Abu Hamza al-Mukhtar

Abu Hamza al-Mukhtar ibn Awf al-Azdi al-Salimi[1] was an Ibadi Kharijite rebel leader who seized control of Mecca and Medina during the Ibadi revolt.

Life

Al-Mukhtar hailed from Basra, and according to the history of al-Tabari was an opponent of the Umayyad Caliphate: "He would go each year to Mecca calling on people to oppose [Caliph Marwan II] and the Marwanids".[1] He was a prominent member of the Ibadi Kharijite movement in Basra, headed by Abu Ubayda Muslim ibn Abi Karima, who sent him to Hadramawt, where the qadi Abdallah ibn Yahya al-Kindi was gaining prominence. Al-Mukhtar and other agents were sent to Abdallah to encourage him to revolt against the Umayyads.[2][3]

Abdallah rose in revolt in 746, rapidly seizing control of the Hadramawt and Yemen.[2][4] In mid-747, at the time of the Hajj pilgrimage, Abdallah entrusted al-Mukhtar with some 900–1,000 strong, and sent him to occupy the two Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina.[2][4] Al-Mukhtar seized Mecca in August 747 without a fight,[5] but before Medina was opposed by a local force, which he defeated with great loss of life in October 747.[6]

The expansion of the Ibadi uprising worried the Umayyad caliph Marwan II, who in January 748 Marwan sent his general, Abd al-Malik ibn Atiyya, to suppress it with 4,000 troops. The Umayyad general defeated and killed Abu Hamza before Medina and retook control of the Hejaz.[2][7][8]

References
  1. Williams 1985, p. 53.
  2. Francesca 2004, p. 785.
  3. Williams 1985, p. 53 (note 122).
  4. Landau-Tasseron 2010, pp. 407, 418–419.
  5. Williams 1985, pp. 90–91.
  6. Williams 1985, pp. 112–118.
  7. Landau-Tasseron 2010, p. 419.
  8. Williams 1985, pp. 118–120.

Sources
  • Francesca, Ersilia (2004). "Ṭālib al-Ḥaḳḳ". In Bearman, P. J.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E. & Heinrichs, W. P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam. Volume XII: Supplement (2nd ed.). Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 785–786. ISBN 978-90-04-13974-9.
  • Landau-Tasseron, Ella (2010). "Arabia". In Robinson, Chase F. (ed.). The New Cambridge History of Islam, Volume 1: The Formation of the Islamic World, Sixth to Eleventh Centuries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 397–447. ISBN 978-0-521-83823-8.
  • Williams, John Alden, ed. (1985). The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XXVII: The ʿAbbāsid Revolution, A.D. 743–750/A.H. 126–132. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-87395-884-4.
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