زيد بن علي بن الحسين

Zayd ibn Ali ibn al-Husayn rose in the year 121 AH. Before that he used to dispute with the Banu al-Hasan before Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik. He was killed in the year 122 AH ^{1 2}.

al-Mas'udi reports that he consulted his brother Abu Ja'far, who advised him not to rely on the people of Kufa, because his grandfather Ali had been killed there, his uncle al-Hasan had been stabbed there, and his father al-Husayn had been killed there. He refused and insisted on demanding his right. Then he rose in Kufa, and Yusuf ibn Umar al-Thaqafi fought him. An arrow struck him in the forehead and he died, and they buried him in a water-channel. al-Mas'udi gives the year 121 AH, or it is said 122 AH ³.

al-Salabi's book reports that a group of the people of Kufa broke their allegiance when a group of his followers reviled Abu Bakr and Umar, and he rejected them. Yusuf ibn Umar took out his body after his killing, and crucified it naked by Hisham's order. His son Yahya fled to Khurasan and declared revolt there ⁴.

According to al-Shahrastani and others, Zayd was the pupil of Wasil ibn Ata, head of the Mu'tazila. Ahmad Amin builds on this that the Shi'a took from the Mu'tazila, although some Shi'a claim that Wasil was a pupil of Ja'far al-Sadiq. Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani reports that Ja'far ibn Muhammad used to hold the stirrup for Zayd ⁵.