[2] This refers to ‘Abd al-Mālik ibn Marwān who carne to power in Syria (ash-Shām) after his father Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam and then after the killing of al-Mukhtār ibn Abī ‘Ubayd ath-Thaqafī in his encounter with Mus‘ab ibn az-Zubayr he proceeded towards Iraq. He clashed with Mus‘ab’s force at Maskin near Uayru’l-jāthalīq in the outskirts of Kūfah. After defeating him he made a victorious entry into Kūfah and took allegiance from its inhabitants. Then he sent al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yusuf ath-Thaqafī to Mecca to fight with ‘Abdullāh ibn az-Zubayr. Consequently this man beseiged Mecca and stoned it, and shed the blood of thousands of innocent persons like water. He killed Ibn az-Zubayr and hung his body on the gallows. He perpetrated such atrocities on the people that one shudders at the thought of them.