Salm ibn Ziyad's Ordeal under Ibn al-Zubayr

محنة سلم بن زياد مع ابن الزبير

At Yazid's death the people turned on Salm — 'ill did Ibn Sumayya think to command us in community and strife', as had been said to his brother Ubaydallah at Basra — and he left Khurasan to Ibn al-Zubayr, who fined him four million dirhams and imprisoned him. Salm would say 'would I had gone to Syria and stayed in my brother Ubaydallah's service — washing his foot — rather than come to Ibn al-Zubayr'. At Mecca until al-Hajjaj's siege, he tunneled from prison to al-Hajjaj, then Abd al-Malik — 'by God, had you stayed at Mecca she would have no governor but you' — who gave him Khurasan; reaching Basra, he died there.

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The Umayyad Period
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Sallam ibn Ziyad· Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr ibn Abd al-Muttalib· الحجاج بن يوسف الثقفي

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مقتل عبد الله بن الزبير· Abd al-Malik's Coinage Reform· The Sibayn Reclamation and Maslama's Estates· The Arabization of Iraq's Kharaj Diwan· The Battle of Ajnadayn· The Battle of Hunayn· البيعة ليزيد بولاية العهد· The Basra Dar al-Imara Saga

Sources

  • Futuh al-Buldan — al-Baladhuri (Mu'assasat al-Ma'arif edition)
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islam.museum contributors. “Salm ibn Ziyad's Ordeal under Ibn al-Zubayr”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/salm-ibn-zubayr-ordeal/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Accessed 2026-10-13.

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مقتل عبد الله بن الزبير

Abd al-Malik sent al-Hajjaj with forty thousand against Ibn al-Zubayr; he besieged him in Mecca for months and cast mangonels at him until his men deserted to al-Hajjaj, who took and killed him and crucified the body — Tuesday, 17 Jumada I or II of year 73. Muhammad ibn Zayd ibn Abdullah ibn Umar was atop Abu Qubays when the mangonel was planted and saw a lightning bolt like a red veil burn some fifty of its crew. Ibn al-Zubayr had been praying within the Hijr while mangonel stones clipped the edge of his garment and he never turned {cite:tarikh-khulafa-minhaj-1434 p. 349-350}.