ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayr, a son of the famous Companions al-Zubayr b. al-ʿAwwām and Asmāʾ bt. Abī Bakr, was the first child born to the Muslim community in Medina after the hijra, in 2/624. He played a key role in the Second Civil War or fitna (strife), ruling from Mecca for approximately nine years as caliph before being killed by Umayyad forces in 72–3/691–2. This part of the Second Civil War is often referred to in Arabic sources as “the fitna of Ibn al-Zubayr.” 1. Family ties and early experience Genealogical connections are crucial to understanding Ibn al-Zubayr's later career. A…

ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayr al-Ḥumaydī (d. 219/834) was a Meccan jurist and ḥadīth transmitter. Apparently born in Mecca, al-Ḥumaydī studied ḥadīth with the scholar and renowned traditionist Sufyān b. ʿUyayna (d. 196/811) for approximately nineteen years. In the biographical sources, al-Ḥumaydī is said to have been the most reliable of Ibn ʿUyayna’s students, based on an account by the traditionist Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Harawī (d. c.301/913). During his time studying with Ibn ʿUyayna, al-Ḥumaydī met Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855), the ḥadīth scholar and eponymous founder of…

ʿAbdallāh b. Muṭīʿ b. al-Aswad al-ʿAdawī al-Qurashī (d. 73/692) was one of the leaders of the revolt of Medina against the caliph Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya in 63/683. The Prophet changed his name from al-ʿĀṣī (“the disobedient”) b. al-ʿĀṣī to ʿAbdallāh and his father's name to Muṭīʿ. He took part in a Medinan delegation to Damascus and was received warmly by the caliph. On his return to Medina, however, he was one of the principal propagators of the accusations that Yazīd drank alcohol, that he did not pr…

ʿAbdallāh b. Khāzim b. Asmāʾ b. al-Ṣalṭ al-Sulamī (d. c. 73/692–3) was the governor of Khurāsān during the caliphate of ʿUthmān (r. 23–35/644–56). Islamic sources indicate that he met the prophet Muḥammad and thus might be considered a Companion, but it seems that he was not part of the inner circle. He became governor of Khurāsān after the province was conquered in 30–1/651 by ʿAbdallāh b. ʿĀmir b. Karīz, the governor of Basra. Upon defeating the Turkish king Qārin, ʿAbdallāh b. Khāzim came to ru…

Abū l-ʿAbbās ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib b. Hāshim b. ʿAbd Manāf al-Qurashī al-Hāshimī (d. c. 68/687–8), known usually as Ibn ʿAbbās, was a paternal cousin and a Companion of the Prophet. 1. The life of Ibn ʿAbbās. The making of a Companion—between history and myth The sources tell us much about Ibn ʿAbbās, both historical and mythical. Given the importance attributed to his contribution to religious science, the period of his birth and childhood is surrounded by an aura of legend and fantasy, like those of the prophet Muḥammad h…

ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (d. 73/693) was a Companion and brother-in-law of the Prophet Muḥammad and one of the most important transmitters of his sayings. He is often referred to simply as Ibn ʿUmar. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar was born c. 610 C.E., the first son of the caliph-to-be ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb and Zaynab bt. Maẓʿūn. He converted to Islam at an early age, together with his parents, and was about eleven when his family moved to Medina. He was too young to fight at Badr and Uḥud but took part in the Battle of the Trench (al-…

ʿAlī b. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib (c. 37–c. 117/c. 658–c. 735) was the father of the ʿAbbāsid dynasty. Very little is known about ʿAlī for certain. All the traditions about his life were reconstructed after the ʿAbbāsids came to power to fit the historical position he acquired as the patriarch of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs. The date of his birth is put as early as 37/657–58 and as late as 40/661, i.e., at the beginning and end of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib's caliphate respectively. The first date is based on the acc…

