Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr

Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr was born in Medina in the Hejaz (western Arabia) in May 624.[1] He was the eldest son of al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, a ṣaḥābī (companion) of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leading Muslim figure.[1][2] He belonged to the Banu Asad clan of the Quraysh,[1][2] the dominant tribe of Mecca, a trade center in the Hejaz and location of the Ka'aba, the holiest sanctuary in Islam. Ibn al-Zubayr's paternal grandmother was Safiyya bint Abd al-Muttalib, the paternal aunt of Muhammad,[2] and his mother was Asma, a daughter of the first caliph, Abu Bakr (r. 632–634), and sister of A'isha, a wife of Muhammad.[1] According to the 9th-century historians Ibn Habib and Ibn Qutayba, Ibn al-Zubayr was the first child born to the Muhajirun, 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 the Banu Fazara.[3][4] She bore him his eldest son Khubayb, hence Ibn al-Zubayr's kunya (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 of Hasan, son of the fourth caliph Ali (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 caliph Uthman ibn Affan (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 Hisham, Ibn al-Zubayr had his son 'Amir.[8]

As a child, during the reign of Caliph Umar in 636, Ibn al-Zubayr may have been present with his father at the Battle of Yarmouk against the Byzantines in Syria.[1] He was also present with his father in Amr ibn al-As's campaign against Byzantine Egypt in 640.[1] In 647, Ibn al-Zubayr distinguished himself in the Muslim conquest of Ifriqiya (North Africa) under the commander Abd 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 their patrician, 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 joined Sa'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 the Qur'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 of Uthman's assassination, Ibn al-Zubayr fought alongside his father and his aunt A'isha against the partisans of Uthman's successor, Caliph Ali, at the Battle of the Camel in Basra in December.[10] Al-Zubayr was killed, while Ibn al-Zubayr was wounded sparring with one of Ali's commanders, Malik al-Ashtar.[12] Ali was victorious and Ibn al-Zubayr returned with A'isha to Medina, later taking part in the arbitration to end the First Fitna (Muslim civil war) in Adhruh or Dumat al-Jandal.[10] During the talks, he counseled Abd 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]

The Ka'aba in 1882. Throughout his revolt, Ibn al-Zubayr used the sanctuary as his base of operations and it was twice besieged, in 683 and 692. He rebuilt it following severe damage during the first siege, but his changes were later reversed.

Ibn al-Zubayr did not oppose Mu'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 son Yazid 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 charged al-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 son Husayn, who too had refused submission to Yazid. Husayn and his supporters made a stand against the Umayyads in Karbala in 680, but were killed 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 as al-ʿaʾidh biʾl bayt (the fugitive at the sanctuary, viz., the Ka'aba), adopted the slogan lā ḥukma illā li-ʾllāh (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, charged Ibn al-Zubayr's estranged brother, the head of Medina's shūrṭā (security forces), Amr, to lead the expedition.[18] The Umayyad force was ambushed and Amr was captured and killed in captivity.[19] Ibn al-Zubayr declared the illegitimacy of Yazid's caliphate and allied with the Ansar of Medina, led by Abd Allah ibn Hanzala, who had withdrawn support for Yazid due to his alleged improprieties.[10] Ibn al-Zubayr also gained the support of the Kharijite movement in Basra and Bahrayn (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 by Muslim ibn Uqba to suppress Ibn al-Zubayr and the Ansar.[16] The Ansar were routed at the Battle of al-Harrah 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 deputy Husayn ibn Numayr al-Sakuni.[20] The latter besieged the city on 24 September after Ibn al-Zubayr refused to surrender.[20][10] The Ka'aba 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 and al-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] The former 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]

Map of the Middle East under the caliphate in the 8th century. Ibn al-Zubayr's sovereignty as caliph was recognized in the Hejaz, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq and districts of Fars and Kerman.

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 himself amīr al-muʾminīn (commander of the faithful), a title traditionally reserved for the caliph, and called for the 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 these groups recognized him as their leader.[17] An exception to this came from the Banu Hashim clan to which the prophet Muhammad and the Alids 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 cousin Abd 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 under Najda ibn Amir al-Hanafi in the Yamama (central Arabia) abandoned Ibn al-Zubayr once he forwarded his claim to the caliphate, an institution they rejected, and refused to embrace their doctrine.[10][17][22]

In the Umayyad capital Damascus, Yazid was succeeded by his young son Mu'awiya II, but the latter wielded virtually no authority and died from illness 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, including Egypt, Kufa, Yemen and the Qaysi tribes of northern Syria.[10][20] Likewise, in Khurasan, the de facto governor Abd Allah ibn Khazim al-Sulami offered his recognition.[23] Ibn al-Zubayr appointed his brother Mus'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 of Kerman and Fars in modern-day Iran; both were dependencies of Basra.[20] Nonetheless, his authority outside of the Hejaz was largely nominal.[10]

Most of the Arab tribes in central and southern 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 against Ibn al-Zubayr.[20] Marwan's partisans, led by Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, decisively defeated the pro-Zubayrid Qaysi tribes, led by al-Dahhak ibn Qays al-Fihri, at the Battle of Marj Rahit in July 684.[10] The surviving Qaysi tribesmen fled to the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia) under the leadership of Zufar 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 strongman al-Mukhtar al-Thaqafi, who afterward took up the cause of the Alid family.[26] He declared Ibn al-Hanafiyya caliph and, unprecedentedly in Islamic history, the mahdī.[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 powerful Azdi 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 687/88.[29][31] By that year, the Najdiyya Kharijites conquered Yemen and Hadhramawt, while in 689, they occupied Ta'if, Mecca's southern, uphill neighbor.[10]

The defeat of al-Mukhtar, who had opposed the Zubayrids and the Umayyads, left Ibn al-Zubayr and Marwan's son and successor Abd 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 the Qays 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 the Battle of Maskin.[10][32] Al-Muhallab, who was leading the fight against the Kharijites in Fars and Ahwaz, 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-Hajjaj besieged 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 on 3 October or 4 November 692.[1][10] In an anecdote recorded by 9th-century historian al-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 a gibbet 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 one or more 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 governor Umar II during the reign of Caliph al-Walid I (r. 705–715).[36] Thabit, meanwhile, had gained particular favor from al-Walid's successor, Caliph Sulayman 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 the Abbasid caliphs al-Mahdi (r. 775–785) and Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809), several descendants of Ibn al-Zubayr attained senior administrative posts, including his great-grandson Abd Allah ibn Mus'ab and the latter's son Bakkar ibn Abd Allah, who successively served as governors of Medina.[38]