Abdullah ibn az-Zubayr

ProfileAbdullah ibn az-Zubayr

Abdullah (may Allah be pleased with him) was the son of az-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, the disciple of the Prophet ﷺ, and Asma bint Abu Bakr, the woman of the two belts, and the grandson of Abu Bakr and of Safiyyah, the Prophet's ﷺ aunt. He was called Abu Bakr, after his grandfather, and Abu Khubayb, after his eldest son. According to the early biographies, he looked more like Abu Bakr than anyone else. Asma told that she was carrying him in Makkah, and left for Madinah when her time was near, and gave birth to him at Quba. She brought him to the Prophet ﷺ and put him in his lap. He asked for a date, chewed it, and put some of it in the baby's mouth, so the first thing to enter his stomach was the saliva of the Prophet ﷺ. Then he rubbed his palate with the date and prayed for him. Abdullah was the first child born to the Emigrants in Madinah, and the Muslims were glad, for people had said that the Jews had bewitched them and they would have no children (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim). According to the early biographies, Abu Bakr carried him through the streets, and the Muslims cried out Allahu akbar. According to the early biographies, as Asma carried food to the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr in the cave on their way, Abu Jahl struck her on the face so hard that her earring flew off, and she refused to tell him where they were. Aishah asked the Prophet ﷺ for a kunyah, and he told her to take it from her nephew Abdullah, so she was called Umm Abdullah (Sunan Abi Dawud, graded sahih). Abdullah went to him when he was about seven or eight, as his father had told him to, to pledge himself, and the Prophet ﷺ smiled when he saw him coming and accepted his pledge (Sahih Muslim).

According to the early biographies, he was sturdy, and as a boy he played with toy swords, and was said to be a copy of his father in body and in courage. When Umar, as caliph, walked the road and the boys scattered, Abdullah stood his ground and told him that he had done nothing wrong, so there was no reason to run, and the road was wide enough for both of them. Umar, according to the early biographies, lifted him up and said that he was his father's son. A report that as a child he drank some of the Prophet's ﷺ blood after cupping is not graded, and is left out. According to the early biographies, he fought with his father at Yarmuk as a boy, and later in North Africa, where he killed the Roman commander with a few men, and in the expedition against Constantinople. According to the early biographies, he was one of the commission, with Zayd ibn Thabit, who copied the Quran in Uthman's time (Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies, he was one of those who guarded Uthman in the siege of his house, and was wounded many times. He recited at the end of every prayer words that he reported from the Prophet ﷺ, that there is no god but Allah alone, to Him belongs the kingdom and the praise, there is no might or power but with Allah, and that we are sincere in our religion, even though the unbelievers dislike it (Sahih Muslim). According to the early biographies, Ibn Abbas said that if one wanted to pray as the Prophet ﷺ did, he should pray like Abdullah ibn az-Zubayr. He stood so still in prayer that birds landed on him, and he stayed on in the mosque when everyone had gone, and he was called the pigeon of the mosque. According to the early biographies, he would not break his concentration in prayer even when a snake fell on his child.

After the death of Mu'awiyah, according to the early biographies, he refused to give his pledge to Yazid. He went to Makkah and took refuge in the sanctuary, and al-Husayn, who went to Iraq, was in touch with him. According to the early biographies, when the army of Yazid went to Madinah in 63 AH, killed many people and plundered the city, its commander died on the way to Makkah, and the army that besieged Makkah in 64 AH was driven off. By then his rule, according to the early biographies, was accepted in Yemen, Egypt, Iraq and most of the Muslim lands, except Syria, and many Companions lived under his protection. The Prophet ﷺ told that an army would be sent against a man who took refuge in the Sacred House, and would be swallowed up by the earth on a plain (Sahih Muslim). According to the early biographies, in 72 AH al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf marched on Makkah, and besieged it for months, cut off its food and bombarded it with catapults. According to the early biographies, lightning struck the besiegers, and Hajjaj said that it was an ordinary thing of nature. The people in Makkah starved, and his army left him, and some of his own sons pleaded with him in private to stop, but he would not, and in the end he was nearly alone.

Asma, now very old, was in Makkah. According to the early biographies, he went to her and asked her advice, and she told him that if he was on the truth he should stay on it, since his companions had died for it, and not to put his neck in the hands of the Banu Umayyah, that a blow of the sword in dignity was better than a hundred lashes in humiliation, and, when he said that he feared they would mutilate him, that a sheep does not feel the skinning after it is slaughtered. She told him to tighten his belt, and not to worry about his armour. He kissed her head and she prayed for him. He then went out to the Kaaba and fought. According to the early biographies, he stopped to pray when the time came, and was struck from behind as he prayed, and killed. The people who killed him cried Allahu akbar. His body was hung up at the entrance to Makkah, on the road to Madinah. Abdullah ibn Umar passed it and said, peace be on you, Abu Khubayb, that he had told him not to do this, that by Allah he was devoted to fasting and prayer and keeping the ties of kinship, and that the party to which such a man belonged was a good one. When Hajjaj heard of it, he had the body taken down and thrown into the graveyard of the Jews. He sent for Asma, and she refused to come, until he came himself and asked her what she thought of what he had done to the enemy of Allah. She said that he had ruined Abdullah's world and Abdullah had ruined his hereafter. She said that she had heard that he called her son the son of the woman of the two belts, and that she was indeed a woman of two belts, one to hold up the food of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and Abu Bakr, and one that no woman can do without. The Prophet ﷺ had told them that in Thaqif there would be a great liar and a great murderer, the liar they had seen, and the murderer was none other than him. Hajjaj stood up and said nothing (Sahih Muslim). According to the early biographies, Asma died a short time after her son.

WatchA lecture about Abdullah ibn az-Zubayr

Meet them inWhere they appear in the seerah

SourcesSources for this profile