Yahya ibn Umar
Encyclopedia
Yahya ibn Umar ibn Yahya ibn Husayn ibn Zayd ibn Ali
Zayn al-Abidin ibn Al-Husayn
ibn Ali al-Murtada
was an Alid
Imam. His mother was Umm al-Husayn Fatimah bint al-Husayn ibn Abdallah ibn Ismail ibn Abdullah
ibn Ja`far ibn Abī Tālib. In the days of the Abbasid
Caliph
Al-Musta'in
, he marched out from Kufa
and lead an abortive uprising from Kufa in 250 A.H. (864-65 C.E.), but was killed by the Abbasid forces led by Hussain ibn Isma’il, who had been sent to deal with him.
The following is a sequence of events of Yahya’s life:
Some of Yahya’s companions did not accept the news that he was defeated and killed. Instead, they believed that he was not killed and he only hid himself and went into occultation
and that he was the Mahdi
and the Qa’im
, who will reappear another time.
His revolt had an interesting sequel in 255 A.H. (868-69 C.E.), when a leader of the Zanj Rebellion
claimed to be the incarnated form of Yahya.
mentions that many elegies
were written for Yahya, and that he had recorded some of them in his Kitab al-Awsat (The Middle Book). But in his book The Meadows of Gold
, it is the elegy by Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur (which Al-Masudi alone had preserved) that he gives pride of place. Ibn Abi Tahir’s elegy on the crucified Shiite rebel is composed of 14 lines and the poem was possibly recited in Samarra, where Yahya’s head was displayed, or else before the large crowds that are known to have gathered in Baghdad. In the elegy, Ibn Abi Tahir attacks the Sunni Abbasid Caliphal family for its usurpation of the rights of the house of Ali.
Ibn al-Rumi (d.283 A.H. / 896 C.E.) also published elegies on Yahya.
Zayd ibn Ali
Zayd ibn ‘Alī was the grandson of Husayn ibn Alī, the grandson of Muhammad. Zayd was born in Medina in 695. His father was the Shī‘ah Imam ‘Alī ibn Husayn "Zayn al-Abidīn"...
Zayn al-Abidin ibn Al-Husayn
Husayn ibn Ali
Hussein ibn ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib was the son of ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib and Fātimah Zahrā...
ibn Ali al-Murtada
Ali
' |Ramaḍān]], 40 AH; approximately October 23, 598 or 600 or March 17, 599 – January 27, 661).His father's name was Abu Talib. Ali was also the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and ruled over the Islamic Caliphate from 656 to 661, and was the first male convert to Islam...
was an Alid
Descendants of Ali ibn Abi Talib
Ali was the first Imam of Shia Islam. He was a cousin of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, as well as Muhammad's son-in-law. He had several children by Fatima, Muhammad's daughter, as well as children by other wives...
Imam. His mother was Umm al-Husayn Fatimah bint al-Husayn ibn Abdallah ibn Ismail ibn Abdullah
Abdullah ibn Ja'far
Abdullah ibn Ja'far was the son of Ja'far ibn Abu Talib and the nephew of Ali.-Migration to Abyssinia, 615 and overseas preaching:...
ibn Ja`far ibn Abī Tālib. In the days of the Abbasid
Abbasid
The Abbasid Caliphate or, more simply, the Abbasids , was the third of the Islamic caliphates. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphate from all but the al-Andalus region....
Caliph
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
Al-Musta'in
Al-Musta'in
Al-Musta'in was the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 862 to 866. After the death of previous Caliph, al-Muntasir, the Turkish chiefs held a council to select his successor; they would have none of al-Mu'tazz, nor his brothers; so they elected him, another grandson of al-Mu'tasim.The Arabs and...
, he marched out from Kufa
Kufa
Kufa is a city in Iraq, about south of Baghdad, and northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000....
and lead an abortive uprising from Kufa in 250 A.H. (864-65 C.E.), but was killed by the Abbasid forces led by Hussain ibn Isma’il, who had been sent to deal with him.
Sequence of events of Yahya’s life
- In 850 C.E. Al-MutawakkilAl-MutawakkilAl-Mutawakkil ʻAlā Allāh Jaʻfar ibn al-Muʻtasim was an Abbasid caliph who reigned in Samarra from 847 until 861...
brought Yahya from one of the Abbasid provinces in order to punish him, after he had reportedly assembled a group of supporters. Umar ibn Faraj al-Rukhkhaj Al-SijistaniAl-SijistaniAl-Sijistani refers to people from the historic Sijistan region in present-day Sistan, the border region of eastern Iran and southwestern Afghanistan...
(one of the Abbasid’s official secretaries who had purchased land for the founding of SamarraSamarraSāmarrā is a city in Iraq. It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Salah ad-Din Governorate, north of Baghdad and, in 2003, had an estimated population of 348,700....
) flogged him 18 lashes and he was incarcerated in BaghdadBaghdadBaghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
in the Matbaq Prison before being released. - Yahya was hard pressed by his creditors and sought a grant from Umar ibn Faraj, but was harshly denied. He thus cursed Umar ibn Faraj and as a result was imprisoned, but was later set free. He then moved to live in Baghdad, but was still suffering from hardship. He then went to Samarra where he met another man whom he asked for a grant, but was again harshly denied.
