who   had taken power in a coup in May of the previous  year - and convince him to take the throne with   Arab backing and lead the Empire into submission  and vassalage. Yet despite holding correspondence   with first Sulayman and then Maslamah, in  the Roman narrative, Leo never falls into   Arab hands or forms any pact with the invaders:  escaping their net through trickery, he rallied   the defences of the countryside behind him,  foiling Sulayman ibn Mu’ad’s advance force before   seizing control of the Empire from the weak and  unpopular Theodosius on his own after capturing   the royal household with his army at Nicomedia.  In contrast, the Arab narrative has Leo reach   out to Caliph Sulayman to negotiate, deceitfully  assuring him that he will deliver Constantinople   into Arab hands. Though either account could be  somewhat falsified, the level of trust Maslamah   shows to Leo later in the siege would be highly  surprising had their initial interactions been   so short and hostile as claimed in the account of  Theophanes the Confessor, suggesting at least some   arrangements had been made between the two whether  the Arab accounts are fully truthful or not. It   should be noted that the dates are also slightly  inconsistent between these two accounts, with the   History of Al-Tabari placing the siege somewhat  earlier than Theophanes the Confessor - while both   provide valuable insight, the latter provides more  consistent dates and is far closer to contemporary   with the events enclosed, with the following  dates primarily being those given by Theophanes.  In either case, the winter of 716 would  end this first stage of the campaign,   one which saw modest Arab gains in Anatolia,  the overthrow of an Emperor, and a great deal   of underhanded dealing but little in the way of  direct engagement between the two armies. The year   had been a more active one in the East, although,  on this front, the Arabs met with little success.   Yazid ibn al-Muhallab attempted a large-scale  invasion of Jurjan and Tabaristan - the seat   of the Dayubid dynasty, and the last one of the  last independent vestiges of the Sassanid Empire,   which had thus far kept its old rulers at  the cost of paying tribute to the Caliph.   Initially successful, he captured the town of  Dihistan by siege with a large massacre ensuing,   strengthening his reputation for brutality  and causing the region of Jurjan to capitulate   without resistance and accept an Arab governor. Continuing West into Tabaristan, Yazid would see   less success. The ruling Spahbed Farrukhan  the Great appealed to his Eastern neighbours   in the Daylam region for military aid and  used the narrow mountain passes to hold   off Yazid’s much larger army. His army fell  back, seemingly beaten in their first clash,   only to lead the Muslims into an ambush, where  they were pelted by arrows and boulders from   higher ground and forced to withdraw. Though  Yazid still commanded by far the stronger army,   Farrukhan’s successful resistance spurred  the nobility of Jurjan, who had surrendered   previously, to take up arms, killing most of the  recently-installed Arab garrison during the night.   With his supplies now cut off and hostile forces  at his back, Yazid was forced to sue for peace,   using the threat of renewed invasion to  secure an increased tribute but failing   entirely in his mission of conquest despite the  vast resources at his disposal. In Transoxiana,   Waki ibn Abi Sud had failed to inspire the same  respect among the locals Qutaybah had, leading to   turmoil and the gradual loss of Caliphal control  over much of the region. However, Waki’s main   focus seemed to be a growing rivalry with Yazid  rather than on keeping order in his province.  After wintering in Cilicia, Umar would take  to the sea again in 717, holding the dominant   position in the Mediterranean but still wary of  facing Greek Fire in the Bosphorus, while Maslamah   would finally reach Constantinople’s walls  in June. Perhaps learning from past failures,   Maslamah’s army had brought vast stores  of food to last them a long siege,   with more being ferried to them from Egypt and  Syria under the protection of Umar’s fleet, with   transport vessels and dromon warships travelling  in a convoy system for protection. To demonstrate   his forces’ commitment to the siege no matter  how long it should take, Maslamah had forbidden   his forces to eat from the rich stockpile of  provisions they had brought, instead building   low walls and wooden houses for the besiegers  around the city and sowing crops in the ground   to sustain them. Feeding themselves by plunder  and soon by their own harvests, Maslamah’s massive   besieging force was transformed almost into a  small city of its own and looked well-prepared   to weather the bitter winter approaching. But  according to the Arab accounts of the siege,   Leo and Maslamah remained in negotiations at  this point. Leo still feigned allegiance to   the Umayyad prince and claimed he was doing his  best to convince his subjects to surrender. In the   main version of the tale, Leo claims either that  Constantinople’s inhabitants would surrender in   exchange for the Arab’s food stores to feed the  trapped and hungry citizens and demonstrate the   truth of Maslamah’s promises of safety in exchange  for submission. When Maslamah agreed, they looted   the Arab army’s stores and crops by night before  returning to their defences in the morning. In   another version, Maslamah even burns his own  supplies on Leo’s insistence that Constantinople   would surrender without a battle if convinced  Maslamah was preparing for a major assault.  At face value, these accounts might seem unlikely,  but at this point, Maslamah was negotiating from   a position of strength - with transport ships from  Tunis and Egypt resupplying him, he risked little,   and an opportunity to avoid the daunting siege  might have been too tempting to pass up. Whether   the tales are true or simply a way to scapegoat  one commander for a broader military failure, the   Arab naval supremacy would not be long-lived. As  the fleet continued to arrive and ferry soldiers   for the siege, many sailing past the city as far  North as modern Istanbul’s Ortakoy neighbourhood,   the convoys would be forced to sail past the  Golden horn, which was blocked with a chain   and harboured the Roman fleet, which had been  waiting for their moment of opportunity. For the   large and unwieldy transport ships to sail North  against the current of the Dardanelles required   a South wind. On September 1st, an unlucky  change of weather would see twenty of these   large and logistically vital ships, betrayed by  the breeze, drift backwards with the current away   from the safety of their escorts. The Roman fleet  wasted no time, sailing out from the Golden Horn   to bathe them and their crews in liquid fire,  a harsh blow with a cold winter approaching and   a hit to the morale of the Arab fleet. In the  historian al-Tabari’s words, the besiegers were   forced to eat everything but dirt, suffering  greatly over a cold winter outside the city.  On this sombre note, Caliph Sulayman would  breathe his last, dying in October 717. In   his brief reign, none of his grand ambitions  had come to fruition within his brief reign: as   Yazid ibn al-Muhallab’s invasion had been a  failure, and the attack on Constantinople had   been stalled. The legacy Sulayman had killed  so many for and worked so desperately to build   would largely be one of setbacks and failures,  overshadowed by the triumphs of his predecessor.   