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

Al-Hajjaj in Iraq
Al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf al-Thaqafi, governor of Iraq and the east under
‘Abd al-Malik and al-Walid from 694 to 714, is presented as the
instrument, and to some extent as the instigator, of these
administrative changes. Having come to prominence in the campaigns
against the Zubayrids, when he had commanded the final attack on
Ibn al-Zubayr, he was for a time governor of the Hijaz for ‘Abd al-
Malik before being sent to Iraq. His arrival in Kufa in 694 is marked in
the sources by a famous introductory 
khutba
 in the mosque, often
cited as an example of Arab eloquence and reminiscent of the 
khutba
attributed to his Thaqafi predecessor in Iraq, Ziyad: ‘I see heads which
have become ripe and ready for plucking, and I behold blood between
the turbans and the beards.’
11
Al-Hajjaj’s immediate problem in Iraq was a threat from the
Kharijites, a legacy of the breakdown of order there in the second civil
war, which was made worse by the reluctance of the Iraqi soldiers to
undertake campaigns against them. The threat came from two
directions. In the south and east, threatening Basra, the group known
as the Azariqa had been a danger even during the Zubayrid rule in
Iraq. Al-Muhallab b. Abi Sufra had been entrusted with suppressing
the movement by Mus‘ab b. al-Zubayr, and when Iraq submitted to the
Umayyads he transferred his allegiance too. When al-Hajjaj arrived in
Iraq, al-Muhallab was in the field against the Azariqa but was having
difficulty in holding his army together. Shortly after al-Hajjaj’s
arrival, a second Kharijite outbreak occurred, this time to the north,
and a source of danger to Kufa. The leader of this second rising was
Shabib b. Yazid.
Al-Hajjaj’s harsh policy against those who would not join al-
Muhallab achieved its purpose and the Azariqa were gradually pushed
out of Iraq into the neighbouring Persian provinces and then further
east into the province of Sistan so that by the end of the seventh
century they were no longer a danger for the central authority. The
danger from Shabib was also overcome when, in 697, he and his
followers were defeated and Shabib himself drowned while
attempting to flee over the river Dujayl in Ahwaz.
12
 Victory over
Shabib had only been achieved, though, after troops had been brought
from Syria to Iraq. This was an important new development soon to be
followed elsewhere. It seems that the troops were not sent back when
the Kharijite menace was over but, indeed, were soon reinforced by
further Syrian detachments. Apparently a new way of supporting the

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‘Abd al-Malik and al-Hajjaj 
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authority of the Umayyad governor over the troublesome Iraqi
garrison towns had been introduced.
The transfer of the Syrian forces to Iraq made necessary the
provision of quarters for them, and it was this need which led to the
construction of a new garrison town in Iraq in the early years of the
eighth century. This was the town of Wasit, so called, apparently,
because of its ‘middle’ position between Kufa, Basra and the old
Sasanid capital at Ctesiphon (al-Mada’in). Wasit now became the
Syrian garrison town in Iraq, but, whatever the intentions at the time
of its foundation, it did not displace Kufa and Basra in importance in
other respects and it did not become the regular residence of the
Umayyad governors.
13
As well as bringing in the Syrians, al-Hajjaj had decreased the pay
of the Iraqi soldiers which, we are told, the Zubayrids had raised in an
attempt to secure their loyalty against the Umayyads. This does not
seem to have endeared him to them, and it increased their
unwillingness to participate in campaigns at his command. Right from
the beginning, therefore, al-Hajjaj was faced with a number of
rebellions on the part of the Iraqi soldiers, sometimes even allegedly
in league with the Kharijites. Most of these rebellions were
suppressed without undue difficulty,
14
 but one of them, in the early
years of the eighth century, came close to destroying al-Hajjaj’s
power in Iraq. This was the revolt led by ‘Abd al-Rahman b. al-
Ash‘ath, which is generally dated from about 700 to 703 although
there is some doubt about the precise chronology.
15
Ibn al-Ash‘ath was a descendant of the leading family of the
‘southern’ tribe of Kinda. His grandfather, after resisting the early
Muslims in the Ridda wars which followed the death of Muhammad, had