Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath (died 704), commonly known as Ibn al-Ash'ath after his grandfather, was a prominent Arab nobleman and military commander during the Umayyad Caliphate, most notable for leading a failed rebellion against the Umayyad viceroy of the east, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, in 700–703.
Ibn al-Ash'ath was a scion of a noble family of the Kinda tribe that had settled in the Arab garrison town of Kufa in Iraq. He played a minor role in the Second Fitna (680–692) and then served as governor of Rayy. After the appointment of al-Hajjaj as governor of Iraq and the eastern provinces of the Caliphate in 694, relations between al-Hajjaj and the Iraqi tribal nobility quickly became strained, as the policies of the Syria-based Umayyad regime aimed to reduce the Iraqis' privileges and status. Nevertheless, in 699, al-Hajjaj appointed Ibn al-Ash'ath as commander of a huge Iraqi army, the so-called "Peacock Army", to subdue the troublesome principality of Zabulistan, whose ruler, the Zunbil, vigorously resisted Arab expansion. In 700, al-Hajjaj's overbearing behaviour caused Ibn al-Ash'ath and the army to revolt. After patching up an agreement with the Zunbil, the army marched back to Iraq. On the way, the mutiny against al-Hajjaj developed into a full-fledged anti-Umayyad rebellion and acquired religious overtones.
Al-Hajjaj initially retreated before the rebels' superior numbers, but quickly defeated and drove them out of Basra. Nevertheless, the rebels seized Kufa, where supporters started flocking. The revolt gained widespread support among those who were discontented with the Umayyad regime, especially the religious zealots known as ('Quran readers'). Caliph Abd al-Malik tried to negotiate terms, including the dismissal of al-Hajjaj, but the hardliners among the rebel leadership pressured Ibn al-Ash'ath into rejecting the Caliph's terms. In the subsequent Battle of Dayr al-Jamajim, the rebel army was decisively defeated by al-Hajjaj's Syrian troops. Al-Hajjaj pursued the survivors, who under Ibn al-Ash'ath fled east. Most of the rebels were captured by the governor of Khurasan, while Ibn al-Ash'ath himself fled to Zabulistan. His fate is unclear, as some accounts hold that the Zunbil executed him after al-Hajjaj demanded his surrender, while most sources claim that he committed suicide to avoid being handed over to his enemies.
The suppression of Ibn al-Ash'ath's revolt signalled the end of the power of the tribal nobility of Iraq, which henceforth came under the direct control of the Umayyad regime's staunchly loyal Syrian troops. Later revolts, under Yazid ibn al-Muhallab in 720 and Zayd ibn Ali in 740, also failed, and it was not until the success of the Abbasid Revolution that the Syrian dominance of Iraq was broken.
Early life Origin and family Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath was a member of a noble family from the Kinda tribe in the Hadramawt in eastern Yemen. His grandfather, Ma'dikarib ibn Qays, better known by his nickname (), was an important chieftain who submitted to Muhammad, but rebelled during the Ridda wars. Defeated, al-Ash'ath was nevertheless pardoned and married Caliph Abu Bakr's sister, Umm Farwa, who became his chief wife. He went on to participate in the crucial battles of the early Muslim conquests, Yarmouk and Qadisiyya, and held governorships in the newly conquered province of Adharbayjan. His role in the negotiations at the Battle of Siffin has led to his widespread condemnation in later, mainly pro-Shi'a sources, for persuading Ali to abandon his military advantage and submit to an arbitration that ultimately undermined his position. The real events remain unclear, but although al-Ash'ath was also close to Ali's Umayyad rivals—two of his daughters married into the Umayyad house—he nevertheless remained loyal to Ali, and another daughter married Ali's son al-Hasan. Al-Ash'ath later led the Kindite quarter in the garrison town of Kufa, where he died in 661.
Ibn al-Ash'ath's father, Muhammad (a son of Umm Farwa) was less distinguished, serving an unsuccessful tenure as Umayyad governor of Tabaristan, and becoming involved in the Second Fitna as a supporter of the anti-Umayyad rebel Ibn al-Zubayr, being killed in 686/7 in the campaign that overthrew the pro-Shi'a rebel leader Mukhtar al-Thaqafi. Like his father at Siffin, he is denigrated by pro-Shi'a sources for his ambiguous role in the Battle of Karbala in 680, being held responsible for the arrests of Muslim ibn Aqil and Hani ibn Urwa, prominent supporters of Ali's son, al-Husayn.
Ibn al-Ash'ath's mother, Umm Amr, was the daughter of the South Arab tribal leader Sa'id ibn Qays al-Hamdani. Ibn al-Ash'ath had four brothers, Ishaq, Qasim, Sabbah, and Isma'il, of whom the first three also fought in the campaigns in Tabaristan.
Early career
According to the 10th-century historian al-Tabari, the young Ibn al-Ash'ath accompanied his father and participated in his political activities: in 680 he helped arrest Muslim ibn Aqil. In 686/7, he fought under the Umayyad governor Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr against Mukhtar, in the campaign in which his father was killed. After Mukhtar was killed during the fight, along with the other Kufan (Arab tribal nobility) who served under Mus'ab, Ibn al-Ash'ath urged the execution of Mukhtar's followers, who had barricaded themselves in the governor's palace in Kufa. This was not only to avenge the loss of their own kinsmen during the campaign, but also because of the deeply ingrained hostility of the to the non-Arab converts to Islam (the ), who had formed the bulk of Mukhtar's supporters. As a result, some 6,000 of Mukhtar's men were executed.
