| Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr عَبْدُ اللَّهِ ٱبْن الزُّبَيْرِ | |||||
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| Caliph (disputed)[a] | |||||
| Reign | 683–692 | ||||
| Predecessor | Yazid I | ||||
| Successor | Abd al-Malik | ||||
| Born | c. May 624 CE Medina,Hejaz,Arabia | ||||
| Died | October/November 692 CE (aged 68) Mecca, Hejaz | ||||
| Burial | Jannat al-Mu'alla, Mecca | ||||
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| Issue |
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| Tribe | Quraysh (Banu Asad) | ||||
| Father | Al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam | ||||
| Mother | Asma bint Abi Bakr | ||||
| Religion | Islam | ||||
Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam (Arabic:عَبْدُ اللَّهِ ٱبْن الزُّبَيْرِ ٱبْن الْعَوَّامِ,romanized: ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām; May 624 – October/November 692) was the leader of acaliphate based inMecca that rivaled theUmayyads from 683 until his death.
The son ofal-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam andAsma bint Abi Bakr, and grandson of the first caliphAbu Bakr, Ibn al-Zubayr belonged to theQuraysh, the leading tribe of the nascent Muslim community, and was the first child born to theMuhajirun,Islam's earliest converts. As a youth, he participated in theearly Muslim conquests alongside his father inSyria andEgypt, and later played a role in the Muslim conquests ofNorth Africa and northern Iran in 647 and 650, respectively. During theFirst Fitna, he fought on the side of his auntA'isha against CaliphAli (r. 656–661). Though little is heard of Ibn al-Zubayr during the subsequent reign of the first Umayyad caliphMu'awiya I (r. 661–680), it was known that he opposed the latter's designation of his son,Yazid I, as his successor. Ibn al-Zubayr, along with many of the Quraysh and theAnsar, the leading Muslim groups of theHejaz (western Arabia), opposed the caliphate becoming an inheritable institution of theUmayyads.
Ibn al-Zubayr established himself in Mecca where he rallied opposition to Yazid (r. 680–683), before proclaiming himself caliph in the wake of Yazid's death in 683, marking the beginning of theSecond Fitna. Meanwhile, Yazid's son and successorMu'awiya II died weeks into his reign, precipitating the collapse of Umayyad authority across the Caliphate, most of whose provinces subsequently accepted the suzerainty of Ibn al-Zubayr. Though widely recognized as caliph, his authority was largely nominal outside of the Hejaz. By 685, the Umayyad Caliphate had been reconstituted underMarwan I in Syria and Egypt, while Ibn al-Zubayr's authority was being challenged in Iraq and Arabia by pro-Alid andKharijite forces. Ibn al-Zubayr's brotherMus'ab reasserted Ibn al-Zubayr's suzerainty in Iraq by 687, but was defeated and killed by Marwan's successorAbd al-Malik in 691. The Umayyad commanderal-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf proceeded tobesiege Ibn al-Zubayr in his Meccan stronghold, where he was ultimately slain in 692.
Through the prestige of his family ties and social links with the Islamic prophetMuhammad and his strong association with the holy city of Mecca, Ibn al-Zubayr was able to lead the influential, disaffected Muslim factions opposed to Umayyad rule. He sought to re-establish the Hejaz as the political center of the Caliphate. However, his refusal to leave Mecca precluded him from exercising power in the more populous provinces where he depended on his brother Mus'ab and other loyalists, who ruled with virtual independence. He thus played a minor active role in the struggle carried out in his name.
Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr was born inMedina in theHejaz (western Arabia) in May 624.[1] He was the eldest son ofal-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, acompanion of Muhammad and a leading Muslim figure.[1][2] He belonged to theBanu Asad clan of theQuraysh,[1][2] the dominant tribe ofMecca, a trade center in the Hejaz and location of theKaaba, the holiest sanctuary in Islam. Ibn al-Zubayr's paternal grandmother wasSafiyya bint Abd al-Muttalib, the paternal aunt of Muhammad,[2] and his mother wasAsma bint Abi Bakr, a daughter of the firstcaliph,Abu Bakr (r. 632–634), and sister ofA'isha, a wife of Muhammad.[1] According to the ninth-century historiansIbn Habib andIbn Qutayba, Ibn al-Zubayr was the first child born to theMuhajirun, the earliest converts to Islam who had been exiled from Mecca to Medina.[1] These early social, kinship and religious links to Muhammad, his family and the first Muslims all boosted Ibn al-Zubayr's reputation in adulthood.[1]
Ibn al-Zubayr had a number of wives and children. His first wife was Tumadir bint Manzur ibn Zabban ibn Sayyar ibn Amr of theBanu Fazara.[3][4] She gave birth to his eldest son Khubayb, hence Ibn al-Zubayr'skunya (epithet) "Abu Khubayb", and other sons Hamza,Abbad, al-Zubayr and Thabit.[3][4] She or another of Ibn al-Zubayr's wives, Umm al-Hasan Nafisa, a daughter ofHasan, son of the fourth caliphAli (r. 656–661) and grandson of Muhammad, bore his daughter Ruqayya.[3][5] Tumadir's sister Zajla was at one point married to Ibn al-Zubayr.[6] He was also married to A'isha, a daughter of the third caliphUthman (r. 644–656).[3] A'isha or Nafisa mothered Ibn al-Zubayr's son Bakr,[3] of whom little is reported in the traditional sources.[7] Ibn al-Zubayr divorced A'isha following the birth of their son.[7] From another wife, Hantama bint Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Harith ibn Hisham, Ibn al-Zubayr had his son Amir.[8]
As a child, during the reign of CaliphUmar (r. 634–644) in 636, Ibn al-Zubayr may have been present with his father at theBattle of the Yarmuk against theByzantines inSyria.[1] He was also present with his father inAmr ibn al-As'scampaign against Byzantine Egypt in 640.[1] In 647, Abd Allah Ibn al-Zubayr distinguished himself in the Muslim conquest ofIfriqiya (North Africa) under the commanderAbd Allah ibn Sa'd.[1] During that campaign, Ibn al-Zubayr discovered a vulnerable point in the battle lines of the Byzantine defenders and slew theirpatrician,Gregory.[1][9] He was lauded by Caliph Uthman and issued a victory speech, well known for its eloquence, upon his return to Medina.[10][9] Later, he joinedSa'id ibn al-As in the latter's offensive in northern Iran in 650.[10]
Uthman appointed Ibn al-Zubayr to the commission charged with the recension of theQur'an.[10] During the rebel siege of Uthman's house in June 656, the caliph put Ibn al-Zubayr in charge of his defense and he was reportedly wounded in the fighting.[11] In the aftermath ofUthman's assassination, Abd Allah fought alongside his father and his aunt A'isha against the partisans of Uthman's successor, Caliph Ali, at theBattle of the Camel inBasra in December.[10] Zubayr ibn al-Awwam was killed, while Ibn al-Zubayr was wounded sparring with one of Ali's commanders,Malik ibn al-Harith.[12] Ali was victorious and Ibn al-Zubayr returned with A'isha to Medina, later taking part in the arbitration to end theFirst Fitna (Muslim civil war) inAdhruh orDumat al-Jandal.[10] During the talks, he counseledAbd Allah ibn Umar to pay for the support of Amr ibn al-As.[10] Ibn al-Zubayr inherited a significant fortune from his father.[10]
Ibn al-Zubayr did not opposeMu'awiya I's accession to the caliphate in 661 and remained largely inactive during the course of his reign.[10] However, he refused to recognize Mu'awiya's nomination of his sonYazid I as his successor in 676.[10] When Yazid acceded following his father's death in 680, Ibn al-Zubayr again rejected his legitimacy, despite Yazid having the backing of the Arab tribesmen of Syria who formed the core of the Umayyad military.[13] In response, Yazid chargedal-Walid ibn Utba ibn Abi Sufyan, the governor of Medina, with gaining Ibn al-Zubayr's submission,[14] but he evaded the authorities and escaped to Mecca.[10] He was joined there by Ali's sonHusayn, who too had refused submission to Yazid. Husayn and his supporters made a stand against the Umayyads inKarbala in 680, but werekilled and Husayn was slain.[10]
Following Husayn's death, Ibn al-Zubayr began clandestinely recruiting supporters.[10] By September 683, he had taken control of Mecca.[15] He referred to himself asal-ʿaʾidh biʾl bayt (the fugitive at the sanctuary,viz., the Kaaba), adopted the sloganla hukma illa li-llah (judgement belongs to God alone), but made no claim to the caliphate.[16][17] Yazid ordered the governor of Medina,Amr ibn Sa'id ibn al-As, to arrest Ibn al-Zubayr.[18] The governor, in turn, instructed Ibn al-Zubaye's estranged brother, the head of Medina'sshurta (security forces), Amr, to lead the expedition.[18] However, the Umayyad force was ambushed and Amr was captured and subsequently killed while in captivity.[19] Ibn al-Zubayr declared the illegitimacy of Yazid's caliphate and allied himself with theAnsar of Medina, led byAbd Allah ibn Hanzala, who had withdrawn support for Yazid due to his supposed improprieties.[10] Ibn al-Zubayr also gained the support of theKharijite movement in Basra andBahrayn (eastern Arabia);[16] the Kharijites were early opponents of the Umayyads who had defected from Caliph Ali because of his participation in the 657 arbitration.
