 Many Syrian nobles held reservations about the campaign and counseled Abd al-Malik not to participate in person.Nonetheless, the caliph was at the head of the army when it camped opposite Mus'ab's forces at Maskin, along the Dujayl Canal.In the ensuing Battle of Maskin, most of Mus'ab's forces, many of whom were resentful at the heavy toll he had exacted on al-Mukhtar's Kufan partisans, refused to fight and his leading commander, Ibn al-Ashtar, fell at the beginning of hostilities.