Sulayman had initially intended to be succeeded  by his son Ayyub, but Ayyub had died earlier in   the year of a plague that was possibly Sulayman’s  cause of death as well. Instead, on his deathbed,   he declared his younger cousin Umar ibn Abd  al-Aziz - a longtime ally of Sulayman’s who   had served as his governor of Medina - to be  his successor as Caliph, creating surprise and   resentment among closer family members such as  his brothers Yazid and Hisham - though Yazid was   promised right of succession after Umar. It was  no coincidence the newly-crowned Umar II shared   a name with the legendary second Caliph, Umar  ibn al-Khattab - through his mother’s side,   he was the second Caliph’s great-grandson, a  prestigious connection he emphasized greatly.  With the arrival of Spring, the pressure began to  mount on the Arab army besieging Constantinople.   The loss of the supply ships the previous autumn  had reaffirmed the superiority of the Roman ships   in combat. However, Leo’s fleet lacked the numbers  to actively patrol outside the Dardanelles or   safely scout the movements of the Arab ships. With  the arrival of Spring, sizable fleets from Egypt   and Tunis came bringing supplies across the  Mediterranean to the besiegers. Keeping their   distance from Constantinople, they landed secretly  in various places, from Chalcedon to the mouth of   the Gulf of Nicomedia, on the Asian side of modern  Istanbul. However, the crews of these fleets were   mostly Coptic Christians of Egyptian descent,  thousands of whom had been relocated to work   the shipyards of Tunis after the conquest of North  Africa by Hassan ibn al-Nu’man. Upon the fleets’   arrival on Roman soil, organized mutinies among  the Egyptian crews broke out among the Arab fleet,   with the crews taking control of some ships while  many others escaped, fleeing to sanctuary among   their fellow Christians in Constantinople. With  the fleets paralyzed and crippled by the loss of   so many crewmen and Leo informed of the Arab  fleet’s location and sudden weakness by the   defectors, the Roman fleet sailed forth once more  from the Golden Horn, capturing or destroying the   great Arab fleets, nearly in their entirety.  While the land army still held firm at first,   the Romans had retaken full naval dominance for  the time being. They cut the besiegers off from   supplies or effective reinforcement, with the  army divided by the now-uncrossable Dardanelles.  The entry into the conflict of the Bulgarian  Khanate, ruled by Leo’s ally, Khan Tervel,   would spell further disaster for the Arabs.  With the besiegers on the European side of   the Dardanelles cut off from retreat without  ships to ferry them across, a huge portion   of the demoralized army - forced to spread out  across the countryside to forage for food and   unprepared for the attack of a lightning-fast  cavalry army - would be defeated and massacred.   With the army facing destruction on the European  side, smaller defeats at Roman hands in Asia,   and starvation throughout, Umar would end the  grand expedition and call his cousin Maslamah   home, leaving more than twenty thousand dead  to hunger, Greek Fire or Bulgar horsemen behind   them. The disaster would weaken the Umayyad  state and serve as something of a turning   point - though Umar would be well-remembered  for his political reforms, this largely marked   the end of the great Umayyad conquests. More than the loss of manpower and ships   at Constantinople, overextension and the rise  of powerful governors would sap the ability of   the Umayyads to project power outwards - already  the frontiers of Transoxiana and Iberia had been   left almost completely to their own devices, with  little support from faraway Syria as anarchy and   infighting ate away at the Caliphate’s power in  these far-flung regions. Only a few years before,   the Umayyads had seemed at the height of their  power, with illustrious conquerors expanding the   Caliphate on every front - the death of these  remarkable generals and leaders at Sulayman’s   hands only foreshadowed the death of the age  of expansion they had championed. Umar would   attempt to address some of these problems during  his short and mostly peaceful reign - the poor   treatment of non-Arab Muslims, a common cause  for rebellion in past decades, would improve,   with the Jizya tax now exempted for all  Muslims rather than Arabs only, and attempts   at reconciliation with the Shia would be made  as well. Yet this is largely seen as the start   of a stagnation and decline that would last until  the Umayyads’ overthrow some three decades later. Following Suleiman’s death and the end of  his disastrous period as Caliph in 717,   the Caliphate was granted a brief reprieve from  its troubles through the mostly peaceful and   uneventful three-year reign of Umar II. Despite  a small Iraqi Kharijite rebellion in 718 seeing   some initial success against local forces, Syrian  troops swiftly put it down under Umar’s cousin   Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik, and the frontiers  remained mostly quiet during Umar’s brief reign   and the attempted political and social reforms he  championed. As seen in previous episodes, numerous   revolts against the Caliphate had come about due  to the poor treatment of non-Arab converts to   Islam, or Mawali. Rebellion among Persian-speaking  Iraqis had threatened to topple the Umayyad   dynasty twice, under Mukhtar al-Thaqafi during  the Second Fitna and Ibn Al-Ash’ath in 700 AD,   and Iberia was plagued by ongoing strife between  its Berber and Arab conquerors. Umar made efforts   to address this problem, making all Muslims  exempt from the Jizya tax rather than Arabs only,   which, coupled with expanded missionary  activity to encourage conversion in his   still minority-Muslim empire, brought some  degree of improved cohesion and stability at   the cost of cutting into the Caliphate’s tax  revenues. However, several events during his   reign would have long-term repercussions. First, the Caliphate met its limits on its   far eastern frontiers, where the Arab holdings in  Transoxiana became the battleground against a new   rival in the form of Tang China. The Caliphate’s  holdings in the region were recent conquests   brought about by Qutayba ibn Muslim, who had  since been a victim of Suleiman’s purges, leaving   the distant frontier bereft of this popular and  skillful leader. Thus, when the Arabs were drawn   into an ongoing conflict between the Tang and the  Tibetan Empire as a Tibetan ally, it would soon   spell disaster. The Caliphal vassal Khan Suluk of  the Turgesh’s invasion of the Tarim Basin would   meet staunch opposition from Ashina Xian, a leader  among the Western Turkic Khaganate and commander   of the so-called Protectorate General to Pacify  the West. Despite both the Arabs and Tibetans   sending significant reinforcements for this  offensive push and holding a numerical advantage,   the mostly Turkic Tang-aligned force opposing them  would win a decisive victory breaking the siege of   Aksu while another Chinese force simultaneously  defeated the Tibetans along the Yellow River,   assuring Chinese dominance in the region for  the next few decades. Suluk, for his part,   promptly switched to the winning side and swore  fealty to the Tang after his defeat at Aksu,   even going on to attack his former overlords  