Shi'ism under the Umayyads

W. Montgomery Watt

doi:10.1017/S0035869X00163142

Shi'ism under the Umayyads

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011

W. Montgomery Watt

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The Shī'ite revolts against the Umayyads may be said to have begun in 671. Immediately after his father's death in 661, al-Ḥasan had made an unsuccessful attempt to resist Mu'āwiyah, and had then retired to a life of luxury in Medina. Ten years later there was an abortive revolt in Kūfah led by Ḥujr b. ‘Adī al-Kindī. Next, in the troubled period after the death of Mu'āwiyah in 680, al-Ḥusayn, the younger son of 'Alī and Fāṭimah, with some encouragement from the Shī'ite party in Kūfah, came to 'Irāq and claimed the caliphate. He did not receive the support he had expected, however, and his small force of about a hundred was massacred at Karbalā'. In the confusion of the following years, with considerable support in ‘Irāq for Ibn az-Zubayr, the Shī'ites remained quiet; but on the death of Yazīd in 684 some of the older Shī'ites of Kūfah, led by Sulaymān b. Ṣuraḍ al-Khuzā'ī, preparedfor military action. The basis of this movement was twofold: they were to show that they repented of the betrayal of al-Ḥusayn (and so are known as the tawwābūn or Penitents), and they were to seek vengeance for his blood. Most of those who carried out the massacre at Karbalā' were living in Kūfah, but the governor who had despatched the army against al-Ḥusayn, 'Ubaydallāh b. Ziyād, had been forced to retire from 'Irāq and was now on the Syrian border with an army. After some debate they decided to march against him with their 4,000 men, but they were defeated and several of their leaders killed (Jan., 685).

Type: Research Article
Information: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 92 , Issue 3-4 , July 1960 , pp. 158 - 172

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00163142 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1960

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* The following contractions are used in the footnotes

Ash. = al-Ash'ari, , Maqālāt al-Islāmīyīn, ed. Ritter, H., Istanbul, 1929–1930Google Scholar;

Bagh. = al-Baghdādī, , Al-Farq bayn al-Firaq, Cairo, 1910Google Scholar;

Nawb. = an-Nawbakhtī, , Firaq ash-Shī'ah, ed. Ritter, H., Istanbul, 1931Google Scholar;

Shahr. = ash-Shahrastānī, , K. al-Milal wa-'n-Niḥal, 3 vols., Cairo, 1948Google Scholar; also ed. W. Cureton, London, 1846.;

Tab. = aṭt-Ṭabari, , Annales, ed. de Goeje, M. J., Leiden, 1879–1901Google Scholar.

^{page 159 note 1} Lewis, Bernard, The Origins of Isma'ilism, 25Google Scholar; cf. Hodgson, M. G. S., art. “'Abd Allāh b. Saba” in EI (2)Google Scholar. Cf. Friedlaender, Israel, “'Abdallāh b. Sabā, der Begrunder der Šī'a, und sein jüdischer Ursprung,” ZA, xxiii, 296–324, xxiv, 1—46, esp. 27 f.Google Scholar

^{page 159 note 2} This question is dealt with more fully in my forthcoming book, Islam and the Integration of Society.

^{page 160 note 1} Ṭab., i, 3350 f.

^{page 160 note 2} Shahr., i, 235.

^{page 160 note 3} Serjeant, R. B. (in BSOAS, xxi, 10 f.)Google Scholar calls attention to the contemporary belief that members of certain families have a charisma (“spiritual power”, sharaf); this may be an interesting corroboration, but the possibility must not be overlooked that the modern belief is largely due to Shī'ite influences.

^{page 160 note 4} Ṭab., ii, 136.

^{page 160 note 5} Ibid., 386.

^{page 160 note 6} Ibid., 497, 559, 566, 599, 601.

^{page 161 note 1} Ṭab., i, 3363–8, 3380, 3382.

