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Killing of Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr

مقتل عبد الله بن الزبير

c. November 692 CE · Jumada I 73 AH

Mecca

Abd al-Malik sent al-Hajjaj with forty thousand against Ibn al-Zubayr; he besieged him in Mecca for months and cast mangonels at him until his men deserted to al-Hajjaj, who took and killed him and crucified the body — Tuesday, 17 Jumada I or II of year 73. Muhammad ibn Zayd ibn Abdullah ibn Umar was atop Abu Qubays when the mangonel was planted and saw a lightning bolt like a red veil burn some fifty of its crew. Ibn al-Zubayr had been praying within the Hijr while mangonel stones clipped the edge of his garment and he never turned 1.

Depth

At a glance

Era
The Umayyad Period
Region
Arabia
Review
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In time

680690700710 c.
The Umayyad Period

In space

Mecca

Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph

Overview

Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr was killed in Mecca after al-Hajjaj had besieged him for months. He was crucified on Tuesday, seventeen nights into Jumada al-Ula, or as some say al-Akhira, in 73 AH, according to al-Suyuti. 2

The siege

Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan equipped al-Hajjaj with forty thousand men. He besieged Ibn al-Zubayr and bombarded him with catapults, and his companions abandoned him and slipped away to al-Hajjaj. 2

al-Suyuti relates from Muhammad ibn Zayd ibn Abd Allah ibn Umar that a thunderbolt struck the crews of the catapults and burned about fifty men. He relates that Ibn al-Zubayr used to pray in the Hijr while the catapult stone struck the edge of his garment, and he did not turn. 3

His last days

al-Mas'udi says that Urwa ibn al-Zubayr offered him the safe-conduct of Abd al-Malik, and he refused. His mother Asma' bint Abi Bakr said to him: "Die honourably, and beware of being taken captive." When they came in to him in the mosque, one of them called out to him: "O son of the two girdles." 4

The Gregorian date is derived from the Hijri date.

Connections

Explore the connections

Had participant
Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr ibn Abd al-Muttalib· al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf al-Thaqafi· Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan
Occurred at
Mecca

People and things also explored

Abd al-Malik's Coinage Reform· The Battle of Hunayn· The Founding of Wasit· al-Hajjaj's Mint and Coinage· Ibn al-Zubayr's rebuilding of the Ka'ba· Salm ibn Ziyad's Ordeal under Ibn al-Zubayr· Siege of Ibn al-Zubayr in Mecca· Banu Hashim

Sources

  1. Tarikh al-Khulafa — al-Suyuti (Dar al-Minhaj edition) , p. 349-350
  2. Tarikh al-Khulafa — al-Suyuti (Dar al-Minhaj edition) , p. 349
  3. Tarikh al-Khulafa — al-Suyuti (Dar al-Minhaj edition) , p. 350
  4. Muruj al-Dhahab — al-Masʼudi , p. 105
  • Muhammad Qabbani, The Umayyad State from Birth to Fall (Damascus: Dar Wahy al-Qalam, 2006)
  • The Umayyad State — Bakr Muhammad Ibrahim Bakr (1st ed., Markaz al-Raya lil-Nashr wal-I'lam, Cairo 2002)
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Killing of Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/death-of-ibn-al-zubayr/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-22.

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Abd al-Malik's Coinage Reform

Heraclius's dinars and the Persian Baghliyya dirhams reached Jahiliya Mecca and traded only as bullion: their mithqal twenty-two qirats less a fraction, ten dirhams seven mithqals, the ratl twelve uqiyyas of forty dirhams — weights the Prophet confirmed, and Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali, and Mu'awiya after him. Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr struck a few dirhams under Ibn al-Zubayr, later broken; then Abd al-Malik asked and tested, wrote al-Hajjaj to strike dirhams at fifteen qirats of the dinar-qirats, and struck the Damascene dinars — which came to Medina with Companions and Followers there and none objected. Al-Hasan ibn Salih: the Ajam dirhams ran great and small — twenty, twelve, ten qirats — and when Islam needed the mean for zakah they summed forty-two and struck the third, fourteen qirats, so ten Arab dirhams weigh seven mithqals. Quraysh's weights: the dirham for silver, the dinar for gold, ten dirham-weights to seven dinar-weights, the sha'ira a sixtieth of a dirham, the uqiyya forty dirhams, the nashsh twenty, the nawa five — all confirmed when the Prophet entered Mecca. And Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab, asked who first struck engraved dinars, said 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan — dinars came Byzantine, dirhams Kisrawi and few Himyari'.