in Fergana, a poorly defended region. There   was little support from the Caliphate’s core  to be found on the frontiers for reasons we   will soon cover. However, this period did  see successes in Al-Andalus, where Governor   al-Samh ibn Malik had managed to bring much of the  Arab-Berber infighting under control, allowing him   to capture such major holdouts as Barcelona and  Narbonne from the Visigothic remnant under King   Ardo in 719 with the aid of Syrian and Yemeni new  arrivals, with the minting of the first Arab coins   in Iberia marking their gradual transformation  from a mere occupying army to the vibrant hybrid   civilization Al-Andalus would later become. Closer to home, the rapid succession of Caliphs   was creating its own problems, among them the  arrest and later escape of Yazid ibn al-Muhallab,   formerly governor of Iraq under Suleiman and the  leader of the ambitious and increasingly powerful   Muhallabid family. Over the previous decades,  the prestigious position of Governor of Iraq had   come to hold power almost rivalling that of the  Caliph himself, given its traditional oversight   of all the Caliphate’s eastern provinces, making  the stance of Iraq’s governor a major factor in   any thorny or contested Caliphal succession  such as those of Suleiman and Umar. Umar and   ibn al-Muhallab had bad blood between them already  when Umar took the throne, and the governor knew   he only had worse problems ahead should Umar be  succeeded as Caliph by Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik,   whose in-laws from the family of the renowned  former governor al-Hajjaj had been tortured   and executed on ibn al-Muhallab’s orders  during a previous political power struggle.  Thus, after being recalled from his governorship  and arrested for withholding from the Caliph   the spoils of war from his difficult  Tabaristan campaign during Suleiman’s reign,   Yazid ibn al-Muhallab opted to escape prison  with his family’s aid in 720 and return to   Iraq as Umar lay sickly and dying, rather  than trusting himself to the mercies of the   coming regime. Umar’s death in the same year  brought Yazid ibn abd al-Malik to the throne   as Caliph Yazid II. Thus, the all-too-short  years of peace under Umar were brought to an   end as Yazid was immediately forced to contend  with a Muhallabid rebellion in Iraq. However,   not all challenges to the Caliphate would be as  open or as blatant as those of the Muhallabids.   It was during these same few years that Muhammad  ibn Ali ibn Abdallah ibn Abbas, the patriarch of   another prominent family based in Khorasan, first  began to spread anti-Umayyad propaganda and build   a network of support around a demand for rule by  blood relatives of the Prophet. And while his and   his family’s efforts on such a distant frontier  attracted little attention from the Umayyads in   Damascus at the time, the name Abbasid would soon  be known throughout every corner of the Caliphate.  The new Caliph would take no half-measures against  ibn al-Muhallab upon learning of his escape and   subsequent refusal to swear fealty, and even  before any armies had met in battle, he took   steps to undermine the influence of the Muhallabid  family. Three brothers of the rebellious former   governor were arrested and imprisoned despite not  having directly participated in their brother’s   acts of defiance, deepening the rift. Meanwhile,  Yazid ibn al-Muhallab travelled as fast as he   could to Basra, where other relatives of his were  among the prominent nobility and joined their own   forces to his to create a formidable army. This  began a standoff with the local forces in Basra,   with the Muhallabids demanding the release  of their imprisoned kin and spreading bribes   among the defending soldiers in Basra to weaken  the defenders’ resolve and attract more support   in their opposition to the Caliph. The dwindling  defenders under Adi ibn Artat attempted to hold   the city but were defeated piecemeal, with part  of the army splitting from the main body to hold   the city’s western caravan quarter, though whether  this was due to a breakdown of authority among the   demoralized defenders or a poor strategic decision  on Artat’s part, this force would be attacked and   routed from the city before the main confrontation  began. The remaining defenders eventually rode   out from the fortress to engage the Muhallabid  besieging force in a nearby cemetery, but despite   the staunch core of Syrian horsemen bolstering  the local forces, they were soon defeated as well,   with the rebels pushing past them in the  confusion of their defeat to seize the fortress,   capturing Basra and rescuing Yazid ibn  al-Muhallab’s imprisoned brothers. Though   Caliph Yazid II’s reign had barely begun, he  already faced a serious challenge to his rule.  Sparing Adi ibn Artat, the victorious rebel began  appointing his own governors in the territories   around Basra, while tribal leaders and army  commanders loyal to the Caliphate fled to Kufah   and Syria. Interestingly, it seems the conflict  very nearly reached a peaceful conclusion at this   point - one of these retreating tribal leaders,  Al-Hawari ibn Ziyad, came across two messengers   from the Caliph escorting Yazid ibn al-Muhallab’s  nephew and a generous peace offer, the new Caliph   apparently valuing stability over any family feud  and willing to return ibn al-Muhallab’s relatives   and governorship. However, Ibn Ziyad argued  against this, informing the messengers of Artat’s   defeat and insisting ibn al-Muhallab could not be  trusted, convincing them to turn back. Ibn Ziyad’s   own family rivalry with the Muhallabids may have  played into his actions, as ibn al-Muhallab’s   nephew Humayd suggested in his pleas to the  messengers to continue on to his uncle - but   whatever his reasons, he ensured through a few  words that the civil strife would continue.  However, despite Caliph Yazid’s reluctance to do  battle, the advantage was nevertheless his. While   the Muhallabids had secured the support of most  of the tribes and army commanders in Basra, aided   by lingering resentment towards the Caliphate  lasting since the tyrannical reign of Al-Hajjaj,   they had been too slow to seize control in  Kufah before its reinforcement despite the   prominent places many members of the dynasty had  held in the region. Thus, after some skirmishing   against General Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik that  saw the Euphrates crossed and the Al-Jazirah   region retaken by Umayyad forces, ibn al-Muhallab  left Basra with its treasury in hand, intending   to march to Kufah. An advance party of Maslamah’s  army sabotaged the canals south of Kufah, however,   creating a flood that cut the Muhallabid army  off from their destination - as well as from   any possible reinforcement from Kufan supporters  and family members - and leaving them stranded   near Karbalah in August 720, where Maslamah’s  main force would catch them on August 17th. An   initial engagement set the tone of the battle,  with an advance force under Yazid’s brother Abd   al-Malik ibn al-Muhallab initially driving back  the Umayyad’s own advance party under al-Abbas   ibn al-Walid and nearly claiming victory,  only to be routed when the Syrians managed to   rally and regroup with the bank of the Euphrates  at their backs. Abd al-Malik would regroup with   the rest of the army, digging trenches to  fortify their camp next to a bridge across   the Euphrates and stationing part of the army on  the opposite bank to protect a line of retreat.  