Abd Allah ibn Ibad al-Tamimi (Arabic:عبدالله بن إباض التميمي,romanized: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ibāḍ al-Tamīmī; diedc. 700) was an Arab Islamic scholar and a leader of theKharijites fromBasra, of the tribe of Banū Saʿd ofTamīm. In traditionalIslamic historiography, he is the founder and eponym ofIbāḍīsm.[1]
Ibn Ibāḍ was one of the group of Basran Kharijites who,led by Nāfīʿ ibn al-Azraq, joined the defenders underʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr at thesiege of the Kaʿba by theUmayyads in 683. After the siege was lifted, the Kharijites were disappointed by Ibn al-Zubayr's refusal to denounce the late CaliphʿUthmān and returned to Basra. There they were imprisoned by the Umayyad governorʿUbayd Allāh ibn Ziyād. When the Basrans rose up and overthrew Umayyad rule, the prisoners were freed. Ibn al-Azraq led many of them toAhvaz, denouncing the townsmen as"polytheists".[1] Ibn Ibāḍ remained in Basra.[1] His father, Ibāḍ ibn ʿAmr al-Tamīmī, seems to have been the first leader of the moderates who refused to secede with Ibn al-Azraq.[2]
Ibn Ibāḍ succeeded his father[2] and wrote a defence of those Kharijites who stayed behind.[1] By defending the Basrans against the charge of polytheism and accusing them of no more than "ingratitude", he justified the decision of true Muslims to live among them. According toAbū Mikhnaf, who died in 774 and is the earliest source on Ibn Ibāḍ's life, Ibn Ibāḍ also wrote against the intermediate position of ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ṣaffār, founder of theSufri sect. According toal-Madāʾinī, Ibn Ibāḍ also received opposition fromAbū Bayhas, founder of the Bayhasiyya sect, who took a position closer to Ibn al-Azraq's.[1]
The dispute over Ibn al-Azraq'shijra to Ahvaz is the last known event in Ibn Ibāḍ's life. Ibāḍī tradition itself contains no further biographical details. It does ascribe to Ibn Ibāḍ two surviving letters addressed to the Umayyad caliphʿAbd al-Malik. Recent scholarship has questioned their authenticity. Even Ibn Ibāḍ's position as the leader of the first Ibāḍīs has come into question. His contemporary,Jābir ibn Zayd (died 712), is given even greater prominence in later tradition. One of the letters ascribed to Ibn Ibāḍ has been reassigned to Jābir ibn Zayd and its recipient identified as ʿAbd al-Malik ibn al-Muhallab, head of theAzd tribe to which Jābir belonged.[1]