In response to growing opposition throughout Arabia, Yazid dispatched a Syrian Arab expeditionary force led byMuslim ibn Uqba to suppress Ibn al-Zubayr and the Ansar.[16] The Ansar were routed at theBattle of al-Harra in the summer of 683, and Ibn Hanzala was slain.[17][20] The army continued toward Mecca, but Ibn Uqba died en route and command passed to his deputyHusayn ibn Numayr al-Sakuni.[20] The latterbesieged the city on 24 September after Abd Allah Ibn al-Zubayr refused to surrender.[20][10] The Kaaba was severely damaged during al-Sakuni's bombardment.[10][20] During the siege, two potential Qurashi candidates for the caliphate, Mus'ab ibn Abd al-Rahman andal-Miswar ibn Makhrama, were killed or died of natural causes.[17] In November, news of Yazid's death prompted al-Sakuni to negotiate with Ibn al-Zubayr.[20] Al-Sakuni proposed to recognize him as caliph on the condition that he would rule from Syria, the center of the Umayyad military and administration.[10][20] Ibn al-Zubayr rejected this and the army withdrew to Syria, leaving him in control of Mecca.[10]
Yazid's death and the subsequent withdrawal of the Umayyad army from the Hejaz afforded Ibn al-Zubayr the opportunity to realize his aspirations for the caliphate.[10][16] He immediately declared himselfamir al-mu'minin (commander of the faithful), a title traditionally reserved for the caliph, and called for all Muslims to give him their oaths of allegiance.[10][17] With the other potential Hejazi candidates dead, Ibn al-Zubayr remained the last contender for the caliphate among the anti-Umayyad factions in Mecca and Medina and most of these groups recognized him as their leader.[17] An exception were theBanu Hashim clan to which Muhammad and theAlids belonged and whose support Ibn al-Zubayr deemed important for his own legitimacy as caliph.[21] The leading representatives of the clan in the Hejaz,Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya, the half-brother of Husayn ibn Ali, and their cousinAbd Allah ibn Abbas, withheld their oaths citing the need for a stronger consensus in the wider Muslim community.[21] Irritated, Ibn al-Zubayr besieged the clan's neighborhood in Mecca and imprisoned Ibn al-Hanafiyya to pressure the Banu Hashim.[21] Meanwhile, the Kharijites underNajda ibn Amir al-Hanafi in theYamama (central Arabia) abandoned Ibn al-Zubayr once he forwarded his claim to the caliphate, an institution they rejected, and Ibn al-Zubayr refused to embrace their doctrine.[10][17][22]
In the Umayyad capitalDamascus, Yazid was succeeded by his young sonMu'awiya II, but Mu'awiya II wielded virtually no authority and died from illness only months after his accession.[16] This left a leadership void in Syria as there were no suitable successors among Mu'awiya I's Sufyanid house.[16] In the ensuing chaos, Umayyad authority collapsed across the caliphate and Ibn al-Zubayr gained wide recognition.[20] Most of the Islamic provinces offered their allegiance, includingEgypt,Kufa,Yemen and theQaysi tribes ofnorthern Syria.[10][20] Likewise, inKhurasan, thede facto governorAbd Allah ibn Khazim al-Sulami offered his recognition.[23] Ibn al-Zubayr appointed his brotherMus'ab as governor of Basra and its dependencies.[20] In a testament to the extent of Ibn al-Zubayr's sovereignty, coins were minted in his name as far as the districts ofKerman andFars in modern-day Iran; both were dependencies of Basra at that time.[20] Nonetheless, his authority outside of the Hejaz was largely nominal.[10]
Most of the Arab tribes incentral andsouthern Syria remained loyal to the Umayyads and selected the non-Sufyanid Marwan ibn al-Hakam from Medina to succeed Mu'awiya II.[20] The proclamation of Marwan as caliph in Damascus marked a turning point for Ibn al-Zubayr.[20] Marwan's partisans, led byUbayd Allah ibn Ziyad, decisively defeated the pro-Zubayrid Qaysi tribes, led byal-Dahhak ibn Qays al-Fihri, at theBattle of Marj Rahit in July 684.[10] The surviving Qaysi tribesmen fled to theJazira (Upper Mesopotamia) under the leadership ofZufar ibn al-Harith al-Kilabi, who maintained his recognition of Ibn al-Zubayr's suzerainty.[24] However, in March 685, Ibn al-Zubayr lost the economically important province of Egypt to Marwan.[25]
