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In 81 AH people gathered to Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath to depose al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, and he was the first to declare it. One of them said that if al-Hajjaj was deposed, then Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, who had appointed him, was deposed too. 1 The heading of the report in the index of the sixth volume is "The dissent of Ibn al-Ash'ath against al-Hajjaj". 2
Al-Mas'udi's account
Al-Mas'udi says that al-Hajjaj appointed Ibn al-Ash'ath over Sistan, Bust and al-Rukhkh, and he fought the Turks there and their neighbours among the kings of India, such as Rutbil. Then he threw off al-Hajjaj's obedience. Abd al-Malik wrote to him in harsh words denying this. 3
The army of the peacocks
A book included among the sources says that the army of the peacocks was prepared in 80 AH at the direction of al-Hajjaj, and reached about forty thousand: twenty thousand from Kufa and as many from Basra. The expenditure on it reached two million dirhams apart from the stipends, and Ibn al-Ash'ath was chosen as its commander. 4
Sources
- Tarikh al-Rusul wa'l-Muluk — al-Tabari (ed. Abu al-Fadl Ibrahim) , j.6 p.338
- Tarikh al-Rusul wa'l-Muluk — al-Tabari (ed. Abu al-Fadl Ibrahim) , j.6 p.628
- Muruj al-Dhahab — al-Masʼudi , p. 122-123
- The Umayyad State: Factors of Prosperity and Consequences of Collapse — Ali Muhammad al-Sallabi (Part Two, 2005) , p.88
- 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. “The revolt of Ibn al-Ash'ath against al-Hajjaj”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/revolt-of-ibn-al-ashath/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-22.