al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik

الوليد بن عبد الملك

Umayyad caliph; he died in the middle of Jumada II, in the year 96 ¹. al-Tabari mentions in his account the building of mosques, and in his reign Musa ibn Nusayr conquered al-Andalus and Qutayba conquered Kashgar ². In al-Mas'udi, he told Rawh ibn Zinba' the story of al-Marzuban, the boon-companion of Sabur ibn Sabur, who learned the barking of dogs, the howling of wolves and the braying of donkeys until the king laughed at him and restored him to his rank, so that Rawh might by a similar ruse win back Abd al-Malik's goodwill ³. He was acclaimed at Damascus on the day Abd al-Malik died, in the middle of Jumada II of the year 86; his reign lasted nine years, eight months and two nights, and he died aged forty-three. He was called Abu al-Abbas, and his seal read: 'O Walid, you are mortal.' In the year 87 he began the Great Mosque of Damascus and the Mosque of the Messenger in Medina, with Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz in charge of the expenses. When he heard the sound of a church bell he ordered it demolished; al-Akhram, king of the Romans, wrote to him that the church had been approved by those before him: 'if they were right, you were wrong, and if you were right, they were wrong'; al-Farazdaq answered him with the verse about David and Solomon. He wrote to his brother Sulayman reproaching him for wishing for his death; Sulayman apologised and his apology was accepted ⁴. The book notes that he was so devoted to building and urban works that he was called 'the engineer of the Umayyads', and that when enlarging the Prophet ﷺ's Mosque he brought the chambers of the Mothers of the Believers into it, to which a number of Medinan jurists objected. ⁵ The book notes that he founded the first hospital for lepers in Damascus in 88 AH, ordered the roads leading to the Hijaz to be paved, and that the diwan of estate revenues (diwan al-mustaghallat) appeared in his time; that he died in Jumada II 96 AH; and that the length of his reign is disputed, the book choosing the view of al-Zuhri: ten years less a month. ⁶ The book relates that al-Walid wished to depose Sulayman and pledge allegiance to his son Abd al-Aziz; Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz advised him that allegiance is a single knot, so al-Walid grew angry and shut the door on him until Umm al-Banin intervened. The book also reports Umar's stance on the killing of a Haruri Kharijite whom al-Hajjaj had sent: Umar disapproved of killing him without proven guilt. ⁷