Yahya ibn al-Hakam ibn Abi al-As (Arabic:يَحْيَى بْنِ الْحَكَم بْنِ أَبِي الْعَاص,romanized: Yaḥyā ibn al-Ḥakam ibn Abī al-ʿĀṣ; died before 700) was anUmayyad statesman during the caliphate of his nephew,Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705). He fought against CaliphAli (r. 656–661) at theBattle of the Camel and later moved toDamascus where he was a courtier of the Umayyad caliphsMu'awiya I (r. 661–680) andYazid I (r. 680–683). He was appointed governor ofPalestine by Abd al-Malik and is credited in an inscription for building part of a road connectingDamascus toJerusalem in 692. He served as governor ofMedina for a year in 694/95 and afterward led a series of expeditions against theByzantine Empire along the northern frontier of Syria.

Yahya was a son ofal-Hakam ibn Abi al-As and a younger half-brother of CaliphMarwan I (r. 684–685).[1]^[2] His mother hailed from theBanu Murra tribe ofGhatafan.^[1] He fought alongside Marwan and their brother Abd al-Rahman and other senior leaders of theQuraysh against CaliphAli (r. 656–661) at theBattle of the Camel in 656.^[1][2] Ali was victorious and Yahya, wounded, found safety with a member of the largeBanu Tamim tribe inBasra.^[1] This tribesman escorted him to the headquarters of his distant cousin, the governor ofSyria,Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, inDamascus.^[1] He stayed in the city through the course of Mu'awiya's caliphate (661–680) and that of his son and successor,Yazid I (r. 680–683).[1] Yahya publicly condemned the slaying of Ali's son and the Islamic prophetMuhammad's grandson,Husayn, by Yazid's army at theBattle of Karbala in 680.^[1]

At some point between 685 and 694, Yahya's nephew, the caliphAbd al-Malik ibn Marwan (r. 685–705), appointed him the governor ofPalestine.^[1][3] Yahya was mentioned in an inscription on a milestone found nearSamakh that credited him for supervising the construction of a road through theFiq pass in theGolan Heights on behalf of Abd al-Malik.^[4][5] The inscription dates to May/June 692,^[6] making it the oldest known Islamic inscription about the foundation of a road.^[7]

In 694/95, Yahya was appointed governor ofMedina.^[8] He was recalled to Damascus in the following year,^[1] during which he led a summer campaign against the Byzantines in the general vicinity ofMalatya andal-Massisa. In 697/98, he led a campaign against the Byzantine fortress atMarj al-Shahm.^[9] This may have occurred in 698/699.^[1] Yahya died prior to 700.^[1] His tombstone was found inKatzrin in the Golan Heights. The epitaph, inKufic Arabic script, reads "May my Lord have mercy on Yahya ibn al-Hakam and forgive him".^[10]

One of Yahya's wives during his governorship of Medina was Umm al-Qasim al-Sughra, a daughter of a leading companion of Muhammad,Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf.^[11] A son of Yahya, Yusuf, served as governor ofMosul toward the end of Abd al-Malik's reign, and his sonal-Hurr and grandson Yahya ibn al-Hurr each served terms in the province in 727–732 and 732, respectively.^[12] One of Yahya's daughters, Amina, was wed to Abd al-Malik's son, the future caliphHisham.^[13] Afterward,^[14] another daughter, Umm Hakim, who, like her mother Zaynab bint Abd al-Rahman, was well-known for her beauty and love for wine,^[15] married Hisham and bore the latter five sons,^[16] includingSulayman,^[17]Maslama,^[18]Yazid al-Afqam,^[19] andMu'awiya.^[11] The latter's son,Abd al-Rahman I, went on to found the UmayyadEmirate of Cordoba in modern-day Spain in 756.

• Ahmed, Asad Q. (2010).The Religious Elite of the Early Islamic Ḥijāz: Five Prosopographical Case Studies. Oxford: University of Oxford Linacre College Unit for Prosopographical Research.ISBN 978-1-900934-13-8.
• Crone, Patricia (1980).Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN 0-521-52940-9.
• Gil, Moshe (1997) [1983].A History of Palestine, 634–1099. Translated by Ethel Broido. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN 0-521-59984-9.
• Blankinship, Khalid Yahya, ed. (1989).The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XXV: The End of Expansion: The Caliphate of Hishām, A.D. 724–738/A.H. 105–120. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.ISBN 978-0-88706-569-9.
• Hillenbrand, Carole, ed. (1989).The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XXVI: The Waning of the Umayyad Caliphate: Prelude to Revolution, A.D. 738–744/A.H. 121–126. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.ISBN 978-0-88706-810-2.
• Intagliata, Emanuele E. (2018) [1950].Palmyra after Zenobia AD 273-750: An Archaeological and Historical Reappraisal. Oxford: Oxbow Books.ISBN 978-1-78570-942-5.
• Judd, Steven (July–September 2008). "Reinterpreting al-Walīd b. Yazīd".Journal of the American Oriental Society.128 (3):439–458.JSTOR 25608405.
• Robinson, Chase F. (2004).Empire and Elites after the Muslim Conquest: The Transformation of Northern Mesopotamia. Cambridge University Press.ISBN 0-511-03072-X.
• Rowson, Everett K., ed. (1989).The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XXII: The Marwānid Restoration: The Caliphate of ʿAbd al-Malik, A.D. 693–701/A.H. 74–81. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.ISBN 978-0-88706-975-8.
• Madelung, Wilferd (1997).The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN 0-521-56181-7.
• "Museum Notes".Museum Notes.19. New York: American Numismatic Society: 178, note 53. 1974.
• Sharon, Moshe (June 1966). "An Arabic Inscription from the Time of the Caliph 'Abd al-Malik".Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies.29 (2):367–372.doi:10.1017/S0041977X00058900.
• Sharon, Moshe (2004).Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae (CIAP): D-F. Volume Three. Leiden and Boston: Brill.ISBN 90-04-13197-3.

• 690s deaths
• 7th-century Arab people
• People of the First Fitna
• Umayyad dynasty
• Umayyad governors of Medina
• Umayyad governors of Palestine
• Umayyad people of the Arab–Byzantine wars

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