Zufar ibn al-Harith al-Kilabi

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.[7] Yazid's and Mu'awiya II's governor in Qinnasrin was their maternal cousin Sa'id ibn Malik ibn Bahdal of the Banu Kalb tribe,[8][9] which held a privileged position in Syria to the chagrin of the Qays.[10] The Qays of Qinnasrin resented being under the authority of a Kalbi in the district they dominated and under Zufar's leadership expelled Sa'id.[10] Zufar revolted against the Umayyads and gave allegiance to Ibn al-Zubayr.[3] While the Qaysi chieftains leaned towards Ibn al-Zubayr, the leaders of the Kalb and their allies scrambled to maintain Umayyad rule and nominated a distant Umayyad cousin of Mu'awiya I, Marwan I, to assume the caliphate.[7] The Qays rallied under the Qurayshite former aide of Mu'awiya I and Yazid, Dahhak ibn Qays al-Fihri, and challenged the Umayyad–Kalb alliance at the Battle of Marj Rahit in 684.[7] Some traditions hold that Zufar himself participated in this battle, but this was dismissed by the historians Ya'qubi and Awana ibn al-Hakam (d. 764);[11] al-Tabari held that Zufar dispatched troops from Qinnasrin to join Dahhak's forces near Damascus.[12]

Upon hearing of the rout of the Qays and the deaths of Dahhak and numerous Qaysi chieftains, Zufar fled Qinnasrin to Qarqisiya.[3][13] The town's governor Iyad al-Jurashi initially refused entry to Zufar, who responded "I promise you on pain of having to divorce my wives and set free my slaves that once I have entered its bath I will leave the town."[13] He subsequently gained entry with his men and ousted Iyad.[13] Qarqisiya was fortified by Zufar and from there he assumed preeminent leadership of the battered, but still powerful, Qaysi tribes, while maintaining his recognition of Ibn al-Zubayr as caliph.[3][13][14]

The Battle of Marj Rahit opened a bloody phase in the previously benign Qays–Yaman rivalry as the Qays sought vengeance for their heavy losses.[15] This phase in the conflict was characterized by tit-for-tat raids known as ayyam (days) because each raid was typically a day long. The dates of these raids were not recorded, but Zufar led the first raid in an attack that killed twenty Kalb tribesmen at a place called Musayyakh in the Syrian Desert soon after setting himself up in Qarqisiya. The Kalb retaliated by killing sixty men from the Banu Numayr sub-tribe of the Banu Amir in Palmyra. This prompted an attack by Zufar at a place called Iklil that ended with the deaths of 500–1,000 Kalb tribesmen and Zufar's escape to Qarqisiya unscathed.[16]

By circa 686, Zufar's participation in the Qaysi–Yamani conflict in the Syrian Desert was highly restricted by the persistent campaigns against his safe haven at Qarqisiya by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705) (see below); Zufar was replaced as the head of the Qaysi vanguard by Umayr ibn al-Hubab of the Banu Sulaym. Umayr's tribesmen had been encroaching on the lands of the Taghlib tribe along the northern Khabur Valley, causing tensions between the two tribes.[17] Violence ensued when a tribesman of the Harish, a branch of the Banu Amir, slaughtered a goat belonging to a Taghlibi, prompting its owner to raid the Harish. The Qays launched a counter-raid, killing three Taghlibis and seizing a number of their camels.[18] 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.[17][18] Zufar accepted the last two demands, but was unable to persuade the Taghlib of the futility of forcing the Sulaym out of the Khabur Valley. 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. Iyas was killed by a Qaysi tribesman, prompting Zufar to pay compensation for his death.[18] While the historian 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,[19] the historian A. A. Dixon held that the Taghlib were already pro-Umayyad and Zufar attempted to enlist their support against the Kalb or at least their neutrality in the conflict.[18]

Zufar failed to stem the tensions between the Sulaym and the Taghlib.[19] In response to the Taghlib's demands to evict the Sulaym, Umayr opposed any peaceful settlement with the tribe and worked to expel them from the area. He obtained a writ from Ibn al-Zubayr's brother and governor in Basra, Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr, to collect the traditional dues owed to the state from the Taghlib, with the condition that it was subject to Zufar's approval. Zufar, seeking to prevent a clash between the Taghlib and Umayr, sent emissaries advising the Taghlib to cooperate and pay the dues to Umayr in the latter's capacity as a representative of the governor of Basra. The Taghlib responded by killing the emissaries, which angered Zufar. He consequently sent Umayr and a Qaysi party against them at Makisin, where a Taghlibi chief and several of his men were slain.[20] 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. The scale of the Taghlibi raid compelled Zufar to directly participate in the Qaysi feud with the tribe, which he had hitherto avoided. He joined Umayr in a retaliatory assault against the tribe at the Tharthar. The Taghlib repulsed Zufar and the Amir, but the Sulaym held firm and defeated the Taghlib.[21]

