every night in his fort, and fortify the Moslems in it, and to rise up in the morning against the enemy—he discovered that the fortification in which the people of Tripoli were was vacant. Immediately he entered it and sent the news of the conquest to Muʿâwiyah. Muʿâwiyah made it a dwelling-place for a large body of Jews. It is this fortification in which the harbor of the city is to-day. Later ʿAbd-al-Malik built it and made it stronger.
Muʿâwiyah used to send every year to Tripoli a large body of troops to guard the city and used to assign it to a different ʿâmil; but in case the sea was closed, the ʿâmil with a small band would stay and the rest would return. This state of affairs lasted until ʿAbd-al-Malik began to rule. In the days of the latter, one of the Greek patricians with a large body of men came to the city and asked for a promise of safety, agreeing to settle therein and pay kharâj. His request was granted. He had not been there two years or two years and a few months when he took advantage of the absence of the troops from the city, shut its gate and killed the ʿâmil, taking his soldiers and many Jews as captives. He then made his way together with his followers to the land of the Greeks [Asia Minor]. Later the Moslems caught him on the sea going to a Moslem coast-town with a large number of ships, and killed him. Others say they took him captive and sent him to ʿAbd-al-Malik who killed and crucified him. I heard someone say that ʿAbd-al-Malik sent someone who besieged him in Tripoli until he surrendered and was carried before ʿAbd-al-Malik who killed and crucified him. Some of his followers took to flight and got as far as the land of the Greeks.
ʿAli ibn-Muḥammad al-Madâʾini related on the authority of ʿAttâb ibn-Ibrâhîm that Tripoli was conquered by Sufyân ibn-Mujîb, that its inhabitants violated the covenant in the days of ʿAbd-al-Malik and that it was reduced by al-Walîd ibn-ʿAbd-al-Malik in his reign.
