Zaydi revolt

The Zaidi revolt was a failed rebellion led by Zayd ibn Ali in 740 against the Umayyad dynasty, who had taken over the Islamic Caliphate since the death of his great-grandfather, Ali.

Unlike his brother, Muhammad al-Baqir, the fifth Imam of the Twelver Shi'as, Imam Zayd believed the time was ripe for renewing the rebellion against the Umayyad Caliphs in support of the claims of his own Hashemite clan. It is here where many parallels with the life of his more famous grandfather, Husayn, begin.

Zayd began seeking followers for his revolt, and found support among the people of Kufa in Iraq. Kufa had previously been the capital of his great-grandfather Ali, and the place where his grandfather Husayn also sought support for his own rebellion in 680. Zayd moved to Kufa and spent more than a year among the Arab tribes in the region, gathering further support. The Umayyad governor of Kufa, however, learned of the plot, and commanded the people to gather at the great mosque, locked them inside and began a search for Zayd. Zayd with some troops fought his way to the mosque and called on people to come out.

However, in events that echoed Husayn's own abandonment by the Kufans decades earlier, the bulk of Zayd's supporters deserted him and joined the Umayyads, leaving Zayd with only a few dozen outnumbered followers. Accounts differ slightly on the circumstances of the desertion. Sunni sources attribute the desertion to Zayd's refusal to speak ill of the first two Caliphs, Abu Bakr and Umar, who most Shi'a don't follow and instead force their own point of view opposing their own Imams. Zaydi sources on the other hand attribute it to Zayd's refusal to acknowledge the authority of his nephew, Ja'far al-Sadiq (the sixth Imam according to the Twelver Shi'ites). In both accounts, Zayd bitterly scolds the "rejectors" (Rāfiḍah) who desert him, an appellation used by some Sunnis to describe non-Zaydi Shi'ites to this day.

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Wikipedia