^{page 161 note 2} For references to Ṭab., and Ibn al-Athīr see Wellhausen, J., Die religiöspolitischen Oppositionsparteien im alten Islam, Göttingen, 1901, part IGoogle Scholar.

^{page 161 note 3} From Tamīm came the Azāriqah (apart from their leader), and the leaders of the Ṣufrīyah, Ibādīyah, and Bayhasīyah, together with Ṣāliḥ b. Musarriḥ. From Ḥanīfah came Nān' b. al-Azraq, Abū Fudayk, and the Najadāt. From Shaybān came the followers of Ṣālīḥ b. Musarriḥ and also Shabīb b. Yazīd.

^{page 161 note 4} , Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ al-Buldān, Leiden, 1866, 253Google Scholar (tr. by P. K. Hitti, i, 405).

^{page 161 note 5} Cf. Muḥammad at Medina, 124, 343, 366 with references.

^{page 161 note 6} Cf. Ryckmans, J., L'Institution Monarchique en Arabie avant l'Islam, Louvain, 1951, 329 ff., etc.Google Scholar

^{page 162 note 1} Cf. Frankfort, H., Kingship and the Gods, Chicago, 1948Google Scholar.

^{page 162 note 2} Ṭab., ii, 569 f.

^{page 163 note 1} Ibid., 634, 649.

^{page 163 note 2} Ibid., 634, etc.; cf. Friedlaender, I., “The Heterodoxies of the Shiites in the presentation of Ibn Ḥazm,” JAOS, xxviii (1907), 1–80Google Scholar and xxix (1909), 1–183, esp. xxix, 33 f.

^{page 163 note 3} Cf. Friedlaender, op cit. In Ash., i, 18–23 a number of small sects are reckoned as sub-divisions of the Kaysānīyah. Shahr. (i, 236) seems to regard the Mukhtārīyah as a sect of the Kaysānīyah, and perhaps also the four following sects.

^{page 163 note 4} Cf. Goldziher, , Muhammedanische Studien, i, 106Google Scholar, quoting from Al-'Jqd al-Farīd, Būlāq, ii, 334.

^{page 164 note 1} Cf. Muhammad at Medina, 344, based on Ibn Sa'd, iii, 1.

^{page 164 note 2} Ibn Sa'd, v. 208 (Busr b. Sa'īd), 209 Ḥumrān b. Abān), 220 ('Amr b. Rāfi'), 228(Shuraḥbīl b. Sa'd); on p. 222 Sālim Sabalān is said to be of Egyptian origin, while Abū ṢāliḥBādhām is almost certainly Persian, perhaps from South Arabia.

^{page 164 note 3} As also of the Khārijite movement, which had some support from mawālī.

^{page 164 note 4} Cf. al Balādhurī, 242 f.

^{page 164 note 5} E.g. the three most famous scholars in Kūfah about 730 were mawālī—Ḥabīb b. Abī Thābit (d. 737), al-Ḥakam b. 'Utaybah (d. 733), Ḥammād b. Abī Sulaymān (d. 738); Ibn Sa'd, vi, 223, 231 f. Cf. ibid., 109, a mawlā Ussāq is still a Christian. Ka'b b. Sūr was a Christian who after conversion became a Muslim judge, Ṭab., i, 3178, 10, and Pellat, C., Le Milieu Baṣrien..., Paris, 1953, 288Google Scholar.

^{page 164 note 6} Nawb. 34; as noted by Friedlaender, , JAOS, xxix, 90Google Scholar, al-Kashshī, , Ma'rifāt ar-Rijāl, Bombay (1899), 1317Google Scholar, 196, gives the Persian words yā pisar, but this version seems less likely.

^{page 165 note 1} Nawb., 25.

^{page 165 note 2} Ibid., 31.

^{page 165 note 3} Goldziher, , RHR, xliii, 23Google Scholar; cf. JAOS, xxix, 80 n.