- Yahya then went to Kufa, where he rebelled in 864 C.E. His uprising seems to have been a rash course of action. In Kufa, Yahya gathered a great throng of Bedouins and a contingent of Kufa also rallied around him. He then marched to Al-FallujahFallujahFallujah is a city in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar, located roughly west of Baghdad on the Euphrates. Fallujah dates from Babylonian times and was host to important Jewish academies for many centuries....
and encamped at a village known as al-‘Umud. He then marched to Kufa and proceeded as far as the treasury, where he took whatever he found. Following this, he declared his rebellion in Kufa. He then liberated the two prisons of Kufa of all those interred. He then left Kufa for its agricultural hinterland (the Sawad) and settled in a place called Bustan. He was followed and supported by a group of ZaydisZaidiyyahZaidiyya, or Zaidism is a Shi'a Muslim school of thought named after Zayd ibn ʻAlī, the grandson of Husayn ibn ʻAlī. Followers of the Zaydi Islamic jurisprudence are called Zaydi Shi'a...
, Bedouins living near Bustan and people from other certain places near Kufa. After establishing himself at Bustan his followers grew in number. - Yahya routed an Abbasid force sent to defeat him in a fierce battle near the Kufa bridge.
- The Zaydis propagandized that he was the chosen one (al-Rida) of Muhammad’s familyAhl al-BaytAhl al-Bayt is an Arabic phrase literally meaning People of the House, or family of the House. The phrase "ahl al-bayt" was used in Arabia before the advent of Islam to refer to one's clan, and would be adopted by the ruling family of a tribe. Within the Islamic tradition, the term refers to the...
. This increased his popularity and even the mob of Baghdad held him in high esteem. In Kufa a group of experienced Shiites swore allegiance to him, along with other people who were not known for their piety. While he was in Kufa he was making preparations for his forces, while the Abbasid forces sent to defeat him were also making the necessary preparations. - On the 13th RajabRajabRajab is the seventh month of the Islamic calendar. The lexical definition of Rajaba is "to respect", of which Rajab is a derivative.This month is regarded as one of the four sacred months in Islam in which battles are prohibited...
(20 August) 864 C.E. he marched against the Abbasid forces of Hussain ibn Isma’il, after being urged to do so by his followers. - The next day, Yahya’s forces attacked Hussain ibn Isma’il forces, but were defeated and fled, abandoning Yahya on the battlefield.
- Yahya was then beheaded on the battlefield in Rajab 250 A.H. (August 864 C.E.) and his head was mutilated. His head was then sent to Al-Musta'in, from where it was displayed at the public gate in Samarra.
Some of Yahya’s companions did not accept the news that he was defeated and killed. Instead, they believed that he was not killed and he only hid himself and went into occultation
The Occultation
The Occultation in Shia Islam refers to a belief that the messianic figure, or Mahdi, who in Shi'i thought is an infallible male descendant of the founder of Islam, Muhammad, was born but disappeared, and will one day return and fill the world with justice. Some Shi'is, such as the Zaidi and...
and that he was the Mahdi
Mahdi
In Islamic eschatology, the Mahdi is the prophesied redeemer of Islam who will stay on Earth for seven, nine or nineteen years- before the Day of Judgment and, alongside Jesus, will rid the world of wrongdoing, injustice and tyranny.In Shia Islam, the belief in the Mahdi is a "central religious...
and the Qa’im
Al-Qa'im (person)
Al-Qāʾim is a messiah-like figure in Shia Islam, sometimes referred to as the Mahdi, but distinctly of a Shiʿa tradition.-External links:* *...
, who will reappear another time.
His revolt had an interesting sequel in 255 A.H. (868-69 C.E.), when a leader of the Zanj Rebellion
Zanj Rebellion
The Zanj Rebellion was the culmination of series of small revolts. It took place near the city of Basra, located in southern Iraq over a period of fifteen years . It grew to involve over 500,000 slaves who were imported from across the Muslim empire and claimed over “tens of thousands of lives in...
claimed to be the incarnated form of Yahya.
Elegies written for Yahya
Al-MasudiAl-Masudi
Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali al-Mas'udi , was an Arab historian and geographer, known as the "Herodotus of the Arabs." Al-Masudi was one of the first to combine history and scientific geography in a large-scale work, Muruj adh-dhahab...
mentions that many elegies
Elegy
In literature, an elegy is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.-History:The Greek term elegeia originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter, including epitaphs for tombs...
were written for Yahya, and that he had recorded some of them in his Kitab al-Awsat (The Middle Book). But in his book The Meadows of Gold
The Meadows of Gold
Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems is an historical account in Arabic of the beginning of the world starting with Adam and Eve up to and through the late Abbasid Caliphate by medieval Baghdadi historian Masudi .Its only English version is the abridged The Meadows of...
, it is the elegy by Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur (which Al-Masudi alone had preserved) that he gives pride of place. Ibn Abi Tahir’s elegy on the crucified Shiite rebel is composed of 14 lines and the poem was possibly recited in Samarra, where Yahya’s head was displayed, or else before the large crowds that are known to have gathered in Baghdad. In the elegy, Ibn Abi Tahir attacks the Sunni Abbasid Caliphal family for its usurpation of the rights of the house of Ali.
Ibn al-Rumi (d.283 A.H. / 896 C.E.) also published elegies on Yahya.