Yazid ibn al-Muhallab

Yazid ibn al-Muhallab al-Azdi (Arabic: يزيد بن المهلب, romanized: Yazīd ibn al-Muhallab al-Azdī; 672/673–24 August 720) was a commander and statesman for the Umayyad Caliphate in Iraq and Khurasan in the early 8th century. In 720, he led the last of a series of wide scale Iraqi rebellions against the Umayyads.

He succeeded his father, the prominent general al-Muhallab ibn Abi Sufra, as governor of Khurasan, in 702. In 704, Yazid was dismissed and imprisoned by the Umayyad viceroy al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. He escaped in c. 708–709 and gained asylum with the Umayyad prince Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik in Palestine.^[1] When Sulayman acceded as caliph in 715, he appointed Yazid governor of Iraq. His authority was limited to military and religious affairs, with the provincial treasury headed by Salih ibn Abd al-Rahman, who restricted Yazid's lavish expenditures. The following year, Yazid's remit was extended to Khurasan, making him practical viceroy of the eastern half of the Caliphate. He adopted a partisan approach, persecuting al-Hajjaj's relatives and appointees and almost exclusively distributing power among the Yaman faction to which his tribe, the Azd, belonged, to the detriment of the rival Qays–Mudar faction. In 716, he led months-long military campaigns to conquer the Iranian principalities of the southern Caspian coast, which had eluded previous Arab armies. His initial success was reversed by an Iranian military alliance under Farrukhan the Great and he settled for a tributary arrangement.

When Sulayman died, Yazid was imprisoned by his successor, Caliph Umar II. Upon the latter's death in 720, Yazid escaped prison to avoid maltreatment by the next caliph, Yazid II, a relative of al-Hajjaj. He established himself in his family's stronghold of Basra, one of Iraq's chief capitals and garrisons, whereupon he declared holy war against the Umayyads and the Syrian troops on which their power rested. He gained a wide following in Basra and Iraq's other chief garrison, Kufa, with support across the tribal spectrum and among the religious and non-Arab (mawali) elements of the population. The rebellion was easily defeated by the Syrian army of the Umayyad general Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik. Yazid was slain and his Muhallabid family was hunted down, with many of their members killed. The near-elimination of the Muhallabids and the subsequent domination by the Qays–Mudar in Iraq and the east was a humiliation for the Yaman and revenge for the Muhallabids became a rallying cry amongst the Yamanis of Khurasan during the Abbasid Revolution which toppled the Umayyads in 750.

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