^{page 165 note 4} Al-Balādhurī, 280 (tr. i, 440 f.).

^{page 165 note 5} Cf.Jeffery, A., The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'ān, Baroda, 1938, 14–16Google Scholar.

^{page 165 note 6} Muhammad at Medina, 344, nos. 2, 5; perhaps also no. 11.

^{page 165 note 7} Hishām, Ibn, Sīrah, ed. Wüstenfeld, F., Göttingen, 1859–1860, 191 f., 235Google Scholar.

^{page 166 note 1} Cf. the early chapters of Donaldson's, D. M.The Shi'ite Religion, London, 1933Google Scholar, which give the Imāmite sources.

^{page 166 note 2} Ṭab., ii, 1619 f.

^{page 166 note 3} Qutaybah, Ibn, K. ash-Shi'r, ed. Goeje, de, Leiden, 1900, 316–329Google Scholar; Lyall, C. J., Mufaḍḍalīyāt, Oxford, 1918–1921, i, 174, 7Google Scholar; Friedlaender, , JAOS, xxix, 38 f.Google Scholar; Khallikān, Ibn, Wāfāyāt al-A'yān, ed. Wüstenfeld, , Göttingen, 1835–1843Google Scholar.

^{page 167 note 1} Cf.Ḥazm, Ibn, K. al-Fiṣal, Cairo (1899), 1317, iv, 171Google Scholar (quoted by Friedlaender, ibid. 92): many of the Ahl as-Sunnah thought that “commanding right and prohibiting wrong” was to be carried out by the heart and, if possible, by the tongue, but not by the hand or by force of arms; “all the Rawāfiḍ held this view, even if all were to be killed; but this (avoidance of weapons) was approved only while the “speaking” (imām) had not come forth; when he comes forth it is obligatory to draw swords along with him.” Because of this doctrine those who wanted to be active before the imām appeared used wooden clubs or strangled their enemies.

^{page 167 note 2} Nawb., 25 (with further references in the Index). There are many variations of his nisbah (cf. JAOS, xxix, 90); perhaps something with a South Arabian suggestion like Zubaydī might be possible; but the allegation that he married a daughter may indicate a Persian origin.

^{page 168 note 1} Ash., i, 23.

^{page 168 note 2} Nawb., 30, 25.

^{page 168 note 3} Nawb., 52–5; Tritton, A. S., Muslim Theology, London, 1947, 23–5Google Scholar.

^{page 168 note 4} Nawb., 34; Ash., i, 9 f.; Friedlaender, , JAOS, xxixGoogle Scholar, Index; Bagh., 234 f.; Shahr., i, 257–300 (= Cureton, 135 f.).

^{page 169 note 1} Nawb., 50 f.; Ash., i, 65–75; Bagh., 22–6; Shahr., i, 249–265 (= 115–21); El (1), art. “al-Zaidīya”. Wellhausen, , Oppositionsparteien, 96Google Scholar, following Ṭab. ii, 1676–8, 1698–1711, gives the principles on which his programme was to be based; they included the adoption of the Book and the Sunnah as standards, and the defence of “the weak”.

^{page 170 note 1} Ash., i, 6, 22; Bagh., 233 f., 235 f.; Shahr., i, 244 f. (= 112 f.); Wellhausen, , The Arab Kingdom and its Fall, Calcutta, 1927Google Scholar, Index. Nawb., 29, 31, and Ibn Ḥazm, iv, 187 f., have “'Abdallāh b. al-Ḥārith,” who may be the same; cf. JAOS, xxix, 124 ff.

^{page 171 note 1} Ibn Ḥazm, iv, 186; Wellhausen, , Arab Kingdom, 511Google Scholar, based on Ṭab., 1639 f.

^{page 171 note 2} Nawb., 41 f.; Ash., i, 21 f.; etc. Cf. Moscati, S., art. “Abu Muslim” in El (2)Google Scholar.

^{page 171 note 3} Nawb., 43.

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