Abd al-Malikʿ

▪ Umayyad caliph

Introduction

in full  ʿabd Al-malik Ibn Marwān 

born 646/647, Medina, Arabia

died October 705, Damascus

      fifth caliph (685–705) of the Umayyad Arab dynasty centred in Damascus. He reorganized and strengthened governmental administration and, throughout the empire, adopted Arabic as the language of administration.

Life

      ʿAbd al-Malik spent the first half of his life with his father, Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam (Marwān I ibn al-Hakam), fourth Umayyad caliph, in Medina, where he received religious instruction and developed friendly relations with the pious circles of that city that were to stand him in good stead in his later life. At the age of 16, he was entrusted by his kinsman, the caliph Muʿāwiyah, with administrative responsibilities. He remained at Medina until 683, when he and his father were driven out of the city by Medinese rebels in revolt against the central government in Damascus. He then met the Syrian Umayyad army that was marching on Medina and gave its commander advice about the best means of attacking the city, advice that was followed and proved successful. When the caliph Yazīd died in November 683, Marwān was proclaimed caliph in 684 and was able to effect a partial rally of Umayyad rule but at the cost of a bitter feud that arose between northern and southern Arab tribes. When Marwān died in 685 and ʿAbd al-Malik succeeded to the caliphate, the forces opposing the Umayyads were still formidable.

      There were, first, the northern Arab tribes who, under their leader Zufar, were holding out in northern Syria and Iraq. They were finally pacified only in 691. The second focus of resistance was in Iraq, where three main groups, opposed to each other but united in their resistance to the Umayyads, held sway: the Khārijites (Khārijite), the Shīʿah, and the forces of the anticaliph Abd Allāh ibn az-Zubayrʿ, who was proclaimed caliph in Mecca in 685 and had received at least nominal allegiance from many provinces. The initial attempts by the former Umayyad governor of Iraq, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Ziyād, to regain the province failed, and he was killed by the Shīʿah in 686. For three years ʿAbd al-Malik made no further attempt to interfere in Iraq but bided his time as the various groups in Iraq exhausted themselves in internecine warfare. Muṣʿab, the brother of the anticaliph Ibn az-Zubayr, defeated the Shīʿah in 687 but then had to deal with the Khārijites, committing a large part of his forces.

      ʿAbd al-Malik first took the field against Muṣʿab in 689 but had to turn back to quell a rebellion in Damascus. In the following year, the campaign again proved fruitless. Only after the defeat of the northern Arab tribes in 691 was ʿAbd al-Malik finally able to face Muṣʿab. The decisive battle took place at Dayr al-Jā Thalīq. The forces of Muṣʿab were weakened by their wars against the Khārijites, and ʿAbd al-Malik bribed many of them to desert Muṣʿab, who was then killed in battle. The whole of Iraq now fell into his hands, and the only remaining centre of opposition was the now aging anticaliph, Ibn az-Zubayr. ʿAbd al-Malik publicly chided him for his temerity and then sent his famous governor al-Ḥajjāj to Arabia. Al-Ḥajjāj besieged Ibn az-Zubayr in Mecca and killed him in September 692. The Muslim community was finally unified.

      At first, the reestablishment of Umayyad rule was more apparent than real. The Khārijites were still either restless or in open revolt. The Khārijites in Persia were especially dangerous. It was only after ʿAbd al-Malik had appointed al-Ḥajjāj to govern Basra that campaigns against them began to prove successful (the Persian Khārijites were finally wiped out in 697). But north of Kūfah, another Khārijite trouble centre developed. In 695 these Khārijites captured Mosul and occupied large areas of central Iraq. Al-Ḥajjāj, leading his Syrian troops, defeated them too in 697. The Khārijite movement, however, remained strong, especially among the Bakr tribes between Mosul and Kūfah.