However, these precautions would not save  the Muhallabid rebellion when the battle   was finally joined. According to the sometimes  unreliable testimony of the historian Abu Mikhnaf,   Yazid ibn al-Muhallab favoured a night attack  on the Umayyad camp to fill in the Umayyads’ own   trenches under cover of darkness and prepare for  a decisive assault at daybreak but was overruled   by the chiefs and leaders among his army who  insisted they abide by the terms of honourable   combat under the Quran they had agreed upon  with the Umayyads prior. Yazid disagreed,   claiming the Umayyads were unlikely to show  the same chivalry. This odd episode is likely   coloured by Abu Mikhnaf’s anti-Umayyad biases, but  the battle itself bore out his supposed warning,   with the Umayyads opening the full-scale battle  on August 25th by sending a small force in boats   to set the bridge ablaze and divide the Muhallabid  army. On top of cutting off a line of retreat and   stranding some of Yazid’s forces on the opposite  side of the river from the battle, the torching   of the bridge was already enough on its own to  cause many of Yazid’s questionably dedicated   soldiers to break and attempt to flee, only to be  rounded up and beheaded as an example on their own   commander’s orders, leaving the Muhallabid ranks  in chaos before the first blows were even traded.   The greater blow would be the death of Yazid’s  brother Habib, who commanded the Muhallabid   right flank and perished early in the battle. The death of his brother, combined with the   other setbacks and pressing defeat, seems to  have unbalanced the elderly Muhallabid leader,   whose words and behaviour following are marked  with a single-mindedness bordering on madness.   Dismissing advice to retreat to Wasit, he pressed  on with the remains of his wavering forces,   charging straight for the Umayyad center where  Maslamah was camped with little care for maneuver   or nuance. The greater Umayyad numbers and  Yazid’s seeming death wish made the outcome   of the battle certain. Yazid and his companions  clashed with Syrian cavalry until their defeat,   with a warrior named al-Qahl ibn Ayyash fighting  his way to Yazid, whereupon the two men each dealt   each other fatal blows. Another of Yazid’s  brothers, al-Mufaddal, commanded the left wing   with more skill and discipline and even saw some  success after the routing of the rest of the army,   but when news reached him of the deaths  of his brothers and flight of his allies,   he fled the battlefield, the decisive battle  ending whatever threat the Muhallabids posed.  The immediate aftermath of the rebellion was  nearly as bloody as the battle that preceded it,   with both sides vengefully executing whatever  prisoners they held, including Adi ibn Artat   in Basra and numerous members of the Muhallabid  family that had been arrested at the rebellion’s   inception, while Maslamah - taking over as  governor of Iraq - pursued the fleeing al-Mufaddal   and other prominent rebels to Fars where they  were finally slain. Though quite large in scale,   this rebellion was fairly short-lived, and its  impact on history would likely not have been   great if not for the previously-mentioned Abbasids  building support for their own ambitions. With   the power of the Muhallabid family broken, its  loyalists and more distant kinsmen not caught in   the purge pledged their still-respectable power  to the Abbasids, and the family would return to   prominence in later decades as vassals to another  Caliphate. Thus, this rebellion is somewhat more   significant as one of several leading into the  Third Fitna, the Umayyad victory only bolstered   the strength of tomorrow’s enemies. For now,  though, as the Abbasids bide their time and   the deteriorating Arab position in Transoxiana  sees fighting rock Samarkand, our attention   returns to Al-Andalus and southern France. The previously-mentioned Andalusian governor   al-Sahm ibn Malik, now more secure in his new  holdings and reforms, chose in early 721 to   continue the conquests of the Umayyads further  northwards into the lands of the Franks, gathering   an impressive army, likely 10,000 to 15,000 strong  even if the six-digit figures given in Frankish   accounts are dismissed. On top of bringing further  prizes and revenues for himself and the Caliph   by his conquests, al-Sahm seems to have rushed  into further outward expansion in part to keep   the fragile harmony within Al-Andalus, hoping the  Arab and Berber soldiers and settlers so recently   at each other’s throats could come together  for plunder and holy war in France rather than   returning to their infighting at home. Narbonne  was established and provisioned as the forward   base from which the campaign would be launched,  while to the North, Duke Odo of Aquitaine gathered   forces of his own and sent out calls for aid.  Though the exact date of his advance into Frankia   is unclear, it coincidentally seems to have taken  place very shortly after the death of the Frankish   king Chilperic II, leaving Frankia technically  under the rule of Theuderic IV, an eight-year-old   boy. However, this was far less significant than  it might sound. Real power was held by the steward   Charles Martel, who held the rather odd title of  Mayor over all the Frankish kingdoms after his   victory in a many-sided struggle that had started  as a civil war for Charles’ native Austrasia. When   Chilperic, then King of Neustria, had attempted  to take advantage of the chaos and jointly invade   with King Radbod of Frisia, their opportunism  backfired, with Charles eventually defeating   not only his Austrasian rival Plectrude and the  invaders but also the previously-mentioned Odo,   who briefly joined Chilperic as an ally once  the Neustrian king’s war had a defensive one.   Finally betrayed by Odo and delivered into  Charles’ hands, Chilperic surrendered most   of his authority to Charles - being elevated  to become king of all the Franks in name,   but in truth serving as nothing more than a  puppet - less than three years earlier in 718.  Chilperic’s passing and the crowning of Theuderic  by Charles removed any lingering internal threat   to the steward’s power and allow him  to consolidate his hard-won position,   but despite this new security, Charles would  not be coming to answer his former enemy Odo’s   call for reinforcement. Though Charles Martel  would become famous throughout Europe for his   later efforts against the Moors, at this  point, his efforts were still focused on   fighting the invading Saxons, and it’s likely  that seeing his powerful and functionally   independent Aquitainian vassal weakened was  to his benefit as well. Odo would thus be   forced to stand alone against al-Sahm’s invasion,  though he would prove himself far from helpless.  Initially unopposed as they left Narbonne in  Spring, the Arab and Berber force arrived at   Aquitaine’s largest city of Toulouse in early  March of 721, their momentum halting as they   settled in for a siege but with the advantage  seemingly still on their side. But the three   months the cavalry-heavy Muslim army spent  waiting outside the walls of Toulouse robbed   them of the advantages in speed and mobility  that had allowed such rapid conquests in Spain,   and it seems al-Samh may have allowed himself to  become complacent while Odo assembled his army of   perhaps 8,000 to 12,000 soldiers, not expecting  significant resistance after his string of easy   victories against the remnants of the Visigoths.  