Meanwhile, negotiations collapsed between Ibn al-Zubayr and the Kufan strongmanal-Mukhtar al-Thaqafi, who afterward took up the cause of theAlid family.[26] He declared Ibn al-Hanafiyya caliph and, unprecedented in Islamic history, theMahdi.[26] Al-Mukhtar's partisans drove out the Zubayrid authorities from Kufa in October 685.[10][21][26] Al-Mukhtar later dispatched a Kufan force to the Hejaz and freed Ibn al-Hanafiyya.[21] Mus'ab's authority in Basra and Khurasan was also beginning to waver, but was ultimately secured after he gained the backing of the powerfulAzdi chieftain and military leader of Khurasan,al-Muhallab ibn Abi Sufra.[10] Mus'ab also gained the defections of thousands of Kufan tribesmen and together they defeated and killed al-Mukhtar in April 687.[27][28] Ibn al-Zubayr subsequently dismissed Mus'ab from office in 686/87 and appointed his own son Hamza as governor of Basra.[29] The latter dispatched a force under Abd Allah ibn Umayr al-Laythi to drive out the Najdiyya Kharijites from Bahrayn after they overran the province, but the Zubayrids were repulsed.[30] Hamza proved incompetent in his administration of Iraq and, following his failure to deliver the provincial revenues to the state treasury in Mecca, he was dismissed and allegedly imprisoned by his father.[29][31] Mus'ab was reinstated shortly after, in 687/688.[29][31] By that time, the Najdiyya Kharijites conquered Yemen andHadhramaut, while in 689, they occupiedTa'if, Mecca's southern neighbor.[10]
The defeat of al-Mukhtar, who had opposed the Zubayrids and the Umayyads, left Ibn al-Zubayr and Marwan's son and successorAbd al-Malik (r. 685–705) as the two main contenders for the caliphate.[27] However,Kharijite gains in Arabia had isolated Ibn al-Zubayr in the Hejaz, cutting him off from loyalists in other parts of the caliphate.[10] In 691, Abd al-Malik secured the support of Zufar and theQays of Jazira, removing the principal obstacle between his Syrian army and Zubayrid Iraq.[32] Later that year, his forces conquered Iraq and killed Mus'ab in theBattle of Maskin.[10][32] Al-Muhallab, who was leading the fight against the Kharijites in Fars andAhwaz, subsequently switched his allegiance to Abd al-Malik.[32]
After asserting Umayyad authority in Iraq, Abd al-Malik dispatched one of his commanders,al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, to subdue Ibn al-Zubayr.[10] Al-Hajjajbesieged and bombarded Mecca for six months, by which point, most of Ibn al-Zubayr's partisans and his sons Khubayb and Hamza surrendered upon offers of pardons.[10][33] Ibn al-Zubayr remained defiant and, acting on his mother's counsel, entered the battlefield where he was ultimately slain byal-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf on 3 October or 4 November 692.[1][10]
In an anecdote recorded by 9th-century historianal-Tabari, when al-Hajjaj and his lieutenant commander,Tariq ibn Amr, stood over Ibn al-Zubayr's body, Tariq said of the latter: "Women have borne none manlier than he ... He had no defensive trench, no fortress, no stronghold; yet he held his own against us an equal, and even got the better of us whenever we met with him".[34] Al-Hajjaj posted Ibn al-Zubayr's body on agibbet where it remained until Abd al-Malik allowed Ibn al-Zubayr's mother to retrieve it.[10] His body was subsequently buried in the house of his paternal grandmother Safiyya in Medina.[10] The Umayyad victory and Ibn al-Zubayr's death marked the end of the Second Fitna.[22]
Following his victory, Abd al-Malik confiscated the estates of Ibn al-Zubayr in Medina and elsewhere in the Hejaz.[35] The caliph later restored some of the properties to Ibn al-Zubayr's sons after a request by Thabit.[35] His eldest son, Khubayb, was flogged to death in Medina by its governorUmar II during the reign of Caliphal-Walid I (r. 705–715).[36] Thabit, meanwhile, had gained particular favor from al-Walid's successor, CaliphSulayman ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 715–717), who agreed to return the remainder of the confiscated estates to Ibn al-Zubayr's sons.[37] Under theAbbasid caliphsal-Mahdi (r. 775–785) andHarun al-Rashid (r. 786–809), several descendants of Ibn al-Zubayr attained senior administrative posts, including his great-grandsonAbd Allah ibn Mus'ab and the latter's sonBakkar ibn Abd Allah, who successively served asgovernors of Medina.[38]