ʿAbdallāh b. ʿĀmir b. Kurayz (b. 4/626, d. between 57/678 and 59/80) was governor of Basra from 29/649–50 to 35/656 and from 41/661 to 44/664. A member of the ʿAbd Shams clan of Quraysh, he was born in Mecca in 4/626. His maternal cousin, the caliph ʿUthmān (r. 23-35/644-56), appointed him governor of Basra in 29/649–50. He completed the conquest of Fārs, taking Iṣṭakhr, Darābjird, and Jūr (Fīrūzābād), occupied part of Kirmān in 30/650, and invaded Khurāsān in 31/651–2, where he took Nīshāpūr, Nas…

ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥammad al-Taʿīshī (1846–99) was ruler of the Mahdist state in Sudan from 1885 until the Anglo-Egyptian conquest in 1898. He was the successor to Muḥammad Aḥmad al-Mahdī. His name was pronounced ʿAbdullāhi and he was generally known as “al-Khalīfa” (from khalīfat al-mahdī, “successor to the Mahdī”). His family origins are obscure, though his grandfather ʿAlī al-Karrār likely migrated east from the central Sudanic region before marrying a woman of the Taʿāʾisha cattle-breeding Arabs (Baqqāra) of southern Darfur. His father, …

Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿAbdallāh Ibn Masʿūd b. Ghāfil al-Hudhalī (d. c. 32–3/652–4), also commonly called Ibn Umm ʿAbd after his mother, was a prominent early Companion of the Prophet from Mecca, whom tradition counts amongst the famed ten Companions promised Paradise (al-ʿashara al-mubashsharūn bi-l-janna). He was one of the earliest converts to Islam in Mecca and undertook more than one migration (hijra) to Axum (in Ethiopia), fleeing persecution by the Meccans, and, finally, to Medina in 1/622. There he served the Prophet as his personal attendant until th…

Abū Fāʾid Ismāʿīl b. Yasār al-Nisāʾī (d. 130/748) was a minor poet from Medina who composed panegyrical odes and elegies, most notably on the Zubayrids. His father, an Iranian from Azerbaijan, went to al-Ḥijāz and settled in Medina, where he prepared wedding dinners; hence his nisba al-Nisāʾī (“concerned with women”), which was subsequently applied to Ismāʿīl as well. Ismāʿīl, who became a mawlā (client) of the Banū Taym b. Murra, a branch of the Banū Quraysh, was a poet, as were his son Ibrāhīm and his brothers Ibrāhīm, Muḥammad, Mūsā Shahawāt, and Sulaym…

An Umayyad poet of the Asad tribe, al-Ḥakam b. ʿAbdal al-Asadī was born in Kufa and spent most of his life in Iraq (d. c. 102/720). He was lame and hunchbacked or hemiplegic, disabilities which he sometimes mentioned in his poetry. When ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayr, seeking the caliphate, gained control of Iraq and expelled the Umayyad officials in 64/684, Ibn ʿAbdal followed them to Damascus, where he was admitted into the entourage of the caliph ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 65–86/685–705). After the restoration of Umay…

Muslim b. ʿUqba (before 622 AD–64/683) was a leader of the Banū Murra and a loyal general to both Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān (r. 41–60/661–80) and Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya (r. 60–4/680–3). Details of his early life are vague. By most accounts, he was born and reached maturity before the hijra, though some reports emphasise that he did not meet the Prophet personally. It is possible that such details are meant to separate him from the prestige of the Companions. Muslim served as an advisor to Muʿāwiya and led the infantry of Damascus in the battle of Ṣiffīn. He was also appointed over the kharāj (land tax im…

Mālik b. Abī Samḥ (d. c.136/754), a pre-eminent singer from Medina, was an Arab of noble birth. He was descended from the Banū Thuʿal, a branch of the Banū Ṭāʿī, as well as from the Banū Makhzūm, making him a Qurayshī. Orphaned at a young age, he was adopted by ʿAbdallāh b. Jaʿfar b. Abī Ṭālib (d. between 80/699–700 and 90/708–9). On the death of ʿAbdallāh he was attached to Sulaymān b. ʿAlī (83–142/702–59), the governor of Basra and the uncle of al-Saffāḥ (r. 132–6/749–4) and al-Manṣūr (r. 136–58/…