In an apparent failure of scouting despite his   access to thousands of skilled horsemen, al-Samh  allowed Odo’s army to march South of Toulouse by   the beginning of June, cutting the Muslims  off from Narbonne and trapping them between   the field army and the besieged city’s garrison. As with so many other battles turned into myths   to glorify a religious victory, the exact events  of the battle that erupted June 9th are difficult   to pin down, with both sides claiming absurdly  inflated army sizes in excess of 300,000 for their   enemy. What is clear is that after a skillful  encirclement of the besieging Muslim force by Odo,   the defenders of Toulouse took a bold risk in  sallying forth to join the battle in the field.   To their credit, the Muslims did not quickly  break or rout, despite their disadvantage and   the simmering distrust still felt by many along  the Arab/Berber divide. Rallying around al-Samh,   they fought a dogged last stand even after  their leader’s mortal injury, and after hours   of fighting, a portion of the army even managed  to break the encirclement and escape to Narbonne   with the injured governor. With their mobility  advantage nullified and enemies on all sides,   though, this brave stand did little to change  the inevitable outcome, and the majority of the   Muslim invasion force was either taken prisoner  and ransomed or perished in battle on the bloody   fields outside Toulouse, while al-Samh succumbed  to his wounds in Narbonne not long after.  This would not be the last attempt of the Umayyads  to invade France, but Toulouse was nothing less   than a disaster for the Umayyads, particularly  with the dangers posed by a revanchist rival   kingdom so close to home - the recently-founded  Kingdom of Asturias, ignored for their defensible   terrain and comparative poverty in favour of  more lucrative targets in France, would win   its own first victory against the conquering  Umayyads the following year at Covadonga,   a relatively small-scale but historically  significant skirmish marked by many today as   the beginning of the Reconquista, which we will  cover in a separate series. These developments,   together with the growing power of the Abbasids  in Khorasan, represented many pivotal events and   transformations in their infancy and the  dawn of a new era just around the corner   as the sun began to set on the Umayyads. After the death of Caliph Yazid in 724,   the first consequence of his successor Hisham’s  rise to power would be something of a disaster.   During the last year of Yazid’s reign, a major  expedition into Transoxiana had been planned   by then-governor Muslim ibn Sa’id al-Kilabi. The  army raised, like most Umayyad armies, included   significant detachments from tribes loyal to both  the Qays and Yamani tribal federations of Arabia,   two rival groups that had grown in power and  spread across the domains of the Caliphate   with every conquest. In the past, the Yamani had  been the favoured faction of the Umayyad Caliphs,   with the Qays even siding with the Zubayrids  during the Second Fitna, though following the   Second Fitna’s conclusion, the Umayyads opted  to make efforts to reconcile with the Qays and   win their support rather than punishing them  for their rebellion. Yet, the Caliphate’s   efforts to remain neutral and above the feud  was felt as a betrayal by the loyal Yamani.  This would lead to serious tension when,  shortly after the campaign was launched,   the throne changed hands, and the new Caliph had  al-Kilabi replaced as governor. Though removed   from his post, al-Kilabi decided to continue with  his campaign, but this would cause the simmering   rivalries between the Qays and Yamani to spring  to life - as al-Kilabi belonged to the Qaysi,   the Yamani contingent under Amr ibn Muslim refused  to follow him across the Oxus after his demotion,   preferring to wait for him to be recalled and  follow his replacement into battle instead. The   first fighting in al-Kilabi’s grand campaign would  occur outside Balkh and be Arab against Arab,   with al-Kilabi and his loyal followers  bringing the Yamani to heel by force,   a poor start to a doomed campaign. Weakened by internal conflict,   and with many of the defeated Yamani deserting,  al-Kilabi’s diminished army joined with   Sogdian and Hephthalite allies from still-loyal  principalities such as Samarkand and Saghaniyan   to march against Turgesh-aligned Ferghana. No  sooner would they arrive than their hopes were   dashed by the news that Khan Suluk, Khan of  the Turgesh and their turncoat former ally,   was prepared for them and already en route with  a large army. Tasking his Persian quartermaster   Abdallah to organize a retreat, al-Kilabi  attempted to withdraw his forces in good order   but was harried for nine days by Turgesh horsemen  during his retreat, with parts of his army being   attacked piecemeal as some of the lesser tribes  and local allies were split from the main force.  Crossing the Jaxartes would mean relative safety  for the retreating army, and they ended the ninth   day close by, though al-Kilabi opted to make camp  rather than travel by darkness and risk nighttime   raids. This would prove a mistake, though,  as the Turgesh-aligned forces of Ferghana   and Tashkent used this opportunity to maneuver  themselves between the river and the retreating   Arabs. Al-Kilabi’s army, already exhausted  from more than a week of forced marching,   awoke to find enemies both before and behind them,  their path of retreat and access to water cut off.   With no other options, al-Kilabi ordered his  exhausted army forward, beginning a battle that   would be remembered as the Day of Thirst. The day  was won by the Muslims, but the cost was heavy.   The rear guard’s commander, Humayd ibn Abdallah,  died in battle to hold off the Turgesh pursuers,   but the bulk of the army eventually succeeded  in breaking through the enemy lines to cross   the river. Ultimately, the heavy casualties and  abandonment by local allies meant this pyrrhic   victory on the Jaxartes massively weakened  Caliphal power in Transoxiana, with the   Arabs withdrawing to more secure frontiers around  Balkh as former vassals abandoned the Caliphate in   favour of the Turgesh, and by extension the  Tang Empire of China’s sphere of influence,   despite the new governor Asad ibn Abdallah’s best  efforts to rebuild trust and good relations with   the Caliphate’s local Sogdian allies over the  next three years. The worsening rivalry between   the Qaysi and Yamani federations would be of  further concern as well, with some tribal leaders   among the spurned Yaman federation joining the  Muhallabids in clandestine support for the Abbasid   clan’s whispers of revolution and one even turning  to the Kharijite heresy and embarking on a short,   doomed rebellion in Yemen the following year. The years 724 to approximately 727 saw the   Caliphate remain fairly stable and secure, if  not entirely at peace. Cyprus was raided by sea,   and attacks on the Byzantines by the long-serving  general Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik continued in   Anatolia, with Caeseria being conquered  in mid-726. The Eastern Roman Empire was   far from toothless, however. Emperor Leo the  Isaurian, who had beaten back the massive siege   of Constantinople some years prior, had ended  the years of anarchy that saw so many Emperors   raised and deposed and brought a measure  of stability back to the Caliphate’s oldest   rival. Under pressure and unable to compete  with the Caliphate in direct military might,   Leo's hopes lay with his ally on the Caliphate’s  northern frontier - the Khazar Khaganate. 