Marwan I

Marwan ibn al-Hakam served as secretary to his cousin, the caliph Uthman, and was wounded defending Uthman's house when rebels stormed it in 656. He survived the assassination and the civil war that followed, eventually becoming governor of Medina under Mu'awiya I, founder of the Umayyad Caliphate. When Mu'awiya's son Yazid died in 683 and the Sufyanid line collapsed, Marwan took refuge in Syria as rivals declared themselves caliph. At a tribal summit in Jabiya in 684, he put himself forward; the Kalb nobility elected him, and together they defeated the opposing Qays tribes at Marj Rahit that August. In the months before his death in spring 685, Marwan retook Egypt, Palestine, and northern Syria, dispatched an army toward Iraq, and placed his three sons in command - Abd al-Malik as heir, Abd al-Aziz as governor of Egypt, Muhammad in Upper Mesopotamia. The Marwanid house he founded would rule until 750.