Third Islamic Civil War
| Third Fitna | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Fitnas | ||||||||
|
||||||||
| Belligerents | ||||||||
| pro-Qays Umayyads | pro-Yaman Umayyads |
anti-Umayyad forces:
|
||||||
| Commanders and leaders | ||||||||
|
Walid II † Marwan II Abu al-Ward Nasr ibn Sayyar |
Yazid III Sulayman ibn Hisham Yazid ibn Khalid al-Qasri |
Abdallah ibn Mu'awiya al-Dahhak ibn Qays al-Shaybani † Hafs ibn al-Walid ibn Yusuf al-Hadrami Abu Muslim |
||||||
anti-Umayyad forces:
The Third Fitna (Arabic: الفتنة الثاﻟﺜـة; al-Fitna al-thālitha), was a series of civil wars and uprisings against the Umayyad Caliphate beginning with the overthrow of Caliph al-Walid II in 744 and ending with the victory of Marwan II over the various rebels and rivals for the caliphate in 747. However, Umayyad authority under Marwan II was never fully restored, and the civil war flowed into the Abbasid Revolution (746–750) which culminated in the overthrow of the Umayyads and the establishment of the Abbasid Caliphate in 749/50. Thus a clear chronological delimitation of this conflict is not possible.
The civil war began with the overthrow of al-Walid II (743–744), the son of Yazid II (r. 720–724). Al-Walid had been designated by his father as the successor of his brother Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 724–743), and although his accession had initially been well received due to Hisham's unpopularity and his decision to increase army pay, the mood quickly changed. Al-Walid is reported to have been more interested in earthly pleasures than in religion, a reputation that may be confirmed by the decoration of the so-called "desert palaces" (including Qusayr Amra and Khirbat al-Mafjar) that have been attributed to him. His accession was resented by some members of the Umayyad family itself, and this hostility deepened when al-Walid designated his two underage sons as his heirs and flogged and imprisoned his cousin, Sulayman ibn Hisham. Further opposition arose through his persecution of the Qadariyya sect, and through his implication in the ever-present rivalry between the northern (Qaysi and Mudari) and southern (Kalbi and Yemeni) Arab tribes. Like his father, al-Walid was seen as pro-Qays, especially following his appointment of Yusuf ibn Umar al-Thaqafi as governor of Iraq, and the torture and death of Yusuf's Yemeni predecessor, Khalid al-Qasri. It must be noted though that adherence was not clear cut, and men from both sides of the divide joined the other.
...
Wikipedia