The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate ad 661-750

particular, is associated in tradition with the suppression of
Husayn’s movement, although the bloodshed is often ascribed to
others. The date of the fight at Karbala’ was, according to the
Muslim 
hijri
 calendar, 10 Muharram 61 (10 October 680).
8
The event has attained a mythic quality in Muslim, and especially
Shi‘ite, tradition. For the Shi‘a Karbala’ is the supreme example of
the pattern of suffering and martyrdom which has afflicted their
imams and the whole of the Shi‘ite community. Each year the day of
Karbala’, 10 Muharram, is marked by Shi‘ites as their greatest
festival, and the passion plays and flagellants’ processions which
accompany it illustrate the feeling which memory of the event
inspires. It is only to be expected, therefore, that it is virtually
impossible to disentangle history from the legend and hagiography
with which it is associated. Even Sunni Muslims are moved by the
fate of the Prophet’s grandson.
9
 It seems unlikely that at the time
itself the affair had very much importance for the Umayyads.
Husayn’s force had been small and was suppressed with relative
ease. If there was a worry, it was more on account of the
disturbances which had occurred in Kufa prior to the arrival of
Husayn in Iraq, disturbances which had caused ‘Ubayd Allah b.
Ziyad to be shut up in the citadel of Kufa for a while, and which
illustrated the continuing instability and sympathy for the ‘Alids in
this important garrison town. It is, therefore, in the long run, in its
emotive and mythological significance, that Karbala’ is really
important. In a negative way, however, it also had some importance:
it meant that when Umayyad authority faltered after the death of

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The Second Civil War 
51
Yazid, the descendants of ‘Ali and Fatima, many of whom had died
along with Husayn, were in no position to take advantage of the
situation.
There was, however, another line of descent from ‘Ali, and it was
on behalf of a representative of this line that the second major ‘Alid
movement of the second civil war developed. This was the revolt led
by Mukhtar (a Thaqafi) on behalf of Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya,
son of ‘Ali by a wife known as the Hanafi woman. This revolt, also
centred on Kufa, occurred between 685 and 687. By this time Iraq
had come under the authority of Ibn al-Zubayr and the revolt of
Mukhtar was directed in the first instance against the Zubayrids
rather than the Umayyads. Mukhtar himself is portrayed as an
ambitious adventurer (the sources are all hostile to him) who was
able to take advantage of the conditions in Kufa following the death
of Husayn to establish a temporary supremacy there and in the
territories dependent upon it. His revolt was preceded by a
movement known as that of the Penitents 
(al-tawwabun),
 Kufans
who, aroused by feelings of guilt over their lack of support for
Husayn, sacrificed themselves in a futile battle against the
Umayyads in Mesopotamia. How far Mukhtar really had the support
of the man in whose name he claimed to be acting, Muhammad b. al-
Hanafiyya, is questionable, but he seems to have been able to
persuade many Kufans that he was his agent. Mukhtar’s movement
is interesting and important in a number of ways.
In the first place, this is the first time that the 
mawali
 are shown to
play a significant part in events. In modern writing on the Umayyad
period the relative importance of Arabs and 
mawali
 in certain
episodes has become a topic of debate and argument. Older writers
may have overemphasised the role of the 
mawali
 and in reaction
some more modern writers have stressed the importance, indeed the
leading role, of the Arabs. Nevertheless, nearly all the sources, and
in particular a contemporary non-Muslim source, agree that non-
Arabs were prominent and numerous among the supporters of
Mukhtar. Indeed, Mukhtar formed a personal bodyguard