      Al-Ḥajjāj had now become governor of all the eastern provinces. He was a ruthless and efficient administrator, intent upon pacifying all the provinces entrusted to him by ʿAbd al-Malik. A great Muslim army, led by an Arab aristocrat, Ibn al-Ashʿath, and operating in the Afghanistan region, mutinied, swore allegiance to its commander, and turned back to Iraq. Al-Ḥajjāj, with the aid of Syrian reinforcements, was able to defeat the rebels, and their leader was murdered in 704 in Afghanistan. Al-Ḥajjāj, realizing that he could no longer trust the Iraqis, built a new city, Wāsiṭ, which he planned as a garrison city for Syrian troops and as his private residence. Thereafter, he ruled Iraq as enemy territory.

      Under ʿAbd al-Malik, the conquest of North Africa was resumed in 688 or 689. There, the Arabs were opposed by both the native Berbers and the Byzantines. The governor appointed by ʿAbd al-Malik succeeded in winning the Berbers over to his side and then captured Carthage, seat of the Byzantine province, in 697. Other coastal cities fell, and the work of pacification and Islāmization continued apace. ʿAbd al-Malik also resumed campaigns against the Byzantines in Anatolia in 692, but no permanent conquest ensued. These campaigns were partly designed to keep the Syrian troops fit.

Assessment

      In general, Umayyad rule was greatly strengthened by ʿAbd al-Malik, who enjoyed good relations with the Medinese religious circles, an element with considerable moral influence in the Islāmic world. ʿAbd al-Malik was more pious than any of his Umayyad predecessors. His long sojourn in Medina had enabled him to know the sentiments of Medinese religious scholars. As caliph, he treated them respectfully, and his private life was close to their ideals. As a result, many were to abandon their earlier opposition to Umayyad rule.

      ʿAbd al-Malik adopted Arabic instead of the local languages as the language of administration. Government officials had been mostly non-Muslim, but the measures of ʿAbd al-Malik enabled Arab Muslims more easily to control affairs of government. A new Muslim currency was also struck, modelled on Greek and Persian coinage, but with Muslim inscriptions. A wave of Islāmization set in, but the privileged position of the Arabs was maintained. In fact, the problem of non-Arab Muslims grew more acute and was to become one of the main threats to Umayyad rule in later years.

      The Umayyad family lived in Damascus and surrounded the Caliph. Many of them were appointed as governors, but many were also recalled for inefficiency. ʿAbd al-Malik enjoyed the support of his clan, but he was more autocratic than Muʿāwiyah, the first Umayyad caliph, with whom he is often compared. He abandoned the policy of consulting with a council of advisers and reserved all major decisions for himself. Despite his religious interests and ideals (e.g., he built the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem), he was a master politician. In Syria he succeeded in placating the northern Arab tribes, to the chagrin of the southern Arabs.

      ʿAbd al-Malik was a shrewd judge of character. His choice of al-Ḥajjāj as viceroy of the East was a wise one, and he supported his lieutenant loyally. In appearance, he was dark, thickset, and had a long beard. He was nicknamed “Dew of the Stone” for his miserliness. The sources describe him as eloquent in his speech and a lover of poetry. He maintained his calm during periods of crisis and was decisive in his opinions but was capable of great cruelty if necessary. He pursued his enemies relentlessly and closely supervised all affairs of state.

      Shortly before his death the question of succession became acute. His brother, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, governor of Egypt, had been designated by their father to succeed ʿAbd al-Malik. Against the advice of his courtiers, ʿAbd al-Malik had begun to take steps to exclude his brother from succession in favour of his own children. He had tried to pressure ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz to renounce his claims but without success. Luckily for ʿAbd al-Malik, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz died in May 705. ʿAbd al-Malik now felt free to name three of his own children to succeed him, al-Walīd, Sulaymān, and Yazīd. ʿAbd al-Malik died in Damascus shortly thereafter and was succeeded without difficulty by his eldest son, al-Walīd.

Tarif Khalidi

Additional Reading

The best account of ʿAbd al-Malik's reign is in J. Wellhausen, Das arabische Reich und sein Sturz (1902; The Arab Kingdom and Its Fall, 1927). Also useful are Sir William Muir, The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall, new ed. (1924); and P.K. Hitti, History of the Arabs, 10th ed. (1970).

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