Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr
[2][3] During the last years of the Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680), Mus'ab was part of a group that met together in the mosque of Medina, likely to study religion.
[5] Mus'ab had several children from a number of wives and slave women (ummahat awlad; sing: umm walad).
[6] From various ummahat awlad, he had the sons Hamza, Asim, Umar, Ja'far, Mus'ab (also known as Khudayr), Sa'd, Mundhir, Isa al-Saghir, and a daughter, Sukayna.
Expelled by Zubayrid armies, they fled to the eastern provinces of Fars and Kirman, both dependencies of Basra, frequently raiding the city and its suburbs.
[10] Previously a Zubayrid ally in the Hejaz (western Arabia), Mukhtar abandoned Ibn al-Zubayr after Yazid's death and returned to his hometown of Kufa.
[16] Soon after, he crushed a rebellion by Arab tribal nobles resentful of the mawali, resulting in an exodus of some ten thousand Kufans to Basra.
[10] In the account of the historian Abu Mikhnaf (d. 774), Abd Allah ibn Umar accused Mus'ab of massacring 7,000 Kufans,[19] while the account of al-Waqidi (d. 823) held that among Mukhtar's partisans who surrendered, Mus'ab executed 700 Arabs and all of the Persians, and afterward massacred 6,000 Kufan sympathizers.
[22] Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr soon deposed Mus'ab after receiving complaints from the province, and sent his son Hamza as his replacement.
After fighting a 1,500-strong army that was against him, Ibn al-Hurr fled from Tikrit and occupied the town of Kaskar in eastern Iraq, taking its treasury.
Mus'ab awaited him at Bajumayra near Tikrit, but Abd al-Malik abandoned the campaign upon receiving the news of Al-Ashdaq's revolt in Damascus.
With promises of reward, Abd al-Malik's agents were able to secure significant support, and clashed with pro-Zubayrid forces at a place called Jufra.
Abd al-Malik's supporters, nonetheless, were allowed to withdraw before the arrival of Mus'ab, who, once back in the city, severely punished any remaining Umayyad loyalists.
[28] Having thoroughly insulted them, he delivered each of them a hundred lashes, ordered their heads and beards shaved, their houses razed, exposed them to the sun for three days and forced them to divorce their wives.
[30] Because of Mus'ab's severity in dealing with Mukhtar's and Abd al-Malik's supporters, the Iraqis in general had turned against him and he could not amass a large army.
Fearing that the execution of influential tribal nobles would provoke a revolt in his ranks, Mus'ab did not pay heed to the warning and kept his commanders in their posts.
[33][32] Considering his old friendship with Mus'ab, Abd al-Malik offered him amnesty and promised him the governorship of Iraq on the condition of surrender and allegiance.
[10] According to the orientalist Julius Wellhausen, he was 36 years old at the time of his death,[32] whereas according to the medieval historian Khalifa ibn Khayyat (d. 854) he was 40.
According to Lammens, Mus'ab's elder brother Abd Allah was unmoved by his death, and complained about his philogyny, rudeness and his behavior towards his opponents, such as his awarding of insulting titles.
[10] On the other hand, the account of the historian al-Tabari (d. 923) and Fishbein's commentary thereof described Abd Allah being deeply saddened by Mus'ab's death and implying his own downfall as a result of this loss.
