The Third Civil War
95
shura
in Islamic history is connected with the murder of the caliph
‘Umar in 644. On his deathbed he is said to have allocated the
choice of his successor to a
shura
and named six leading Muslims to
consult together and make a choice from among themselves
accordingly. It is questionable, though, what exactly later calls for
shura
intended.
But above all Yazid’s religious attitude to power seems to come
from his connections with the Qadariyya or Ghaylaniyya, whose
attitude to the imamate he appears to have accepted. Since, in some
respects, the Qadariyya were forerunners of the later Mu‘tazilite
theological
movement, this probably accounts for the fact that the
latter accepted him as an imam. On his accession in Damascus Yazid
is credited with an introductory
khutba
in which he promised to
avoid various abuses of power, implicitly attributing them to his
predecessors, and concluded by stating that, if he failed to live up to
his promises, his subjects would have the right to depose him if he
did not respond to their calls to change his ways. Furthermore, if
they wished to give allegiance to someone
whom they thought better
fitted for office, Yazid offered to be the first to give him allegiance
and accept his commands. One should not obey a man in opposition
to God; to God alone is complete obedience due. The connection of
this speech with the programme of the Ghaylaniyya is indicated by a
report which says that they held that the imam could be of Quraysh
or any other family, Arab or non-Arab, that he was to owe his office
only to his piety and his acceptance of the Koran and
Sunna,
and that
the community has a duty to struggle against an unrighteous imam.
The list of abuses which Yazid promised
to avoid may give some
idea of the complaints made against the Umayyads by their
opponents. He promised to cut back in building and irrigation
works, perhaps indicating public resentment at the growth of private
estates such as those of Hisham and Khalid al-Qasri; to spend the
revenues raised from a territory only in that territory, perhaps a
reaction to provincial resentment at the drain of resources to Syria;
not to keep the soldiers away for long periods in remote areas,
something which seems to have triggered the earlier revolt of Ibn al-
Ash‘ath;
not to burden the payers of
jizya
so heavily that they were
forced to abandon their lands and be unable to pass it on to their
heirs; to give attention to the complaints of the weak against the
strong; and to pay the stipends (of those enrolled in the
diwan
)
regularly and equally, giving those living near at hand (the Syrians)
no preference over those further away.
96
The Third Civil War
Apart from this proclamation in keeping with the views of the
Ghaylaniyya, Yazid’s caliphate is notable for a marked shift in
favour of the Yemen, so important in bringing him to power. He
removed Yusuf b. ‘Umar al-Thaqafi from office as governor of Iraq
and replaced him with the Kalbi leader Mansur b. Jumhur. After
vainly trying to incite the Qaysis in the
Syrian garrison in Iraq to
resist the new governor, Yusuf b. ‘Umar fled but was found in hiding
in the Jordan area and then thrown into prison in Damascus. Mansur
b. Jumhur appointed his own brother as governor of Khurasan, but
Nasr b. Sayyar refused to accept his deposition from that office and,
as things turned out, was saved by the course of events. Yazid was
either dissatisfied with Mansur b. Jumhur, or changed his mind
about the appointment, for after only two months he replaced him as
governor of Iraq by a son of ‘Umar II, ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Umar. We can
only speculate about the precise reasons for this, but it may be a
further instance of the influence of the
pious opposition on the new
caliph. Then, four months later, after a reign of only six months,
Yazid himself died (September 744).
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