Ibn al-Ash'ath disappears from the record during the next few years, but after Mus'ab was defeated and killed by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan at the Battle of Maskin in October 691, he, like other followers of Mus'ab, went over to the Umayyads. In early 692, he participated in a campaign against the Azariqa Kharijites in al-Ahwaz, at the head of 5,000 Kufan troops. After the Kharijites were defeated, he went on to take up the governorship of Rayy.
Expedition against Shabib al-Shaybani In 694, Abd al-Malik appointed the trusted and capable al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf as the new governor of Iraq. In 697, his remit was expanded to cover the entirety of the eastern Caliphate, including Khurasan and Sistan (Sijistan), effectively making him a viceroy of half the Umayyad realm. The post was of particular political sensitivity due to the long history of Kharijism and political dissent in Iraq. This was particularly the case in Ibn al-Ash'ath's home town of Kufa, which contained people from almost all Arab tribes, but also many of those undesired elsewhere, such as the vanquished of the Ridda wars. Although it dominated the fertile lands of the Sawad, many of the latter were assigned by the Umayyads to princes of the dynasty, while the average Kufan was given—increasingly minuscule—parcels of land as a reward for military service. Finally, the Kufans were largely left out of the spoils of conquest in the east; it was the Basrans who secured the lion's share, taking over far more extensive and richer territory like Khurasan or Sindh, while the Kufans were left with the mountains of Jibal and central Persia as their city's sole dependencies.
In late 695, al-Hajjaj entrusted Ibn al-Ash'ath with 6,000 horsemen and the campaign against the Kharijite rebels under Shabib ibn Yazid al-Shaybani. Although the Kharijites numbered just a few hundred, they benefited from Shabib's tactical skill and had defeated every Umayyad commander sent against them thus far. Advised by the general al-Jazl Uthman ibn Sa'id al-Kindi, who had been defeated by Shabib previously, Ibn al-Ash'ath pursued the Kharijites, but displayed great caution in order to avoid falling into a trap. Notably, each night he dug a trench around his camp, thus foiling Shabib's plans to launch a surprise night attack. Unable to catch Ibn al-Ash'ath unawares, Shabib instead resolved to wear down his pursuers, by retreating before them into barren and inhospitable terrain, waiting for them to catch up, and retreating again.
As a result, the governor of al-Mada'in, Uthman ibn Qatan, wrote to al-Hajjaj criticizing Ibn al-Ash'ath's leadership as timid and ineffective. Al-Hajjaj responded by giving command to Uthman, but when the latter attacked Shabib on 20 March 696, the government army suffered a heavy defeat, losing around 900 men and fleeing to Kufa. Uthman himself was killed, while Ibn al-Ash'ath, who lost his horse, managed to escape with the help of a friend and reached Kufa. Fearing reprisals for the defeat by al-Hajjaj, he remained in hiding until the governor of Iraq granted him pardon.
Rivalry with al-Hajjaj Despite this setback, relations between Ibn al-Ash'ath and al-Hajjaj were initially friendly, and al-Hajjaj's son married one of Ibn al-Ash'ath's sisters. Gradually, however, the two men became estranged. The sources attribute this to Ibn al-Ash'ath's overweening pride as one of the foremost of the , and his aspirations to leadership: al-Mas'udi records that he adopted the title of ('Helper of the Faithful'), an implicit challenge to the Umayyads, who were implied to be false believers. In addition, he claimed to be the , a messianic figure in South Arab ("Yamani") tribal tradition who was expected to raise them to domination.
Ibn al-Ash'ath's pretensions irked al-Hajjaj, whose hostile remarks—such as "Look how he walks! How I should like to cut off his head!"—were conveyed to Ibn al-Ash'ath and served to deepen their hostility to outright mutual hatred. Al-Tabari suggested that al-Hajjaj relied on the fear he inspired to keep Ibn al-Ash'ath in check. Modern scholarship on the other hand holds that the portrayal of the great personal animosity between the two men is likely to be exaggerated. Thus the historian Laura Veccia Vaglieri attributed these reports to the Arabic sources' tendency to "explain historical events by incidents relating to persons", rather than reflecting the actual relationship between the two men, especially given the fact that Ibn al-Ash'ath faithfully served al-Hajjaj in a number of posts, culminating in his appointment to lead a major campaign into Sistan.
Revolt Sistan campaign In 698/9, the Umayyad governor of Sistan, Ubayd Allah ibn Abi Bakra, suffered a severe defeat by the semi-independent ruler of Zabulistan, known as the Zunbil. The Zunbil drew the Arabs deep into his country and cut them off, so that they managed to extricate themselves only with great difficulty, after suffering many losses (particularly among the Kufan contingent), and paying a ransom and leaving hostages for their safe departure.
Infuriated by this setback, al-Hajjaj raised an Iraqi army from Basra and Kufa, to be sent against the Zunbil. 20,000 strong, the army comprised many members of the most eminent families of the two garrison towns. Whether due to the splendour of their equipment, or as an allusion to what historian G. R. Hawting calls the "proud and haughty manner of the Kufan soldiers and who composed it", this army became known in history as the "army of Peacocks" (). Two different generals were appointed by al-Hajjaj in succession to command it, before he appointed Ibn al-Ash'ath instead. In view of their bad relations, the sources report that the appointment came as a surprise to many; an uncle of Ibn al-Ash'ath even approached al-Hajjaj and suggested that his nephew might revolt, but al-Hajjaj did not rescind his appointment.