Abū Rāshid Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraq al-Ḥanafī al-Ḥanẓalī (d. 65/685) was an early Khārijī rebel and the eponym and founder of the Azāriqa (Azraqīs). He may have been the son of a Greek blacksmith freed at al-Ṭāʾif by the Prophet (al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ al-buldān, 67). Nothing is known of his early life. After the end of the first fitna (civil war, c.40/661), he associated himself with the Khārijīs, for which he was reportedly jailed in Basra (al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 7:143). Initially, he was said to have been an admirer of the early Basran Khārijī (shurāt) hero and martyr Abū Bilāl Mirdās…

Maʿn b. Aws was an excellent early Islamic poet of the Muzayna tribe—hence his nisba al-Muzanī (apparently born in pre-Islamic times, died around or after 64/683–4). Maʿn was presumably a native of the area south of Medina, a territory inhabited by his tribe, where he owned some land, palm trees, and cattle. Besides repeatedly visiting Medina and Mecca, he travelled more than once to Basra and Syria to engage in trade. He is said to have married a Syrian woman named Thawr, as well as Laylā, a wealthy woman of…

Sufyān b. Abrad al-Kalbī al-Aṣamm was an Umayyad general who played a significant role in the Marwānid restoration during and after the second fitna (c. 62–73/680–92). His sobriquet al-Aṣamm means “the deaf ” or perhaps rather “the undeterrable.” He was of the Kalbī tribe, and his loyalty to the Umayyad cause was indisputable. Al-Ḍaḥḥāk b. Qays al-Fihrī (d. 64–684), a fervent supporter of ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayr (d. 73/692) in Damascus, had Sufyān briefly imprisoned in 64/683–4, because of his pro-Umayyad stance. Sufyā…

Abū ʿUbayda ʿĀmir b. ʿAbdallāh Ibn al-Jarrāḥ (d. 18/639) was an early Companion of the Prophet, from the tribe of Banū l-Ḥārith, of the Qurayshī clan of Fihr, one of the ten aristocratic clans of Mecca—the so-called al-Abtaḥiyyūn—who were settled in the lower quarters of Mecca by the ancestor of Muḥammad Quṣayy b. Kilāb. Abū ʿUbayda’s family had joined the internal covenant of al-muṭayyabūn (the perfumed ones), headed by the clan of Banū ʿAbd Manāf, against the rival camp headed by Banū ʿAbd al-Dār. His family was also involved in the clashes between the Qu…

Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib was one of two sons of Fāṭima (d. 11/632), the daughter of Muḥammad, to survive into adulthood and the third Imām of the Twelver Shīʿa. He was born in Medina in 4/626 (one year after his brother al-Ḥasan, d. 50/670) and was killed at Karbalāʾ, at the age of fifty-seven, on 10 Muḥarram (also known as ʿĀshūrāʾ) 61/10 October 680, in a battle with an Umayyad army. (This article provides a condensed biography of al-Ḥusayn, with a particular emphasis on his death…

Al-Mukhtār b. Abī ʿUbayd b. Masʿūd al-Thaqafī al-Kūfī (d. 67/687) was the leader of a pro-ʿAlid rebellion through which he briefly ruled Kufa, between 66/685 and 67/687. Al-Mukhtār is also strongly associated with the Shīʿī religious movement known as the Kaysāniyya (for a narrative history of the movement, see Hawting; for the doctrines and history of the Kaysāniyya, see Capezzone). 1. Al-Mukhtār’s life Al-Mukhtār was born in 1/622 (al-Ṭabarī, 2:1) in Ṭāʾif. He later moved to Medina with his father during the caliphate of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (r. 12–23/634–…