Ziyad ibn Abihi

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Ziyad ibn Abihi
Umayyad governor of Iraq
In office
670–673
MonarchMu'awiya I
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byAbd Allah ibn Khalid (in Kufa)
Samura ibn Jundab (in Basra)
Personal details
Bornc. 622
Died23 August 673
al-Thawiyya near Kufa
Spouses
  • Mu'adha bint Sakhr al-Uqayliyya
  • Marjana (or Manjana)
  • Daughter of Muhajir ibn Hakim ibn Taliq
  • Daughter of al-Qa'qa' ibn Ma'bad ibn Zurara al-Darimiyya
  • Lubaba bint Awf al-Harashiyya
Children
ParentSumayya (mother)

Abu al-Mughira Ziyad ibn Abihi (

Arabic: زياد بن أبي سفيان, romanized: Ziyād ibn Abī Sufyān), was an administrator and statesman of the successive Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates in the mid-7th century. He served as the governor of Basra in 665–670 and ultimately the first governor of Iraq
and practical viceroy of the eastern Caliphate between 670 and his death.

Ziyad's parentage is obscure, but he was raised among the

carrot-and-stick
approach to governing the city's turbulent population, is celebrated in Arab history for its eloquence.

After the death of

Tukharistan, Balkh and Quhistan
. Although the mass resettlement improved Iraq's economic and political conditions by siphoning off Arab tribal soldiers from the overcrowded garrisons and creating new opportunities for war spoils, the move had major ramifications for the Caliphate as the descendants of these Khurasani Arab troops formed the army that toppled the Umayyads in 750.

Ziyad died near Kufa in 673, but his sons Ubayd Allah, Abd al-Rahman, Salm, Abbad and Yazid went on to hold posts as governors or deputy governors of Iraq, Khurasan and Sijistan. Ziyad was the subject of early Arabic biographies and is remembered in Arab history as one of the four great wise men of his era and as a highly skilled administrator and orator. His administration in Iraq served as a model for his successors.

Origins

Ziyad was likely born in

Greek or Syrian slave belonging to Ibn Kalada's wife. Though Ziyad alludes to his Persian origin in a poem, his family claimed that Sumayya was not a slave, but the daughter of a certain al-A'war from the Zayd Manat clan of the Arab tribe of Banu Tamim.[4]

Early career in Basra

A creek in Basra in the early 20th century. Ziyad began his career in Basra in 636 and served as its governor between 665 and his death in 673

During the reign of Caliph

Utba ibn Ghazwan al-Mazini had established the initial camp at Basra in 635 and was the founder and first governor of the city.[4][9] The administrative skills of Ziyad became apparent from the time of his adolescence and Utba charged him with minor tasks in the Basran dīwān (bureaucracy) during the reign of Caliph Umar (r. 634–644).[4] In 635, Utba tasked him with distributing to the Arab troops the war spoils from the capture of al-Ubulla (Apologos), a town immediately east of Basra.[4][10] According to the modern historian Isaac Hasson, Ziyad "distinguished himself as an intelligent and open-minded secretary, who was devoted to his master and to public service ... he showed an unusual aptitude for accounting and had an excellent command of epistolary art".[4] His skills and his assignment by Basra's military governor Abu Musa al-Ash'ari as his acting replacement while he was on a military campaign gained the attention of Caliph Umar.[4] He brought Ziyad to Medina, the center of the nascent Muslim state, where he further tested his skills; Ziyad's performance earned him a reward of 1,000 silver dirhams by Umar, which he used to purchase the freedom of his mother or his stepfather Ubayd.[4] Soon after his return to Basra, Ziyad was made Utba's kātib (scribe or secretary).[4]

After Utba's death, Ziyad continued his service as kātib under his successors Abu Musa al-Ash'ari and

Abd Allah ibn Amir.[4]

Uthman's successor

Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, he left Ziyad as his acting governor.[13] During this period, he stamped out an uprising by the Banu Tamim, a major military tribal faction in the city, with critical assistance from another Basran faction, the Azd.[14]

