# The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall/Chapter 58

CHAPTER LVIII
THE ARAB TRIBAL FEUDS IN KHORĀSĀN
64–130 A.H. 684–747 A.D.
The rival tribes.The overthrow of the Umeiyad Dynasty was brought about by a rising of the Persian Shīʿa in Khorāsān, which was itself colonised from Al-Baṣra. In Al-Kūfa the people were split up, not into tribal divisions, but into political or religious parties. In Al-Baṣra tribal jealousy flourished almost as in pre-Islamic times, only the tribes acted, not singly, but in groups. The most important group consisted of Temīm allied to the Ribāb (sons of ʿAbd-Menāt, with Ḍabba), under whose protection were many Persians and Indians. Opposed to Temīm stood Rabīʿa. The ʿAbd el-Ḳeis went with Bekr in Al-Baṣra. The Yemeni tribes were represented by the Azd in Al-Basra, in Al-Kūfa by Madhhij, Hamdān, and Kinda. The Azd came late upon the scene, but took front rank through Al-Muhallab and his sons. They were taken up by Rabīʿa, whilst Temīm joined with Ḳeis.
Power of the Azd.Ziyād, Muʿāwiya's stadtholder of Al-Baṣra, had found his chief supporters among the Azd, and ever after bore a kindly feeling towards them. On the death of Yezīd I., it was a Temīmite who proclaimed Ibn az-Zubeir, and ʿObeidallah, Ziyād's son, now governor of Al-ʿIrāḳ, threw himself into the arms of the Azd, but thought it prudent to retire. In his absence tumult arose. Bekr now renewed their alliance with the Azd against Temīm, and took possession of the Mosque, from which, however, they were quickly expelled by Temīm, and the Azdite chief killed (x. 64 A.H., May, 684 A.D.).
Position in Baṣra.The tribes resident in Al-Baṣra were now divided into two hostile armies, on the one side the Azd with Rabīʿa (Bekr and ʿAbd el-Ḳeis), on the other Temīm with the ​Ribāb and Ḥanẓala. Through the generous action of Temīm no blood was shed, and the collective tribes chose an Amīr, until Ibn az-Zubeir should’send them a governor, which he did three months later. The feud passed, but the rivalry remained; and under Al-Muhallab Temīm resented being made second to the Azd. A wholesome fear of the Khawārij also helped to keep things quiet.
Position in Kohrāsān.In Khorāsān the Arabs were opposed by Turks and Persians, but this did not prevent them from fighting amongst themselves. The country was too like their old home, and Temīm especially kept up the old traditions.
Khorāsān was conquered under ʿOthmān by Arabs of Al-Baṣra, and it remained a colony of that city, whose governor generally regarded the governor of Khorāsān as his lieutenant. The western part of the country came to be occupied by Ḳeis, the eastern by Bekr and Temīm. The western capital was Nīsābūr, the eastern Merv. Sijistān to the south went along with it, and both were under Al-Baṣra. Ziyād and his sons ruled them for long. It was in Sijistān that the feud between Rabīʿa (Bekr) and Moḍar (Temīm) broke out afresh over the choice of an Amīr. It spread to Khorāsān where Al-Muhallab had been left in charge. His tribe, the Azd, were not strong in Khorāsān, however, and the other chiefs deprived him of one part of his province after another. Temīm supported ʿAbdallah ibn Khāzim, who was not one of them, but of Suleim, another Moḍar tribe, and opposed to Bekr. Ibn Khāzim drove Bekr out of Khorāsān into Sijistān. This was in the year 684 A.D. (64–65 A.H.), and was simultaneous with the feud between Kelb and Ḳeis in the west. Ibn Khāzim tried to prevent Temīm settling in Herāt, so they waged a guerilla warfare upon him until he perished. But immediately the clans of Temīm began to fight amongst themselves, until the Khorāsān Arabs, foreseeing that these incessant feuds would end in their ruin, begged ʿAbd al-Melik to send them a governor who would stand above party strife. He sent them a Ḳoreishite of the house of Umeiya, "a jovial and generous man," but no soldier. ​But it was not till the year 700 A.D. (81 A.H.) that the feud ceased, and even then Mūsa the son of Ibn Khāzim was still independent beyond the Oxus.
