Zufar ibn al-Harith al-Kilabi
Abu al-Hudhayl Zufar ibn al-Harith al-Kilabi (Arabic: أبو الهذيل زفر بن الحارث الكلابي, romanized: Abū al-Hudhayl Zufar ibn al-Ḥārith al-Kilābī; died c. 694–695) was a Muslim commander, a chieftain of the Arabian tribe of Banu Amir, and the preeminent leader of the Qays tribal–political faction in the late 7th century.
The following year, he relocated from Iraq to the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia) and fought under Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, future founder of the Umayyad Caliphate, against Ali at the Battle of Siffin.
During the Second Muslim Civil War he served Mu'awiya's son, Caliph Yazid I (r. 680–683), leading the troops of Jund Qinnasrin (the military district of northern Syria) against anti-Umayyad rebels in the 683 Battle of al-Harra.
Afterward, Zufar set up headquarters in the Jaziran town of Qarqisiya (Circesium) and led the Qays against the Kalb, launching several raids against the latter in the Syrian Desert.
By 688–689, he became embroiled in a conflict with the Taghlib tribe in support of his Qaysi ally Umayr ibn al-Hubab of the Banu Sulaym, despite previous efforts to mend their feud.
Under Abd al-Malik's successors, Zufar's descendants inherited his high position and prestige in the Umayyad court, as well as his preeminence among the Qays.
In 750, his grandson, Abu al-Ward, led an abortive Qaysi revolt against the Umayyads' successors, the Abbasids, in which he and several members of the family were slain.
[1] A late 6th-century, pre-Islamic chief of the Banu Amir from the Amr division, Yazid ibn al-Sa'iq, was a paternal ancestor of Zufar.
[4] Accounts in the history of al-Tabari (d. 923) note that during the fighting, he was the last of a series of A'isha's partisans to hold and guide the nose rein of the camel she was seated upon, defending her against opposing soldiers.
[4] According to the historian al-Ya'qubi (d. 897), during the campaign, Zufar led a contingent composed of the men of Jund Qinnasrin (the military district of northern Syria) at the Battle of al-Harra outside of Medina.
[9] The deaths of Yazid and his successor, Mu'awiya II, in 683 and 684, amid the revolt of Ibn al-Zubayr, left the Umayyad Caliphate in political disarray.
Unable to dislodge Zufar, Ibn Ziyad continued on to Iraq, where he was defeated and slain by the forces of Mukhtar at the Battle of Khazir in 686.
[24] By circa 686, Zufar's participation in the Qays–Kalb conflict in the Syrian Desert was highly restricted by persistent campaigns against his safe haven at Qarqisiya by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705).
[26] In response, the Taghlib requested Zufar's intervention to force the Sulaym to withdraw from the area, return the camels, and pay blood money for the dead tribesmen.
The Taghlib then attacked Qaysi villages near Qarqisiya but were repulsed, while one of their men, Iyas ibn al-Kharraz, went to continue negotiations with Zufar.
[26] Julius Wellhausen saw in Zufar's early attempts at reconciliation a desire not to push the neutral and Christian Taghlib into joining the Umayyad–Yamani cause;[27] the historian A.
[27] Due to the Taghlib's insistence on evicting the Sulaym, Umayr opposed any peaceful settlement with the tribe, and worked to expel them from the area.
[28] In revenge, the Taghlib and their Rabi'a relatives landed a heavy blow against the Sulaym at the Tharthar river, killing several of their tribesmen and thirty women.
Zufar sent Muslim ibn Rabi'a, a man of the Banu Uqayl, a branch of the Amir, ahead of him to ambush a group of Taghlibi tribesmen.
[33] Referencing this event, the poet Jarir ibn Atiya taunted his Taghlibi rival al-Akhtal in the Umayyad court, reciting: The warriors of Qays bore down on you with steeds Ungroomed and grim-faced, [their backs] bearing heroes You kept thinking everything after them Was steeds and men charging over and over Zufar Abu al-Hudhayl, their chieftain, annihilated you[r men] Then captured your women and plundered your herds.
[35] In 691, after stamping out a revolt in Damascus by his kinsman Amr al-Ashdaq, Abd al-Malik led his army in person on a campaign to take over Iraq, which by then had fallen entirely under Zubayrid control.
As a member of the Thaqif tribe, Hajjaj was a fellow Qaysi; Raja was affiliated with the Yamani Kinda, with whom Zufar had blood relations.
Abd al-Malik instructed his brother, Muhammad, who had been appointed by their father to keep the Qays in check in the Jazira, to issue pardons and grant unspecified favors to Zufar, Hudhayl and their followers.
[44] Qaysi troops were favored by Zufar's son-in-law, Maslama, during his abortive war against Byzantium in 717–718, which further consolidated the Yamani alliance against the Qays within the army.
[45] The tribal schism mainly continued as a factional rivalry for power in the provinces, but renewed Qaysi–Yamani hostilities in Syria in 744 helped spark the Third Muslim Civil War,[46] which ended with the downfall of the Umayyads in 750.
[4] In an anecdote recorded by al-Tabari, in 722 or 723 the then Qaysi governor of Iraq, Umar ibn Hubayra, asked of his companions, "Who is the most eminent man among the Qays?
", to which they replied that he was; Ibn Hubayra disagreed, countering that it was Zufar's son Kawthar, for all the latter had to do was "sound the bugle at night and twenty thousand men will show up without asking why they have been summoned".
[53] According to al-Tabari, this was the village of Khusaf, also called Zara'at Bani Zufar after the family,[54] located in the vicinity of the Sabkhat al-Jabbul salt flats.
[65] Among the verses ascribed to him was the following about his hatred and despair in the aftermath of Marj Rahit and his resolve to avenge the Qays: Do not think me heedless if I am absent, and do not rejoice at meeting me if I come to you.
