Episode 32: Yazid bin Abdulmalik

Yazid came to power following the transformative reign of the pious Omar II. The new caliph faced some immediate resistance, and after dealing with it he went about undoing all his predecessors reforms, effectively returning the caliphate to what it had been before. While the cracks are too fine to see in this episode, Yazid’s reign will prove to be disastrous for his clan and the caliphate in the long run.

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Glossary

• Atika: Yazid’s mother, and daughter of the umma’s first dynastic caliph, Yazid ibn Mu’awiya. She must have been an influential personage, and it’s a shame we don’t have more about her in our sources. The patriarchal nature of Arab society meant narrations about women were considered private, and sharing them somehow impinged on male honor. So far, most narrations containing women have been about shaming some (overwhelmingly male) party.
• The Muhallabs: the sons and grandsons of al Muhallab ibn Sufra had become a powerful family at the head of an influential tribe playing a leading part in the tribal conflict – which is just a long winded way of saying that they could count on a whole lot of support. They expended all their energy and remaining lifetimes trying to bring down the partisan caliph, and their efforts almost got a fitna going, but all for naught I’m afraid. Their main leader in this episode is their patriarch Yazid ibn il Muhallab, mainly aided by his sons and brothers.
• Hasan al Basri and al Sumayda’: these two holy men were active in Basra around this time, and their religious exhortations are mentioned often in our sources. It’s hard to tell whether they really had an impact on tamping down any fitna or if they get mentioned so much only because the Arabs often looked at the past with admiration for its supposed religious clarity.
• Khalid ibn Abdallah il Qasri: Khalid was a fried of the long-time governor of Iraq, al Hajjaj, who had recommend him as Omar’s replacement for governor of Medina back during al Walid’s time. This closeness to the terrible al Hajjaj of course made him feared in Iraq, and Yazid sent him to the Muhallabs to negotiate an end to their rebellion, to no avail.
• Maslama ibn Abdulmalik: the caliph’s half-brother had been governing the north for a while now, and had strong ties to its Adnani tribes. Despite being older than Yazid he was considered unfit for the position of caliph because his mother was not an Arab, so he instead became a commander of the umma’s armies. Yazid put him in charge of fighting the Muhallabs, a mission he completed successfully. As a reward he was made governor of Iraq and the East, then removed from power after his tax revenue was deemed too low (though some sources offer us more gossipy explanations).
• Abbas ibn il Walid: a son of the ex-caliph Walid ibn Abdulmalik whom Yazid chose to accompany Maslama on his campaign against the Muhallabs. His mother was from a prominent Adnani clan and his choice is consistent with Yazid’s Adnani bias.
• Al Jarrah ibn Abdallah: another of al Hajjaj’s old friends, al Jarrah had governed Basra for the old terror of Iraq back in the early 700’s. After being removed by the solidly Qahtani Suleiman, he was returned to power by this new partisan caliph, and he made a name for himself saving the north of the caliphate from the menacing raids of the Khazars, a turkic people living across the Caucasus mountains.
• Omar ibn Hubayra: a deputy of Maslama’s who was put in charge of Mesopotamia first, and then Iraq when Maslama was removed as governor. He was another in a long line of pro-Adnani governors and leaders empowered by the caliph’s biased administration.
• Sallama and Hababa: Yazid’s two favorite concubines! We get plenty of stories about them in our sources, especially in al Mas’udi’s more fanciful stories. Habbaba seems to have been especially important to our libertine of a caliph, and many accounts insist he died of grief after she choked to death on a grape he was playfully feeding her.