The Chaliphate - Muir - The Search For Mecca

A.D 683-92] SOLE RULER 331
unequal fight. The heads of Ibn az-Zubeir and two of his A.H. 64-73.
leaders were exhibited at Medma, and thence sent on to
jhn'zubeir
Damascus. Al-IJajjaj, giving thus early proof of his hard dies fighting,
and cruel nature, had the pretender's body impaled on the Oct 602^.0.
outskirts of the Holy City. 'Abd al-I\Ielik blamed him for
his inhumanity, and bade him give the body up to Asma, b)'
whose loving hands it was washed and committed to the
grave.
Thus ended the rule of Ibn az-Zubeir, a man of noble but
lim Zubeir
inactive spirit, who for nine years held the title, and much '^"oihJr
also of the real power, of Caliph. He died aged seventy-two. Asma.
His mother, Asma, is the same who, at the Hijra,
seventy- three years before, tore off her girdle to bind with
it the Prophet's wallet to his camel as he took his flight
from the cave of Mount Thaur, and thus earned the historic
name of " She of the shreds." ^ It is one of the last
links that connect the Prophet with the chequered days on
which we have now entered. What a world of events had
transpired within the lifetime of this lady !
The cnh' one of Ibn az-Zubeir's governors who remained ibn Kiazim
faithful to his memor}- was Ibn Khazim, now fighting |^'^ Ziibdr
with the rival clans of Khorasan. 'Abd al-Melik offered,
if he swore allegiance, to confirm him in Khorasan
;
but he indignantly rejected the offer. " I would have
slain the envoy," he said, "had he not been of my own
Keis blood." But he made him swallow the Caliph's
letter. Thereupon 'Abd al-Melik sent him the head of Ibn
az-Zubeir, in order to assure him of his end. Ibn Khazim
embalmed the relic, and forwarded it to the family of the
deceased. He was shortly after slain in battle by one
whose brother he had put to death in the intertribal
warfare.
'
L(/e of Mohammad, p. 140 f.