Result of feuds.The result of these intertribal wars was that not only was the territory beyond the Oxus lost, but the Turkish tribes began to raid Khorāsān as far as Nīsābūr. ʿAbd al-Melik's Ḳoreishite stadtholder had resumed the offensive, but with such disastrous results that he abdicated (78 A.H. 697 A.D.). In his place Al-Ḥajjāj named Al-Muhallab, who had fought so bravely against the Khawārij. He did not effect anything; but he brought his tribe the Azd to Khorāsān. These joined themselves here as in Al-Baṣra to Rabīʿa (Bekr), to the loss of Moḍar (Temīm and Ḳeis), Al-Muhallab was succeeded by his son Yezīd, who resented being under the Ḳeisite Al-Ḥajjāj, and befriended the Yemeni fugitives from Al-Ashʿath's rebellion. His half-brother Al-Mufaḍḍal was then put in his place, since Al-Ḥajjāj dared not appoint a Ḳeisite as long as the Ḳeisite Mūsa remained independent beyond the Oxus; since corbies do not peck out corbies' e'en, Al-Mufaḍḍal foolishly "sawed off the branch on which he sat." As soon as Mūsa was put out of the way he and his brothers lost their posts, and the Azd and Bekr their supremacy. His successor Ḳoteiba, being of a neutral and insignificant tribe, was entirely dependent on the government, and so sided with Ḳeis. The Azd hated him for his treatment of the sons of Al-Muhallab. When Ḳoteiba's turn came, they with Rabīʿa plotted his overthrow in secret, for, had they done so openly, Temīm would have taken his part. These, however, he had estranged by his conduct to their leaders, and their chief headed the mutiny. The Persian Mawāli, who formed a corps by themselves in the Muslim army, were devoted to him, but they could be brought round, It was an Azdite who despatched him.
Under the later Umeiyads.The fate of Ḳoteiba, like that of ʿObeidallah, shows that with the Arabs the man apart from the tribe is nothing. The Persians took the opposite view, and in this case they were right; for the fall of Ḳoteiba meant the fall of the Arab dominion in the lands which he had won for them. With the arrival of Yezīd, son of Al-Muhallab, in Khorāsān in the year 98 A.H., the Azd recovered the hegemony there; but with his deposition by ʿOmar II., a condition of ​equilibrium supervened. Then with the fall of the Muhallabīs under Yezīd II., all Azdi officials were dismissed and their chiefs reviled. Bāhila, Ḳoteiba's clan, had their revenge. Moḍar, with Temīm at their head, returned to power. The stadtholders were, however, generally of Ḳeis. Even these had feuds amongst themselves, chiefly over money matters, In the spring of the year 105 A.H. (724 A.D.), the governor sent an expedition against Ferghāna; but the Azd and Rabīʿa mutinied under Ḳoteiba's brother ʿAmr. Hishām removed the Ḳeisite governor of Al-ʿIrāḳ, Ibn Hubeira, to make way for Khālid ibn ʿAbdallah of Bajīla, a tribe closely related to the Azd; and Asad, a young brother of the latter, became governor of Khorāsān. Bajīla was, however, a neutral tribe. Asad was superseded in 109 A.H. by a Ḳeisite. The unjust treatment of the Soghdians had effects outside of that country. Al-Ḥārith ibn Sureij took up the rights of the Persian Mawāli to exemption from taxation and a share in the pensions, as Abuʾṣ-Ṣaidā had done before him, and many of the Azd and Temīm gathered to his black standard. When Asad returned to Khorāsān in 177 A.H. (735 A.D.) he freed the imprisoned officials of Al-Juneid, though Ḳeisites opposed to himself, and adopted a neutral policy. The fall of Khālid hastened that of the Umeiyad dynasty. His successor Yūsuf was an out-and-out Ḳeisite of the family of Al-Ḥajjāj, and he would have named a lieutenant like himself for Khorāsān, had not the Caliph Hishām nominated the Kinānite Naṣr—one of the few old men who play a part in these fierce times. Like Ḳoteiba he had no powerful tribe at his back, and so was dependent on the Caliph. His officials were, however, mostly of Temīm, to which tribe Kināna is related.
Al-Welīd II. ruled in the Ḳeis interest. Naṣr did not recognise his murderer and successor Yezīd III., but asked to be recognised as Amīr of Khorāsān until the civil war should end. To that even the Azd and Rabīʿa agreed. Yet Naṣr continued to hold the balance even between both parties. But Yezīd III. had been placed on the throne by the Yemen, and the Azd and Rabīʿa were not long in finding an excuse for mutiny. Under Al-Kirmāni they raised the cry of vengeance upon the Umeiyads for their treatment of the family of Al-Muhallab. Naṣr now unwisely invited Al-Ḥārith ibn Sureij from his exile among the Turks, and he, ​arriving in Merv in July, 745 A.D. (ix. 127 A.H.), was joined by some thousands of his own tribe of Temīm. Naṣr was obliged to retire to Nīsābūr, the chief town of Ḳeis, and left Merv to Al-Ḥārith and Al-Kirmāni. Quarrels, however. broke out, and the Azd vanquished Temīm in April, 746 A.D. (vii. 128 A.H.). Al-Ḥārith was slain. He was the forerunner of Abu Muslim, and did more than anyone else to overthrow the sway of the Umeiyads and the Arabs. In the following year Naṣr, now eighty years of age, set out with all his forces to recover Merv from Al-Kirmāni; but Abu Muslim and the Shīʿi supporters of the ʿAbbāsid cause, mostly Persians, were encamped not far from the town. Dread of a common enemy drew the Arabs together for once. The Azd and Temīm, the Yemen and Moḍar were at last at one, and Naṣr entered Merv at the end of the year 129 A.H. (August, 747 A.D.). Abu Muslim was in a critical position, but he succeeded in bringing over the Azd to his side, and entered Merv in December, 747 A.D. (iv. 130 A.H.). Naṣr fled to Nīsābūr. The Umeiyad cause was lost in Khorāsān.