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Qahtaba ibn Shabib al-Ta'i (Arabic:قحطبة بن شبيب الطائي) (died 27 August 749) was a follower of theAbbasids fromKhurasan who played a leading role in theAbbasid Revolution against theUmayyad Caliphate.
Qahtaba was aKhurasani Arab, belonging to theTayy tribe. He had journeyed toMecca, where the imam of theHashimiyya Ibrahim ibn Muhammad appointed him as the military leader for the upcoming anti-Umayyad uprising in Khorasan. This appointment was accepted by the main Abbasid leader,Abu Muslim, and following the fall ofMerv to the Abbasids and their supporters in February 748, Qahtaba was placed in command of the Abbasid forces that pursued the last Umayyad governor of Khurasan,Nasr ibn Sayyar. His army tookNishapur, where Nasr had sought refuge, defeated a 10,000-strong Umayyad force at Gurgan in August and subsequently tookRayy. There he wintered, and in March 749 he defeated a larger Umayyad army underAmir ibn Dubara, allegedly 50,000 strong, nearIsfahan.Nihavand fell after a short siege and the Abbasid army began moving towardsIraq. Qahtaba's army advanced swiftly with the aim of takingKufa, but was confronted by the Umayyad governor,Yazid ibn Hubayra. Qahtaba was able to launch a surprise night attack on the Umayyad camp, forcing Yazid and his troops to flee toWasit. Qahtaba himself fell in this battle, but his sonal-Hasan ibn Qahtaba assumed command and took possession of Kufa on 2 September. Both al-Hasan and his brother,Humayd ibn Qahtaba, were important military leaders in the early decades of the Abbasid regime.
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