After Ali returned from Siffin, his appointee to the district of Fars, Sahl ibn Hunayf, was ousted by its inhabitants, after which he dispatched Ziyad.[11] The people of Fars were satisfied with Ziyad's leadership and he was able to collect the district's kharāj.[11] He remained in Fars through the remainder of Ali's rule, which ended with the caliph's assassination in 661 and the foundation of the Umayyad Caliphate under Mu'awiya.[11] Afterward, he remained headquartered in a fortress in the vicinity of Istakhr. Of Ali's appointees, he held out the longest from recognizing Mu'awiya's caliphate.[7][15] Mu'awiya's agent, Busr ibn Abi Artat, pressured Ziyad by capturing and threatening to kill three of his sons in Basra.[7][15] Ziyad's half-brother Abu Bakra interceded with Mu'awiya and Ziyad's sons were released.[16] He finally surrendered to Mu'awiya's rule in 662/63 after the intercession of al-Mughira, who Mu'awiya had appointed governor of Kufa, the other main Arab garrison town of Iraq.[5][17] In the deal reached, the revenues from Fars owed to the caliphal treasury were split between Ziyad and al-Mughira, which Mu'awiya ignored.[17] Ziyad moved to Kufa and maintained intimate ties with al-Mughira and his family.[18]

Governor of Basra

Map of medieval Basra, showing Ziyad's divisions of the city into fifths along Arab tribal factional lines: Abd al-Qays, Tamim, Ahl al-Aliya, Bakr and Azd

Mu'awiya formally recognized Ziyad as a son of his father

Abu Sufyan. The motion was initiated when Ziyad sought clarification from the caliph about rumors of Abu Sufyan's biological paternity.[11] According to Wellhausen, Mu'awiya summoned Ziyad to Damascus and recognized him as his paternal half-brother, "so as to bind him in this way absolutely to himself and to his family".[19] The decision was seen as scandalous by the Umayyad ruling family.[17] Mu'awiya's son Yazid and members from other branches of the clan, namely the extended family of Marwan ibn al-Hakam in Medina and Abd Allah ibn Amir, the governor of Basra, protested or threatened action against the decision.[11] Ibn Amir and the Marwanids were silenced as a result of threats of force or bribes.[11] Yazid's relations with Ziyad remained strained and satirical poetic verses about the event were spread by Marwan's brother Abd al-Rahman.[19] Muslim scholars generally viewed the episode as one of Mu'awiya's most disreputable actions.[20]

Realizing that Ziyad "had both the abilities and the all-important local connections to be his right-hand man in Basra", Mu'awiya appointed him governor of the province, according to the historian Hugh N. Kennedy.[5] He entered office in June or July 665, issuing an inaugural carrot-and-stick speech to Basra's restless population.[5] According to Hasson it was "considered a masterpiece of eloquence".[11] Wellhausen describes it as "celebrated" and the one which was called a "[speech] without a preface"[18] because it skipped the traditional introductions praising God and blessing the Islamic prophet Muhammad.[5] The speech is translated as follows:

Ye are putting relationship before religion, ye are excusing and sheltering your criminals, and tearing down the protecting laws sanctified by Islam. Beware of prowling by night; I will kill every one who is found at night in the streets. Beware of the arbitrary summons of relationship; I will cut out the tongue of every one who raises the cry. Whoever pushes anyone into the water, whoever sets fire to another's house, whoever breaks into a house, whoever opens a grave, him will I punish for it. I make every family responsible for those belonging to it. Hatred towards myself I do not punish, but only crime. Many who are terrified at my coming will be glad of my presence, and many who are building their hopes upon it will be undeceived. I rule you with the authority of God and care for your maintenance out of the wealth of God. From you I demand obedience, and ye can demand from me justice. In whatsoever I fall short, three things there are in which I shall not be lacking: at any time I shall be ready to listen to anyone; I shall pay you your pension at the proper time, and I shall not send you to war too far away or keep you in the field overlong. Do not let yourselves be carried away by your hatred and wrath against me ; it would go ill with you if ye did. Many heads do I see tottering; let each man see to it that his own remains on his shoulders![21]

A number of punitive measures along the lines of those cited in his speech were taken by Ziyad at the start of his term and largely gained for him the Basrans' respect.

Yamama (central Arabia), were attached to Ziyad's governorship.[24]

Viceroy of Iraq and the east

After the death of al-Mughira in 670, Kufa and its dependencies were attached to Ziyad's governorship, making him the practical viceroy over Iraq and the eastern half of the Caliphate.[5][25] He was the first to serve as the dual governor of Kufa and Basra and divided his residence between the two towns.[11] In the winter he stayed in Basra and left Amr ibn Hurayth as his deputy in Kufa, while he resided in Kufa in the summer, leaving Samura ibn Jundab as his deputy in Basra.[11] His strong grip in Kufa marked a shift from al-Mughira's hands-off approach.[5] A source of disturbance for him in Kufa was the agitation of the Alids,[11] partisans of Caliph Ali, led by Hujr ibn Adi al-Kindi, who disapproved of Umayyad rule and led the first open calls for the caliphate to be held by Ali's progeny.[25] Though al-Mughira tolerated Hujr, Ziyad issued a number of dire warnings to cease his open dissent.[11] He succeeded in turning most of Hujr's supporters among the Kufan troops against him.[11][26] In 671, he had Hujr and thirteen of his loyalists arrested and sent to Damascus for punishment, where six, including Hujr, were executed in Adra for their refusal to condemn Ali.[27] One of the men, Abd al-Rahman ibn Hassan al-Anazi, who was spared by Mu'awiya later insulted the caliph after refusing his invocation to condemn Ali and was sent back to Ziyad, who had him buried alive as punishment.[28]

