Ibn al-Hanifiya

Encyclopedia : I : IB : IBN : Ibn al-Hanifiya

Ibn al-Hanifiya was a son of the fourth Muslim Caliph, Ali ibn Abu Talib by a wife known only as 'the Hanifiya.' Ali's more well-known wife, Fatima Zahra, the daughter of the prophet Muhammad, mothered his more prominent sons Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali, who were the second and third Shi'a Imams.

Ibn al-Hanifiya is not considered an Imam by Shi'ites, but he is nevertheless important in early Shi'ite history, as he was the largely passive titular head of a Shi'ite rebellion against the Umayyid caliphs. This rebellion, which was led by Al-Mukhtar, broke out in Kufa (now in Iraq), in 686 CE. Al-Mukhtar proclaimed al-Hanifiya to be the Mahdi who would restore justice to the Islamic world. Al-Hanifiya seems to have played little or no active role in al-Mukhtar's campaign. When the rebellion was successfully suppressed, the Umayyids left al-Hanifiya in peace, and he died in 700 CE.

The significance of Mukhtar's rebellion lies mainly in the fact that it began the early Shi'ite tradition of looking to Ali's family for leadership against what was seen as the autocratic, unjust rule of the Umayyid caliphs. The unsuccessful rebellion set the stage for his half-brother Husayn's abortive attempt to overthrow the Umayyids, which led to his own martyrdom at Karbala.

Al-Hanifiya is also the first known person to be proclaimed Mahdi, though he did not apparently claim the title himself.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.