Al-Ash'ath ibn Qays

Al-Ash'ath's actual name was Ma'dikarib ibn Qays.[1] From the pre-Islamic period, he served as the chieftain of the Banu Mu'awiya al-Akramun clan, part of the larger South Arabian tribal grouping of Banu Harith of Kindah.[note 1][1] He was among the most influential chiefs of this tribal grouping.[1] He earned his nickname al-Ashʿath ("the dishevelled") because he was known to have dishevelled hair.[3] Prior to his embrace of Islam in late 631, al-Ash'ath launched an expedition against the tribe of Murad, whose members had killed his father Qays. However, his assault was repulsed and he was taken captive. In return for his release, he paid the Murad 3,000 camels as a ransom.[4]

He led a delegation of seventy Kindite warriors to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and converted to Islam.[5] Following Muhammad's death in 632, he and his tribe withheld the customary payment to the nascent Muslim state and apostasized during the Ridda wars.[6] After their subsequent defeat at the Zurqan pasture in Hadhramawt, they and their families took up position at the al-Nujayr fort in Yemen and were besieged by the Muslim forces.[7] Al-Ash'ath secured safe passage for a number of his relatives, but the rest of the besieged fighters were executed.[8] He was spared but taken captive and sent to Caliph Abu Bakr (r. 632–634), who agreed to release him after he repented. He thereafter took up residence in Medina, capital of the caliphate, where he was married to Abu Bakr's sister, Umm Farwa.[5][9] Despite an initial prohibition on former apostates participating in the Muslim conquests, during the reign of Caliph Umar (r. 634–644), al-Ash'ath joined the Muslim army of Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, which was dispatched to conquer Iraq from the Sasanian Empire.[5] During that campaign, he fought in the battles of Qadisiyya, Ctesiphon, Jalula and Nihawand between 636 and 642.[5] During the conquest of these territories, he gained a piece of land in the Arab garrison town of Kufa, at the time of its founding. He built a house there and it formed part of the Kindite neighborhood.[5]

Later, he became the leader of Kindah in Kufa, edging out his Kindite rival Shurahbil ibn Simt, who fled to Syria.[1] Al-Ash'ath was later appointed by Caliph Uthman (r. 644–656) as the governor of Adharbayjan and his daughter Habbana was married to Uthman's eldest living son.[10] Another of his daughters, Qariba, was also married off to a member of Uthman's family.[1] Al-Ash'ath's own wife was a daughter of Abu Bakr; marital relations between his own family and that of the caliphs was indicative of his high social standing.[1] Under the recommendation of Uthman, al-Ash'ath exchanged his land in Hadhramawt for a caliphal-owned estate in the village of Tiznabadh near Kufa.[11]

Following the assassination of Uthman, al-Ash'ath served under Caliph Ali (r. 656–661) and commanded the right wing of the caliph's army at the Battle of Siffin against Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, the governor of Syria and opponent of Ali's caliphate in 657.[12] The battle ended in an agreement to hold an arbitration over leadership of the caliphate. Al-Ash'ath was selected as one of Ali's two representatives at the arbitration, apparently being chosen over the caliph's cousin, Abd Allah ibn Abbas, as a result of the Kindite's insistence.[5] His daughter, Ja'da bint al-Ash'ath, is accused of poisoning and murdering her husband, Hasan ibn Ali, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad.

Al-Ash'ath died in Kufa in 661.[5] His son, Muhammad, succeeded him as leader of the Kufan Kindites.[1] He later played a role in the killing of Husayn ibn Ali, the prophet Muhammad's other grandson, at the Battle of Karbala.[13]

• Crone, Patricia (1980). Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52940-9.
• Donner, Fred M., ed. (1993). The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume X: The Conquest of Arabia, A.D. 632–633/A.H. 11. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-1071-4.
• Landau-Tasseron, Ella, ed. (1998). The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XXXIX: Biographies of the Prophet's Companions and their Successors: al-Ṭabarī's Supplement to his History. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-2819-1.
• Ibrahim, Mahmood (1990). Merchant Capital and Islam. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-74118-8.
• Madelung, Wilferd (1997). The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-64696-3.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Al-Masudi, Abu al-Ḥasan (1989). Muruj adh-dhanab (Volume II ed.). United Kingdom: Lunde & Stone: Kegan Paul International. p. 650. ISBN 0-7103-0246-0.