page_title: Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath
section_title: Al-Hajjaj's appointment to Iraq
hierarchical_section_title: Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath / Life / Al-Hajjaj's appointment to Iraq
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the Umayyad Caliphate in 750 CE.
context_page_description: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ashʿath, commonly known as Ibn al-Ashʿath after his grandfather was son of the nephew of the first Rashidun Caliph Abu Bakr, Muhammad ibn al-Ashath. He was a distinguished Arab nobleman and general under the early Umayyad Caliphate, most notable for leading a failed rebellion against the Umayyad viceroy of the east, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, in 700–703.
  The scion of a distinguished family of the Kindaite tribal nobility, he played a minor role in the Second Fitna and then served as governor of Rayy. Al-Hajjaj was appointed governor of Iraq after he had killed Abdullah ibn Zubayr, the grandson of Abu Bakr, and restored Umayyad rule in Makkah. After the appointment of al-Hajjaj as governor of Iraq and the eastern provinces of the Caliphate in 694, relations between the haughty and overbearing al-Hajjaj and the Iraqi nobility quickly became strained. Nevertheless, in 699 or 700, al-Hajjaj appointed Ibn al-Ash'ath as commander of a huge Iraqi army, the so-called "Peacock Army", to subdue the troublesome principality of Zabulistan, whose ruler, the Zunbīl, vigorously resisted Arab expansion.
context_section_description: In 694, Abd al-Malik appointed the trusted and capable al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf as the new governor of Iraq, a crucial post given the restiveness of the region towards Umayyad rule. In 697, his remit was expanded to cover the entirety of the eastern Caliphate, including Khurasan and Sistan.
  In 695, al-Hajjaj entrusted Ibn al-Ash'ath with 6,000 horsemen and the campaign against the Kharijite rebels under Shabib ibn Yazid al-Shaybani. Although not large, this group benefited from Shabib's tactical skill and inflicted a number of defeats on Umayyad forces. Advised by the general al-Jazl Uthman ibn Sa'id, Ibn al-Ash'ath pursued the Kharijites but displayed great caution in order to avoid falling into a trap. As a result, the governor of al-Mada'in, Uthman ibn Qatan, wrote to al-Hajjaj criticizing Ibn al-Ash'ath's leadership. Al-Hajjaj responded by giving command to Uthman, but when the latter attacked Shabib, the Umayyad army suffered a heavy defeat, losing around 900 men and fleeing to Kufa; Uthman himself was killed, while Ibn al-Ash'ath, who lost his horse, managed to escape with the help of a friend and reached Kufa after an eventful journey. There he remained in hiding until al-Hajjaj granted him pardon.
  Despite this setback, relations between Ibn al-Ash'ath and al-Hajjaj were initially friendly, and al-Hajjaj's son married one of Ibn al-Ash'ath's sisters. Gradually, however, the two men became estranged. The sources attribute this to Ibn al-Ash'ath's overweening pride as one of the foremost of the ashrāf, the tribal nobility, and his aspirations to leadership: al-Mas'udi records that he adopted the title of Nāṣir al-muʾminīn ("Helper of the Faithful"), an implicit challenge to the Umayyads, who were implied to be false believers. In addition, he claimed to be the Qaḥṭānī, a messianic figure in South Arab ("Yamani") tribal tradition who was expected to raise them to domination. Ibn al-Ash'ath's pretensions irked al-Hajjaj, whose hostile remarks—such as "Look how he walks! How I should like to cut off his head!"—were conveyed to Ibn al-Ash'ath and served to deepen their hostility to outright mutual hatred. According to Laura Veccia Vaglieri, however, these reports are more indicative of the Arabic sources' tendency to "explain historical events by incidents relating to persons", rather than the actual relationship between the two men, especially given the fact that Ibn al-Ash'ath faithfully served al-Hajjaj in a number of posts, culminating in his appointment to lead the "Peacock Army". Nevertheless, it is clear that al-Hajjaj quickly became unpopular among the Iraqis in general through a series of measures that, according to Hugh N. Kennedy, "[seem] almost to have goaded the Iraqis into rebellion", such as the introduction of Syrian troops—the mainstay of the Umayyad dynasty—into Iraq, the use of Iraqi troops in the arduous and unrewarding campaigns against the Kharijites, and the reduction of the Iraqi troops' pay to a level below that of the Syrian troops.
caption: The expansion of the Muslim Caliphate until 750, from William R. Shepherd's Historical Atlas.
    Muslim state at the death of Muhammad   Expansion under the Rashidun Caliphate   Expansion under the Umayyad Caliphate   Byzantine Empire
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