727   would see the Caucasus mountains become a major  battleground for the still recently-enthroned   Hisham, part of the ongoing Arab-Khazar wars  that will be the focus of an upcoming series.  The Khazars would not be the only threat to face  the Caliphate in this period, and the following   year of 728 only spelled further trouble both  in the North and East, with even Samarkand,   which had long served as the stronghold and  regional capital for the Caliphate in Transoxiana,   erupting in unrest. Following the Day of Thirst,  Governor Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri had initially   succeeded in stabilizing the Umayyad hold, but  with the tribal feud within his ranks worsening   and Abbasid-backed missionaries and seditionists  beginning to make their presence felt in the   Caliphate’s far east, al-Qasri seems to have  been overtaken by paranoia by 726, dealing out   punishments to many perceived enemies, some severe  and some humiliating - flogging his predecessor’s   right-hand man Nasr ibn Sayyar, having a  collection of tribal leaders imprisoned and   shaved bald repeatedly in mockery, and chopping  off the legs and hands of a suspected seditionist.  These and other actions began to alienate both his  forces and the locals and led to his replacement   in 728 by Ashras ibn Abdallah al-Sulami. Hoping  to inspire greater support and loyalty from the   locals, Ashras sent the missionary Abu al-Sayda to  Samarkand and the surrounding regions to call for   conversion to Islam, with al-Sayda promising the  lifting of the Jizya tax from all converts. His   efforts were remarkably successful, bringing  in numerous converts and building mosques in   the city - but after Samarkand’s ruler Ghurak  complained to Ashras of falling revenues and   suggested some had simply feigned conversion to  escape taxation, the governor eventually ordered   the recent conversions to be ignored and the tax  collection to continue as before[1] . Outraged,   more than seven thousand locals refused to  pay their taxes, supported by Abu al-Sayda   in opposition to Ashras and the Caliphate.  The imprisonment of the missionary and other   leaders among the would-be rebels defused the  situation before it could devolve into bloodshed,   but the disillusioned former followers of  al-Sayda sent offers of alliance to the   Turgesh Khan Suluk to drive out the Caliphate  from Samarkand, further undermining their hold.  Things would only get worse in 729. Resolving to  take the fight to Suluk with another offensive   campaign, Ashras sent his vanguard commander  Qatan ibn Qutaybah, son of the great conqueror   Qutaybah ibn Muslim, ahead of him across the Oxus  as he camped in Amul with the bulk of his army.   Despite initial setbacks and raids on Qatan’s  camp, Ashras would score an initial victory in   driving back the raiders and recovering their  plunder as he advanced to join the vanguard,   camping in the trading town of Baykand near  Turgesh-aligned Bukhara. But in a near-repeat   of the Day of Thirst, the Arab army was encircled  by night, awakening to find themselves again cut   off from water. In the following Battle of  Baykand, despite thirst sapping the army’s   strength and the Turgesh killing more than 700 in  the initial bloody engagements, Qatan and Ashras   separately managed to break through enemy lines  and escape with their forces, each thinking the   other had perished for two days before rejoining  each other among the still Arab-held forts near   Bukhara. Ashras did seize victory of a sort from  this setback - Suluk’s pursuit was turned back   after a bloody two-month siege at the fort of  Kamarjah, initially driving its Arab garrison   from their trenches outside the fort and storming  the gates, only for the defenders to light blazing   fires in the midst of the fighting and force  the Turks back. After several failed attempts   to break the defenders' resolve through  assaults on the walls, attempts at bribery,   and a mass execution of prisoners that was copied  in equally grisly fashion by the defiant garrison,   Suluk was forced to withdraw, allowing Ashras to  lay siege to Bukhara and even capture it in 730   after wintering at a nearby oasis. [2] [GI3] But even this short victory would soon be   for naught. In the aftermath of Baykand, Ghurak  defected to become another ally to the Turgesh,   and though the sizable Arab garrison in Samarkand  under Sawrah ibn al-Hurr still held the city   itself, it was now surrounded by hostile territory  and ruling over a hostile population. When Suluk   marched on Samarkand in 731 to restore Ghurak  to the lordship of his city, the new governor,   al-Junayd ibn abd al-Rahman, sent a large army  recorded as 28,000 strong to relieve them. But the   relief force would find itself besieged in turn  after Suluk lifted the siege to intercept it in   the steep, dry Takhtakaracha Pass between Kish and  Samarkand. A battle broke out in the narrow pass,   cavalry clashing on the more open Muslim right  flank while fierce fighting took place on foot   against the cliffs on the Muslim left. Though  the fighting was close, with slaves in the Arab   baggage train even being offered their freedom  to join the fighting, the Muslim right was soon   broken and driven back, leaving al-Junayd under  pressure in the center. With the battered two   armies separating at dusk, al-Junayd - tasting  likely defeat in any further open battle - made   the decision to dig trenches and fortify  their camp despite the lack of a water source,   sending orders to Samarkand’s garrison of 12,000  to depart the city and relieve their relief force.  As the garrison sallied forth on their mission  despite Sawrah’s misgivings and attempted refusal,   spies sent word of their coming ahead to Suluk  and Ghurak, who departed from the pass to seize   their true prize, meeting them in battle atop a  hill not far from the camp of al-Junayd. Here,   without cliffs to protect their flanks or  the numbers to match the Turgesh-allied army,   the garrison found themselves marching into  grass fires set by their foes and harried by   cavalry on all sides. The outnumbered force was  soon shattered, run down and slaughtered by enemy   horsemen as their confused formations broke up in  the thick dust and smoke. Sawrah died in battle,   and though al-Junayd would survive and  escape thanks to this diversion, this   decisive defeat - coupled with a religious revolt  led by Al-Harith ibn Surayj in 734 that united a   portion of the Arab settlers with overtaxed local  converts against the weakened Umayyads - would   cause the almost total collapse of Arab power  in Transoxiana for nearly a decade to follow.  The most storied battle of Caliph Hisham’s reign  did not take place in Transoxiana, however,   but in France. The Caliphate’s previous defeat  to Duke Odo at Toulouse, though a major setback,   had not spelled the end of their ambitions in the  region, and numerous raids were launched from the   forward base of Narbonne during the 720’s. 730  saw Duke Odo take advantage of the infighting in   al-Anadalus to form an unusual alliance by giving  his daughter Lampagie in marriage to Uthman ibn   Naissa, often called Munuza in Frankish texts, a  Berber leader in command of modern-day Catalonia.   