In 689, Caliph Abd al-Malik was ready to take on the Meccan Caliph Abdallah ibn Zubayr. He started with Iraq, which was shaky but technically loyal to Mecca, through Abdallah’s brother Musab. As you know, everything happened slowly then; it took months to mobilize an army on the frontier of Syria and Iraq. During these months, Abd al-Malik sent messengers to cities in Iraq, especially the garrison city, Basra. He promised rewards to anyone who came over to the Umayyad side. There were enough favorable replies that one of his Umayyad cousins went to Basra to take up governing in his name.
By 691, after many smaller battles between tribes of different loyalties, Abd al-Malik was camped right in the Jazira, the “island” between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Musab’s army was weakened daily by more and more tribes and individuals who realized that they were on the losing side. Their loyalty to Ibn Zubayr was not very strong; they wanted amnesty and rewards. When the Battle of Maskin began, most of Musab’s army would not fight. One general who stayed loyal to his death was the son of Ali’s cousin who had also been loyal to the death (the guy who was poisoned on the Red Sea coast). Musab was left nearly alone, in the end, though his son chose to die with him.
There’s a somewhat funny though grim story about the central hall in Kufa. When Musab’s head was presented to the Caliph, another man said, “I was here when Husayn’s head was presented to Ibn Ziyad, then Ibn Ziyad’s head to al-Mukhtar, then al-Mukhtar’s head to Musab, and now Musab’s head to you.” Abd al-Malik saw the pattern, so to prevent another iteration, he had the roof torn down from the hall.
With Kufa secure, the Caliph sent Hajjaj ibn Yusuf to put down the rival Caliph in Mecca. Hajjaj ibn Yusuf had been the chief of the Caliph’s shurta, his personal security force in Damascus, but he had lived his early life in Ta’if, the town nearest to Mecca. With his army of 2000, he quickly secured his hometown Ta’if, which controlled the pass through the dry hills to the coastal plain of Mecca. From there he demanded surrender, but Ibn Zubayr refused.
Hajjaj moved to besiege Mecca in 692, after gaining Abd al-Malik’s permission. He and everyone in his army had to realize the bitter irony of what they were doing, assaulting the holy city. On the other hand, it was not their first assault on Mecca. After sacking Medina in 683, Umayyad forces had besieged Mecca. Although ultimately they went away after hearing of Yazid’s death, they too had bombarded the Ka’aba, and for some reason it had gone up in flames. This is when the Black Stone broke in pieces from the heat of the fire. Ibn Zubayr had renovated the Ka’aba, changing its shape to include a round courtyard.
We should remember, too, that the Umayyads had probably been downplaying the importance of Mecca during the rival Caliphate. The Dome was newly built in Jerusalem. Abd al-Malik may have calculated that he could always fix the Ka’aba and life would go on.
Hajjaj in Ta’if was at a higher altitude, looking down on Mecca from the hills, so he was in a good position to enforce a siege and then, after a few months, to bombard the city with catapults. The month for the Hajj, the great pilgrimage, came around. Abdallah ibn Umar, in Mecca, persuaded Hajjaj to stop bombardment for the Hajj (ironies piled on thick here). But Hajjaj had a bright idea: as long as he had stopped bombardment, he could enter Mecca as a pilgrim and circle the Ka’aba. Abdallah ibn Zubayr knew that it was Meccan tradition that any and all pilgrims could freely enter during the Hajj, but he refused.
Hajjah was furious. He ordered the catapults to aim right at the Ka’aba, terrorizing pilgrims. He may have specially targeted Ibn Zubayr’s renovations. At one point, a thunderstorm suddenly blew up, and the men were afraid that it was Allah’s wrath against what they were doing. Hajjaj convinced them that it wasn’t, the storm ended, and the bombardment continued.
The siege did what a siege is supposed to do: thousands of Meccans, including two of Ibn Zubayr’s sons, personally surrendered. Ibn Zubayr agonized over surrendering, himself. His mother was still alive; she told him to honor those who had died in his cause by dying in battle. He and a small band of supporters came out of Mecca to attack Hajjaj, and of course they were quickly defeated. Ibn Zubayr’s body was hung on a gibbet for public show.
Caliph Abd al-Malik ordered Hajjaj to rebuild the Ka’aba. Hajjaj chose to rebuild it exactly as it had been in Muhammad’s day, so that the round courtyard is now outside the cube. Umayyad supporters could comfort themselves by saying that the wicked innovations of the false Caliph had been purged from the holy building, but many Muslims around the empire held it against Abd al-Malik that he had ever authorized an assault on the holy city.
A Historical Research on the Lives of the Twelve Shi’a Imams. Mahdi Mahgrebi