Ibn al-Zubayr adamantly opposed the caliphate becoming an Umayyad inheritance.[39] Instead, he advocated that the caliph should be chosen byshura (consultation) among the Quraysh as a whole.[39] The Quraysh opposed the monopolization of power by the Banu Umayya and insisted power be distributed among all the Qurayshi clans.[10][27] However, other than this conviction, Ibn al-Zubayr did not sponsor any religious doctrine or political program, unlike the contemporary Alid and Kharijite movements.[22] By the time he made his claim to the caliphate, he had emerged as the leader of the disaffected Quraysh.[10] According to historianH. A. R. Gibb, Qurayshi resentment towards the Banu Umayya is evident as an underlying theme in the Islamic traditions about Ibn al-Zubayr's conflict with the Umayyads and Ibn al-Zubayr was the "principal representative" of the second generation of the Hejaz's elite Muslim families who chafed at the "gulf of power" between them and the ruling Umayyad house.[10] Though Gibb describes Ibn al-Zubayr as "brave, but fundamentally self-seeking and self-indulgent", the hostility to the Umayyads in traditional Muslim sources led to a general description of him as a "model of piety".[10] Nonetheless, a number of Muslim sources condemned him as jealous and harsh and particularly criticized the fatal abuse of his brother Amr and his imprisonment of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya.[10]
Ibn al-Zubayr rallied opposition to the Umayyads in the Hejaz through his base in Mecca, Islam's holiest city, and his prestige as a first-generation Muslim with family ties to Muhammad.[22] He aimed to restore the Hejaz to its former political prominence;[40] after the assassination of Uthman, the region's position as the political center of the Caliphate had been lost first to Kufa under Ali and then to Damascus under Mu'awiya I.[41] To that end, Ibn al-Zubayr developed a strong association with Mecca and its Ka'aba,[22] which, combined with his control of Islam's second holiest city of Medina, furthered his prestige and gave his caliphate a holy character.[40][32]
Ibn al-Zubayr rejected the offer of support from the caliphate's Syria-based army partly because it would have obliged him to relocate to Damascus.[22] Other cities were available to him, but Ibn al-Zubayr opted to remain in Mecca,[40] from which he issued directives to his supporters elsewhere in the Caliphate.[32] This restricted him from exercising direct influence in the larger, more populated provinces, particularly Iraq, where his more worldly brother ruled with practical independence.[10][32] In Arabia, Ibn al-Zubayr's power had been largely confined to the Hejaz with the Kharijite leader Najda holding more influence in the greater part of the peninsula.[40] Thus, Ibn al-Zubayr had virtually rendered himself a background figure in the movement that was launched in his name; in the words of historianJulius Wellhausen, "the struggle turned round him nominally, but he took no part in it and it was decided without him".[40]
During his rule, Ibn al-Zubayr made significant alterations to the Ka'aba's structure, claiming that the changes were in line with the authority of Muhammad.[22] He called himself the "fugitive at the sanctuary [Ka'aba]" while his Umayyad detractors referred to him as "the evil-doer at Mecca".[22]
Three Umayyad caliphs reigned during the twelve years of Ibn al-Zubayr's caliphate between 680 and 692. The short terms indicated in the upper plot in light blue and yellow correspond to the tenures of Mu'awiya II and Marwan I, respectively. (Note that a caliph's succession does not necessarily occur on the first day of the new year.)
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Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr Born: May 624 Died: November 692 | ||
| Preceded by | Caliph November 683 – November 692 | Succeeded by |