To end the chaos in the amṣar (garrisons) of Basra and Kufa, Ziyad administratively reformed the two towns.[11] From the reign of Caliph Umar, their garrisons consisted of soldiers from different tribes who were grouped together for the distribution of military stipends.[29] There were seven such tribal groups in Kufa and Basra and at the head of each group was a chieftain chosen by its members who served as their representative to the government.[30][31] Gradually, this system had become economically inefficient and politically turbulent.[30] There was no control on Arab immigration into the amṣar, resulting in overpopulation and in turn, increased competition over fewer resources.[32] Ziyad thus resolved to form larger divisions by unifying related clans and personally appointing their leader, which resulted in Kufa's reorganization into quarters and Basra into fifths.[29] This measure enabled easier control of the two towns' inhabitants.[29] Ziyad undertook further reforms in Kufa and Basra, including regularizing the timely payment of stipends, embarking on agricultural development schemes, including canal digging, and minting Sasanian-style dirhams that bore his name as "Ziyad ibn Abi Sufyan".[29]

Consolidation of Khurasan

Tukharistan
, where Ziyad's general led expeditions

Ziyad's authority extended to

Tukharistan, attempted to reassert Persian power.[35] Under previous caliphs, the vast region had been experimentally divided into separate provinces under the leadership of Arab tribal chiefs.[35] Governance was largely left to local princes.[36] Fearing a Persian resurgence, which a fragmentary division of Khurasan could afford, Ziyad centralized the administration of the province in the small Arab garrison at Merv.[35]

To relieve Basra's fiscal pressures, Ziyad recommenced the

Gerald Hawting.[25] As a result, the Merv oasis became home to the largest concentration of Muslims outside of the Fertile Crescent.[36]

Al-Hakam's successor,

Zamm.[38] To solidify the territorial gains and supply the manpower for further conquests Ziyad intended for the Arab troops, initially concentrated in the Merv oasis, to colonize other parts of Khurasan.[39] They were ultimately distributed between five regional garrisons under Ziyad's successors.[40][41]

Legacy and assessment

Ziyad died in the village of al-Thawiyya near Kufa on 23 August 673.[4][42] He was buried in a cemetery there that contained the graves of several Qurayshites and left an inheritance of 10,000 silver dirhams.[43] During his governorship of Kufa in 675–678, al-Dahhak ibn Qays al-Fihri visited Ziyad's grave and recited an elegy:

If nobility and Islam ever immortalized a human being,
They would certainly immortalize you.[44]

A year after his death, Mu'awiya appointed Ziyad's son Ubayd Allah as governor of Khurasan and then Basra. [45] Under Mu'awiya's son and successor, Caliph Yazid I (r. 680–683), the governorship of Kufa was also handed to Ubayd Allah.[45] Ziyad's sons Abd al-Rahman and Salm served successively as governors of Khurasan in 678–680 and 680–683/84,[46][47] and two other sons, Abbad and Yazid, served successively as governors of Sijistan in 673–680/81 and 680/81.[48][49] The Thaqif, which had maintained close ties with the Umayyads since the pre-Islamic era and played an integral role in the Muslim conquest of Iraq, provided the Umayyad dynasty with a series of viceroys in Iraq, including al-Mughira, Ziyad, Ubayd Allah and al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf (r. 694–714), and the Muslim traditional sources devote more attention to them than the caliphs on whose behalf they ruled.[50] Along with his mentor al-Mughira, Ziyad and his family were part of what "some must have seen as a Thaqafi mafia" controlling Iraq and the east, according to Kennedy.[36]

Among "the most gifted governors of the Umayyad era", Ziyad "had a good understanding of his task as governor, and had a great influence on his successors concerning the conception of the duties of rulers", according to Hasson.