Though this deal would briefly stop the raids  and bring a measure of security to Aquitaine,   it would very quickly backfire when Uthman rose  in rebellion against the recently-appointed Arab   governor Abdur-Rahman al-Ghafiqi. With his ally’s  ill-advised rebellion swiftly crushed, Odo found   himself facing not simple Berber raids but the  incensed and vengeful governor’s army, which   in early 732 launched a lightning attack into  Navarre, seizing Bordeaux by storm and inflicting   a heavy defeat on Odo at the river Garonne. With the hero of Toulouse bloodied and,   on the retreat, the path seemed open for a  far greater offensive than Al-Sahm’s. But in   an act of desperation, Odo swore fealty to his  one-time rival Charles, steward to the puppet   king Theuderic IV and the effective ruler of the  Franks. While Charles had been absent at Toulouse,   he had not spent the intervening 11 years idly  - knowing a confrontation with Al-Andalus was   inevitable, he had taken out a large loan  from the Pope, equipping and training one   of the only professional standing armies  in Western Europe since the collapse of   the Roman Empire. In comparison, Abdul-Rahman -  though remembered as a just and generous leader   in Arab texts - seemed quite unprepared for  confrontation with a rival such as Charles,   unsurprising considering the rapid turnover of  Umayyad governors and the preoccupation with   Arab-Berber rivalries closer to home that the  governor had worked so hard to calm. With his   foes on the move and Odo’s independence broken,  the Mayor of all the Franks gathered up a powerful   army to halt the Umayyad incursion, joining the  remnants of Odo’s forces in October at the city   of Tours in the path of the Umayyad advance. Reaching Tours on October 4th, Abdul-Rahman   and his army - heavily laden with plunder already  - were surprised to find an army in an organized,   phalanx-like formation atop a hill just South  of the city and the Loire River and were left   with the decision to fight or to abandon the loot  they had taken at Bordeaux and withdraw. Tours was   a rich prize, and Charles seems to have relied on  its attractiveness as a target and Abdul-Rahman’s   confidence after his decisive victory at Garonne  to compel the Arab leader to attack. If the   Umayyad army chose to withdraw, Charles’ army  of heavy infantry would be ill-suited to pursue,   and would risk annihilation if they broke  formation to do so, leaving the decision to do   battle in the hands of the Muslims. With more than  25,000 soldiers and high-quality heavy cavalry   unmatched by the Christian kingdoms of Europe,  bolstered by fresh Berber horsemen from Ifriqiyah,   Abdul-Rahman held some major advantages  over his outnumbered foes of some 17,000   to 20,000. Yet a cavalry charge, devastating  though it could be in the right circumstances,   relied heavily on the terror it could inspire  - if the Franks held their ground in the face   of a charge rather than breaking, their tight  formation and the uphill fighting would render the   governor’s strongest weapon relatively impotent. Rather than rush to a decision, the Umayyad army   made camp, waiting in standoff for six days  - though despite the approaching winter and   the bitter cold setting in, the Franks did not  abandon their defensive readiness atop the hill,   the warmer clothing they had brought South  with them from Austrasia serving them well   as the invaders shivered in their camp. Finally,  on October 10th, Abdul-Rahman made the decision to   attack, worrying an order to abandon the treasure  might lead to dissent in the ranks and trusting   his experienced soldiers to win him another  victory. The main body of the Frankish army,   Charles’ professional heavy infantry, held firm  on the hilltop while raiders from among levied and   local troops were dispatched to harry the Umayyad  rear, taking advantage of paths through the nearby   forests to maneuver past the enemy army despite  its greater numbers and mobility. Abdul-Rahman,   for his part, is remembered as a capable general.  But whether out of overconfidence or a desire to   finish the battle swiftly before his army  suffered another freezing October night,   he played his hand early in the battle, riding  with his best heavy cavalry in a series of charges   at the battle’s start that failed to dislodge  the still fresh and eager Franks. Were he facing   an army of levies and conscripts as most of  Western Europe would have sent against him,   these heavy cavalry charges might have produced  the panic and rout Abdul-Rahman hoped for,   but instead casualties began to mount among the  Umayyad army’s finest, while the forests and   nearby river prevented him encircling the mostly  stationary Frankish army with his greater numbers.   Despite the initial setbacks for the Umayyads, the  battle was certainly not a one-sided one, and as   the day of October 10th progressed, the outcome  hung in the balance, with casualties on both   sides rising until the armies parted at nightfall. The battle’s end varies slightly between tellings,   although most of the basic facts remain  consistent. The official Frankish account   sponsored by the Carolingian dynasty simply  describes the Franks slaughtering their foes and   driving them from the field with little further  detail - the Mozarabic Chronicle, contrarily,   claims the Umayyads simply left during the  night, with the Franks tensely awaiting another   attack in the morning before discovering their  foes’ tents empty. The most complete account,   and one that has worked its way into most  telling since is an anonymous Arab chronicle   that tells a somewhat different story than either. In the morning of the 11th, the Arabs returned to   their attack on the Frankish formation, holding  their own and - if the slightly dramatic telling   is to be believed - breaking through the center  of the formation to push towards Charles, coming   close to breaking the Franks completely. But a  small force of Franks - likely levies or survivors   from Odo's army not trained to hold formation with  Charles' professional soldiers - took advantage of   paths through the forest to raid the Arab camp.  Small though the force might have been, confusion   and fog of war magnified its impact on the battle,  with the attacking cavalry breaking off the attack   to rush back to camp - worried their treasure  might be stolen, or that a larger force could   still be hidden among the forest to encircle them.  Abdul-Rahman remained at the front and tried to   stem the retreat, but the Franks were quicker  to take advantage of the momentary confusion,   surging forward and killing the governor and those  around him with a hail of spears. If hope still   remained to restore order to the disoriented army,  Abdul-Rahman's death put an end to it, and the   Franks soon turned the confusion into total rout. The Battle of Tours is today one of the   most-discussed and best-remembered battles of the  Early Middle Ages, credited by some with ending   the threat of the Caliphate to Western Europe.  