After the deaths of Yazid and his eldest son and successor, Mu'awiya II, in 683 and 684, Umayyad rule collapsed across the Caliphate. Most of the provinces and the military districts of Syria, the metropolitan province of the Umayyads, recognized the anti-Umayyad Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr of Mecca as caliph. The Banu Kalb, old tribal allies of the Sufyanids (the line of Umayyads descended from Yazid's father, founder of the Umayyad Caliphate Mu'awiya I) under whom they held privileged positions in the caliphal court, rallied the Umayyad loyalist tribes in Syria to appoint Mu'awiya II's replacement. In the recriminations in Damascus between supporters and opponents of the Umayyads, the governor Dahhak ibn Qays al-Fihri, who backed Ibn al-Zubayr, arrested Yazid's cousin Walid ibn Utba ibn Abi Sufyan, but he was freed by Abd Allah, his brother Khalid and their Kalbite backers. The chief of the Kalb, Ibn Bahdal, was a cousin of Yazid, and nominated Khalid and Abd Allah as his candidates for caliphal office. He was opposed by the other loyalist tribesmen due to Khalid and Abd Allah's young ages. Instead, a distant Umayyad relative, Marwan ibn al-Hakam, was appointed and led the Umayyad war efforts against the pro-Zubayrid tribes in Syria, defeating their leader Dahhak at the Battle of Marj Rahit in 684.