After several more tit-for-tat raids across eastern Syria and the Jazira, Zufar and Umayr faced the Taghlib at Hashshak near the Tharthar in 689. Zufar retreated on account of the approach of an Umayyad army to Qarqisiya. Umayr remained and was killed. Zufar expressed his grief in verse,[22] and was obliged, as head of the Qays, to avenge his death.[23] Umayr's brother Tamim ibn al-Hubab made a request of Zufar to that effect. He was initially reluctant to act, but was persuaded by his eldest son Hudhayl to attack the Taghlib. He left his brother Aws ibn al-Harith to oversee Qarqisiya, while he and Hudhayl set out against the Taghlib. Ahead of him Zufar sent Muslim ibn Rabi'a, a man of the Banu Uqayl, a branch of the Amir, to ambush a group of Taghlibi tribesmen. Afterward, Muslim assaulted the main body of the Taghlib at al-Aqiq near Mosul. The Taghlib fled toward the Tigris River, but once they reached the village of Kuhayl on the river's western bank, they were ambushed by Zufar. Numerous Taghlibi tribesmen were slain, while more drowned in the Tigris.[24] Zufar executed two hundred Taghlibi captives taken in the raid.[25] 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.[26]

Following his accession to the caliphate in Damascus in the summer of 684, Marwan dispatched the veteran commander and statesman Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad to wrest control of Iraq back from al-Mukhtar, the pro-Alid (supporters of Caliph Ali and his family) ruler of Kufa, and Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr of Basra. On his way to Iraq, Ibn Ziyad campaigned against anti-Umayyad elements in the Jazira, besieging Zufar in Qarqisiya for about a year. Unable to dislodge Zufar, Ibn Ziyad continued on to Iraq where he was defeated and slain by the forces of al-Mukhtar at the Battle of Khazir in 686.[14] Umayr had commanded a brigade in Ibn Ziyad's army but defected during or after the battle.[27] The Qaysi defectors at Khazir were "still smarting from their defeat at Marj Rahit", according to the historian Fred Donner.[28]

Marwan died in the spring of 685 and was succeeded by his son Abd al-Malik, who initially refrained from confronting Zufar while consolidating his position in Syria. After achieving a level of security at home, the caliph instructed his Umayyad kinsman and governor of Jund Hims (military district of Homs), Aban ibn al-Walid ibn Uqba, to move against Zufar. In the ensuing battle at Qarqisiya, Zufar was defeated and one of his sons slain, but he remained in control of Qarqisiya.[29]

In 691, after stamping out a revolt in Damascus by his kinsman al-Ashdaq, Abd al-Malik led his army in person on a campaign to take over Iraq, which by then was controlled solely by the Zubayrids. Before entering Iraq, Abd al-Malik resolved to suppress Zufar and the Qays in the Jazira. He besieged Qarqisiya for the summer of 691. For forty days his catapults bombarded its fortifications followed by an assault by his Kalb-dominated Yamani troops. Zufar and his men repulsed them, prompting Abd al-Malik to work toward a diplomatic resolution.[29]

Abd al-Malik sent one of his top commanders, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, and the prominent theologian Raja ibn Haywa as his envoys to Zufar.[30] Abd al-Malik may have sought to reassure Zufar by his choice of envoys. As a member of the Thaqif tribe, al-Hajjaj was a Qaysi like Zufar, while Raja was affiliated with the Yamani Kinda, with whom Zufar had blood relations.[31] They communicated Abd al-Malik's message to Zufar, namely that he should join the majority of Muslims in recognizing his caliphate, and would be rewarded for his obedience or punished for his recalcitrance. Zufar declined the offer, but his son Hudhayl gave it consideration. 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. Zufar was persuaded by Hudhayl to accept Abd al-Malik's entreaties on the condition that he would not have to join Abd al-Malik's forces and could maintain his oath of allegiance to Ibn al-Zubayr. The Kalb commanders in Abd al-Malik's army were opposed to the negotiations with Zufar. They counseled the caliph to reject Zufar's conditions and continue the assault against Qarqisiya, most of whose fortifications had been destroyed by then. Abd al-Malik accepted their counsel, but remained unable to dislodge Zufar.[32]

By the end of the summer, Zufar and the caliph reconciled. According to the terms of their agreement, safe conduct was granted to Zufar and his partisans, all of whom would be relieved of responsibility for their participation in the revolt, the tribesmen they killed, and the expenses incurred by the Umayyads in relation to the revolt. Zufar promised not to fight Abd al-Malik and instructed Hudhayl to join his army in the Iraqi campaign, while staying out of the campaign himself to avoid violating his oath to Ibn al-Zubayr. Abd al-Malik gave Zufar an unspecified sum of money to distribute among his followers. Consecrating the agreement, Zufar's daughter al-Rabab was wed to Abd al-Malik's son Maslama.[33] Zufar's abandonment of Ibn al-Zubayr's cause in return for a high position in the Umayyad court and army effectively broke the Yamani monopoly on the Syrian army.[34] According to the historian Julius Wellhausen, Zufar and his sons Hudhayl and Kawthar became "amongst the most eminent and notable people at the [Umayyad] court of Damascus".[35] By 692 Ibn al-Zubayr's revolt was suppressed and Zufar's war with the Kalb and Taghlib came to a halt.[36] Information about Zufar's later life is absent in the sources.