Its impact on history is a matter of some debate,   particularly compared to the earlier battle  at Toulouse. It is true that Tours looms much   larger in Christian than Arab accounts - while  the devastating defeat and Charles' prowess   were certainly noted by Arab historians,  it gets no more attention than Toulouse,   even being absent from the quite thorough history  of Al-Tabari. It has been suggested by some that   Charles and his Carolingian descendents’ prominent  place in European history caused their triumph at   Tours to take exaggerated importance compared  to the victory of the more obscure Duke Odo,   and while it is true no further invasions of such  a scale ever occurred, the Arabs did continue   their raiding over the following years, and  Berber revolts and the imminent splintering of the   Caliphate likely had as much or more to do with  the end of expansion than the defeat at Tours.  Yet whether or not the battle of Tours can  be fully credited with ending the threat of   the Caliphate in the West, the prestige it won  Charles in the eyes of the Pope and the Franks,   and more pragmatically the forced subjugation of  his last Frankish rival Odo, made it an important   moment in the unification of the Frankish realm,  paving the way for the Frankish Empire of his   grandson Charlemagne to resurrect the spirit  of Rome in the West and serving as a founding   moment of glory for the Carolingian dynasty.  It was through this victory Charles would   become known to his countrymen and to history  as Charles Martel or Martellus - "the Hammer."  The victory at Tours would not mark the end  of conflict Charles Martel and his Carolingian   dynasty would wage against al-Andalus, though. The  earlier victories over Odo and the Visigoths of   Septimania meant portions of today’s Southern  France remained in Muslim hands. And to some   independence-minded Gallo-Roman nobility,  particularly Duke Maurontus of Provence,   Charles Martel’s powerful and expansionist  Frankish realm now seemed more of a threat   than the Muslims. Though formally subject  to the Frankish crown for nearly a century,   Gallo-Roman nobles with very old roots still  ruled Provence more or less autonomously,   and wished to maintain that independence in  the face of the empire-builder Charles. Thus,   in 734, two years after their defeat at Tours, the  Umayyads added Avignon to their realm apparently   not through conquest but through diplomacy,  with Maurontus willing to forge alliances   with non-Christians to avoid subjugation. Other  accounts suggest that it was in fact conquered,   along with Arles in 735, by Narbonne’s Umayyad  governor Yusuf ibn Adb al-Rahman al-Fihri - and   while the stronger evidence points to an  alliance, it is certain Maurontus was under   great pressure from both sides, and his alliance  with Yusuf would have been an uneasy one at best.  Whatever the case, with 735 also seeing Duke Odo’s  death and Charles receiving the formal pledge of   fealty from his successor, Hunald of Bordeaux,  the stage was set for a new set of confrontations   between the Hammer and the Caliphate. The  Franks were this time on the offensive,   with Charles deploying his brother Childebrand  in 736 with an army to bring Provence to heel   and drive out the Umayyads. As 736 ended,  Avignon lay besieged, and both Umayyad relief   armies and a larger Frankish force under Charles’  command were being mobilized to take the field.  The first fighting would occur at Avignon. Charles  arrived in 737, before the expected relief army,   and opted not to wait out a long siege,  launching a frontal assault against the   walls of Avignon with rams and catapults  and battering down the gates despite   the best efforts of its Umayyad garrison.  Though no numbers exist for the defenders,   the characterization of the defense as a  mostly Umayyad effort and Charles’ confidence   in his direct assault and its rapid success  together suggest a small defending force,   and further suggests the inhabitants of Avignon  were not inclined to support their occupiers   against the besiegers, the pragmatic alliances  of their rulers not outweighing the religious   divide for most. Following this, Charles  marched for Narbonne in Septimania. Here,   victory would not be so easy - the Umayyad relief  army had by this point mobilized and crossed the   Pyrenees under command of governor Uqba ibn  al-Hajjaj, and the Septimanian provinces had   been Umayyad for years now, with Narbonne much  more firmly held and garrisoned than Avignon. To   avoid being trapped between the relief army and a  sortie from Narbonne’s defenders, Charles left a   token besieging force behind and continued past  the city to meet the Umayyad army in the field,   blocking their path at the River Berre. Here was  fought a battle not so well remembered or recorded   as Tours, but perhaps of similar importance.  In the five years since his previous triumph,   Charles’ army had evolved and even adopted  some of the techniques of its foes,   with the Franks this time bringing heavy cavalry  of their own to battle to match those of the   Arabs. This addition to his ranks, along with the  Umayyads being forced to cross the river and give   the Franks the advantage of a defensive position  despite being the invaders, likely contributed to   what quickly became Charles’ second decisive  victory over the Caliphate, with the Umayyad   army’s attempts to retreat being broken up by the  rivers and rough terrain of the region, leaving   numerous disorganized pockets of fleeing soldiers  to be run down and captured by the Franks. This   victory would not spell the end of the Umayyad  presence in France entirely - the rebellions of   Maurontus and Hunald proved more pressing, causing  Charles to abandon what would have been a length   and difficult siege of Narbonne to quash them,  though not before sacking the smaller city of   Nimes and leaving much of Septimania and Provence  devastated. The death of the Merovingian King   Theoderic in the same year left Charles a steward  without a king to represent, possibly undermining   the legal charade holding up his rule, though the  forging of an alliance with the Lombards of Italy   during this time demonstrates Charles was powerful  enough, and secure enough in the throne that was   his in all but name, to ignore such questions of  legitimacy for the time being. Septimania would   remain Umayyad for over a decade more, and Hunald  would prove a persistent nemesis for both Charles   and his son Pepin after the Hammer’s death in  741, but the proven military might of the Franks,   the added weight of the Lombard alliance,  and the Arab-Berber hostilities now brought   to a boiling point by Kharijite preachers  across Iberia and North Africa meant the   once-threatening Caliphate could do little to aid  its northern allies or protect its Septimanian   holdings. The growing Carolingian empire,  so recently imperiled by Umayyad invasions,   would be able to take the offensive at  its own leisure in the years to follow.  Next 2 subseries of our series on the Early  Muslim Expansion will continue this story and   will talk about the Arab-Khazar Wars and the rise  and fall of the Abbasid Caliphate. To ensure you   don’t miss them, make sure you are subscribed and  have pressed the bell button to see them. Please   consider liking, subscribing, commenting, and  sharing - it helps immensely. Recently, we   have started releasing weekly patron and YouTube  member exclusive content, consider joining their   ranks via the link in the description or button  under the video to watch these weekly videos,   learn about our schedule, get early access  to our videos, access our private discord,   and much more. This is the Kings and Generals  channel, and we will catch you on the next one.