2020-08-18 Tue

Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr was the leader of a rebellion against the Umayyad dynasty in the early Islamic period and the most prominent representative of the second generation of Muslim families in Mecca.

Abd Allah Ibn Al-Zubayr was born in the Hejaz in 624 to Al-Zubayr Ibn Al-Awwam and Asma Bint Abi Bakr. He belonged to the Banu Asad clan of the Quraysh, the dominant tribe of Mecca, a trade center in the Hejaz and location of the Ka'aba, the holiest sanctuary in Islam. As a youth, Ibn al-Zubayr went on many of the military campaigns that marked the initial expansion of Islam. In 651 he was nominated by the caliph ?Uthman to aid in compiling an official recension of the Quran.

He participated in the early Muslim conquests alongside his father in Syria and Egypt, and later played a role in the Muslim conquests of North Africa and northern Iran in 647 and 650, respectively. During the First Muslim Civil War, he fought on the side of his aunt Aisha against Caliph Ali.

The above shown Sasanian-style silver Drachm minted in the name of Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr in Darabjird in 690/91. He was the second individual to issue coins declaring himself “Commander of the Believers”.

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