Shia Muslims.[31] Ziyad was alleged to have ordered cruel acts against some Alid partisans, including crucifixions.[11]

Interest in Ziyad's biography emerged early on among the traditional Muslim historians, with works written about him by

Qur'an, its tenets and Islamic jurisprudence.[29] A medieval Basran historian, Muhammad ibn Imran al-Abdi, related that Ziyad respected and enjoyed listening to the hadiths about Umar and proclaimed about them: "This is the truth we hear! This is the sunna!"[51] Ziyad is credited by a number of sources for transmitting sayings by the Islamic prophet Muhammad through Umar as the original transmitter.[29] In 777 the Abbasid authorities stripped Ziyad's descendants of their status as official members of the Quraysh (the tribe to which the Umayyads and Abbasids belonged) in the dīwān rolls, which entitled them to relatively high pensions, and declared them part of Thaqif, whose members were paid less.[52] At some point afterward, they were reinstated as Quraysh as a result of bribing government officials.[52]

Family

Ziyad had numerous wives and

Khuza'a tribe.[53] Ziyad was also married for a time to a Sasanian Persian princess, Marjana (or Manjana), who mothered his son Ubayd Allah; she later remarried a Persian commander of Ziyad called Shiruyah al-Uswari.[54]

Ziyad's daughter Ramla was a wife of the Umayyad prince

Makhzum clan, Ubaydallah ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Harith, a great-grandson of Hisham ibn al-Mughira.[55]

Notes

  1. ^ Al-Harith ibn Abd Allah al-Azdi served four months as governor of Basra and had been appointed effectively as a placeholder in between the dismissal of Abd Allah ibn Amir and the appointment of Ziyad.[1]

References

  1. ^ Morony 1987, p. 76.
  2. ^ Howard 1990, p. 33, note 153.
  3. ^ Morony 1976, p. 57.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Hasson 2002, p. 519.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kennedy 2004, p. 85.
  6. ^ Lynch 2018, p. 1662.
  7. ^ a b c d Wellhausen 1927, p. 120.
  8. ^ a b Wellhausen 1927, p. 119.
  9. ^ a b c d e Pellat 1960, p. 1085.
  10. ^ a b Donner 1981, p. 415.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Hasson 2002, p. 520.
  12. ^ Madelung 1997, pp. 220, 271.
  13. ^ Madelung 1997, pp. 277, 280.
  14. ^ Madelung 1997, pp. 280–282.
  15. ^ a b Madelung 1997, p. 325.
  16. ^ Madelung 1997, p. 326.
  17. ^ a b c Wellhausen 1927, p. 121.
  18. ^ a b Wellhausen 1927, p. 122.
  19. ^ a b Wellhausen 1927, pp. 121–122.
  20. ^ Madelung 1997, p. 332, note 55.
  21. ^ Wellhausen 1927, pp. 122–123.
  22. ^ Wellhausen 1927, p. 123.
  23. ^ Wellhausen 1927, pp. 123–124.
  24. ^ Baloch 1946, p. 258.
  25. ^ a b c d Hawting 2000, p. 41.
  26. ^ a b Wellhausen 1927, pp. 124–125.
  27. ^ Madelung 1997, p. 337.
  28. ^ Madelung 1997, p. 338.
  29. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Hasson 2002, p. 521.
  30. ^ a b Hasson 2002, pp. 520–521.
  31. ^ a b Wellhausen 1927, p. 125.
  32. ^ Hinds 1993, p. 266.
  33. ^ Gibb 1923, p. 15.
  34. ^ Shaban 1979, pp. 26–27.
  35. ^ a b c d e f g Gibb 1923, p. 16.
  36. ^ a b c d e f g Kennedy 2004, p. 86.
  37. ^ Shaban 1979, pp. 31–32.
  38. ^ a b c d Shaban 1979, p. 32.
  39. ^ Shaban 1979, pp. 32–34.
  40. ^ Shaban 1979, p. 34.
  41. ^ Gibb 1923, p. 17.
  42. ^ Wellhausen 1927, p. 126.
  43. ^ Fariq 1966, p. 128.
  44. ^ Boullata 2011, p. 164.
  45. ^ a b Robinson 2000, p. 763.
  46. ^ Morony 1987, pp. 199, 207.
  47. ^ Bosworth 1995, p. 169.
  48. ^ Zetterstéen 1960, p. 5.
  49. ^ Bosworth 1968, p. 44.
  50. ^ Wellhausen 1927, pp. 113–114.
  51. ^ Hakim 2008, p. 23.
  52. ^ a b Tritton 1954, p. 171.
  53. ^ a b c d Fariq 1966, p. 121.
  54. ^ Zakeri 1995, p. 116.
  55. ^ a b c Fariq 1966, p. 123.

Bibliography

Preceded by Governor of Basra
665–670 		Succeeded by
Office merged into governorship of Iraq
Preceded by
Office established
 Governor of Iraq
670–673 		Succeeded by
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