Yahya ibn Zayd

Yahya ibn Zayd (يحيى بن زيد; 725/6–743) was the eldest son of Zayd ibn Ali, the founder of the Zaydi movement. He participated in the unsuccessful revolt against the Umayyad Caliphate launched by his father in 739/40, and escaped to Khurasan, where he tried with limited success to gain support for another rebellion. In 743 he was tracked down and finally killed by forces of the Umayyad governor, Nasr ibn Sayyar.

Biography
Yahya was the oldest son of Zayd ibn Ali, a grandson of Husayn ibn Ali and thus great-great-grandson of Muhammad. His mother was Rayta, a daughter of Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya. In 739/40 Yahya joined his father's uprising against the Umayyad Caliphate in Kufa. The revolt was swiftly crushed, however, by the Umayyad governor of Iraq, Yusuf ibn Umar al-Thaqafi, and Zayd was killed. Fleeing the pursuit of al-Thaqafi, he initially found refuge at Qasr Ibn Hubayra, where he was sheltered by a member of the Umayyad dynasty, Abd al-Malik ibn Bishr ibn Marwan.

After a while, Yahya resolved to move to the eastern province of Khurasan. At Mada'in he was identified by agents of al-Thaqafi, who resumed the pursuit, but Yahya was able to elude them and reach Sarakhs in Khurasan. Khurasan was well known for the grievances of the local Muslim population, which was large and heavily militarized, against the Umayyad government in Damascus; the province was the site of major clandestine pro-Shi'a activity in the form of the Hashimiyya movement, that would birth the Abbasid Revolution that overthrew the Umayyads a few years later. Yahya evidently hoped to find support there, but this was not to be. The leader of the local Hashimiyya, Bukayr ibn Mahan, even instructed his followers not to support an uprising by Yahya, as the hidden imam of the movement had foreseen its failure and Yahya's death.

At Sarakhs, Yahya was sheltered by the pro-Shi'a partisan Yazid ibn Umar al-Taymi. During his half-year stay there, Yahya tried to gather support for another uprising, but the only ones to respond favourably were some Kharijites, whose offer he rejected on the advice of Yazid. Yahya and Yazid then went on to Balkh, from where Yahya sent an appeal to the Hashimites, the tribe of Muhammad, at Medina, castigating them for not avenging the death of his father.

In 743, the hiding place of Yahya was betrayed to al-Thaqafi, who instructed the governor of Khurasan, Nasr ibn Sayyar, to capture him. Nasr's subgovernor at Balkh, Aqul ibn Ma'qil al-Laythi, imprisoned al-Harish ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Shaybani, who had been revealed as sheltering Yahya and his followers, and tortured him to reveal his guests' whereabouts; fearing for his father's life, Harish's son betrayed them to the authorities. Yahya and his companions were brought to Nasr at Merv, but on orders from caliph al-Walid II, Nasr ordered them released. The Umayyad governor gave Yahya money and two mules and instructed him to go straight to Damascus to the caliph's court, without lingering on the way; but when Yahya reached the boundary of Khurasan at Bayhaq, he turned back, afraid of crossing into the province of his sworn enemy al-Thaqafi. This was an act of rebellion, and Umayyad troops began to move against him and his seventy followers. Yahya scored a first victory over the much more numerous Umayyads at Bushtaniqan, in which the governor of Nishapur, Amr ibn Zurara al-Qushayri, was killed.

After the battle, Yahya moved to Herat and Guzgan, the numbers of his followers rising to 150 along the way, but still far inferior to the forces mobilized against him by Nasr. The Umayyad army, commanded by Salm ibn Ahwaz al-Mazini, caught up with Yahya at the village of Arghuya. After a three-day combat, the rebels were defeated; most of them were killed, as was Yahya, who was hit by an arrow in the head. Yahya's head was cut off and sent to Damascus, where it was publicly exhibited, while his body was crucified at the gates of the provincial capital, Anbar.

Legacy
Yahya's death shocked the Shi'a partisans in Khurasan, and the cry for revenge was a major motive for the Hahsimiyya during the Abbasid Revolution, partly in atonement for their failure to support him. The death of Yahya and his father, which eliminated two of the most prominent candidates of the anti-Umayyad Alid legitimist cause, likely accelerated the turn of the Khurasan Hashimiyya, which had been operating semi-independently until then on behalf of the Alids in general, towards accepting the leadership of the Abbasids. The Abbasids and their agents in Khurasan were certainly aware of the grief caused by Yahya's death and sought to exploit it; even the adoption of black as the colour of the Abbasids and their followers was attributed, in one tradition, to a sign of mourning for Yahya's death. Likewise, after the initial success of the Abbasid Revolution in Khurasan its military commander, Abu Muslim, ordered the execution of all persons involved in Yahya's death, while Yahya's body was recovered from the cross and given a proper burial at Anbar. His tomb later became a popular site of pilgrimage. Yahya came to be regarded as an imam by the Zaydi Shi'a, and imamzadeh shrines are devoted to his memory in some Iranian cities, including Gonbad-e Kavus, Gorgan, Meyami, Sabzevar, Sarpol and Varamin.