Ziyad ibn Abi Sufyan

Ziyad ibn Abi Sufyan ( _ar. زياد بن أبي سفيان) (d. 673 AD) was a Muslim general and administrator and a member of the clan of the Umayyads. His parentage is obscure and controversial, which in the inimical Abbasid historiography has earned him the Patronymic "Ibn Abihi (son of his own [unknown] father)".

Biography

Ziyad was born in Taif to a member of the Banu Fuqaim, of unknown parentage. He was often accused of being the offspring of either Abu Sufyan or the slave Ubayd and the prostitute Sumayyah. [see Nikah Ijtimah for references]

In 659 CE, Caliph Ali sent Ziyad to suppress a Persian rebellion in Istakhr. Ziyad succeeded at this and stayed on as governor.

The Umayyad Mu`awiyah ibn Abu Sufyan, governor at Damascus, opposed Ali's rule and repeatedly tried to lure his kinsman Ziyad to his camp. Ziyad however remained loyal to Ali.

In 661 Ali was assassinated and Mu`awiyah succeeded as Caliph. In 662, he sent Mughira, his governor at Kufa, to Istakhr to recall Ziyad to Damascus and Ziyad obeyed.

In 664, Muawiyah and Ziyad reached an agreement: the Caliph recognised Ziyad as a brother - Ziyad now adopted the name ibn Abi Sufyan - and appointed him governor at Basra, replacing the Umayyad `Abd Allah, who had proved a great general but a poor administrator. This act was then and later considered a scandal in Islam, criticised in contemporary satire and by the 13th century historian Ibn al-Athir: [Tareekh of Ibn Atheer Volume3 p. 24, under the Chapter addressing the events of 44 Hijri:]

Suyuti wrote that Muawiya decision to declare Ziayad as his brother, and thus allowing Ziyad to receive inheritance from Abu Sufyan, to be against the Sharia [Tarikh al-Khulafa, p. 175 ]

Ziyad's first act in Basra was to deliver a khutba from the pulpit. This speech promised that Umayyad jurisprudence would be swift and talionic: "We have brought a punishment to fit every crime. Whoever drowns another will himself be drowned; whoever burns another will be burned; whoever breaks into a house, I will break into his heart; and whoever breaks into a grave, I will bury him alive in it." And Ziyad warned: "I demand obedience from you, and you can demand uprightness from me... Do not be carried away by your hatred and anger against me, it would go ill with you. I see many heads rolling; let each man see that his own head stays upon his shoulders!" (Morony pp.78-81)

In 670, Mughira governor of Kufa died of plague, and caliph Mu'awiya handed the administration of that city to Ziyad as well. Ziyad altered the city's plan from seven districts to quarters. Hujr ibn Adi soon agitated against Ziyad, and Ziyad clapped him in irons and shipped him to Damascus.

Ziyad also planned great mosques where he ruled, as a symbol of his supremacy and that of his religion. (Cresswell pp. 12-13)

In 671, Ziyad sent 50,000 Arab troops to the Iranian oasis of Merv as a colony. This colony retained its native Kufan sympathies and became the nucleus of Khurasan. (Muir pp. 295-6)

Ziyad died in 673, and Mu`awiyah appointed his son Ubayd-Allah ibn Ziyad as successor.

In Shia's traditions, Ziyad's notoriety as a brutal master outlived him. By tradition, Hasan ibn Ali used to say that the testimony of four companions will not be accepted and those four are Mu'awiya, Amr bin Aas, Mugheera (bin Shuba) and Ziyad (bin Abi Sufyan). This was widely quoted by al-Sha'bi; and then Abu Mikhnaf, Tabari (Morony p. 154).

ee also

*Family tree of Ziyad ibn Abu Sufyan
*Sahaba

References

External links

*http://www.dartabligh.org/books/ebooks/Role_vol3/page96.asp

Bibliography

*Cresswell, K. A. C. "A Short Account of Muslim Architecture". Beirut, Librairie du Liban. 1958.
*Morony, Michael G. "Tabari's History" vol. XVIII. 1987.