al-Dahhak ibn Qays al-Shaybani al-Khariji

الضحاك بن قيس الشيباني الخارجي

Leader of the Kharijites in the strife at the end of the Umayyad dynasty. He rose in al-Jazira and prevailed there, took Mosul, then in Dhu al-Qa'da 127 marched into Iraq. Abd Allah ibn Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, Marwan's governor, made terms with him: Kufa and its countryside, and what he had taken, were to be his, while Ibn Umar was to hold Wasit, Maysan, Tustar, Maysan again, Kur al-Jadda, al-Ahwaz and Fars. He set Mulhan al-Shaybani, and then al-Muthanna ibn Imran al-A'idhi, over Kufa, and gathered hosts such as the Kharijites had never assembled before, said to have reached 120,000 ¹.