Yazid II
- Yazid II redirects here. It can also refer to Yazid II of Shirvan.
| Yazīd ibn ‘Abd al-Malik يزيد بن عبد الملك | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Khalīfah | |||||
 Gold Dinar of Yazīd ibn ‘Abd al-Malik | |||||
| 9th Caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate | |||||
| Reign | 4 February 720 – 26 January 724 | ||||
| Predecessor | Umar II | ||||
| Successor | Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik | ||||
| Born | 687 | ||||
| Died | 26 January 724 (aged 37) (24 Shaban 106 AH) | ||||
| Issue | Al-Walid II | ||||
| |||||
| Dynasty | Umayyad | ||||
| Father | Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan | ||||
| Mother | Atikah bint Yazid | ||||
Yazid bin Abd al-Malik or Yazid II (687 – 26 January 724) (Arabic: يزيد بن عبد الملك) was an Umayyad Caliph who ruled from 720 until his death in 724.
Life
Early life and family
Yazid was the son of the fifth Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705) and his favorite wife Atika, a daughter of the third Umayyad caliph Yazid I.[1][2] Yazid II himself married a daughter of Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Thaqafi, the brother of the longtime governor of Iraq, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf al-Thaqafi. Together they had a son, the future al-Walid II.[3] He also married Sa’da bint Abdallah ibn Amr ibn Uthman, a fourth-generation descendant of Caliph Uthman (r. 644–656).[4] Together they had two children, Abdallah and A’isha.[4]
Yazid II was appointed by his father governor of Amman in Jund Dimashq (Damascus District).[5]
Reign
According to the medieval Persian historian Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, Yazid came to power on the death of Umar II on February 10, 720.[6] His forces engaged in battle the Kharijites with whom Umar had been negotiating. After initial setbacks, Yazid's troops prevailed and the Kharijite leader Shawdhab was killed. Yazid ibn al-Muhallab had escaped confinement on the death of Umar. He made his way to Iraq. There he was much supported. He refused to acknowledge Yazid II as caliph and led a very serious uprising. Initially successful, he was defeated and killed by the forces of Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik.
Numerous civil wars began to break out in different parts of the empire such as in the Al Andalus (the Iberian Peninsula), North Africa and in the east. In A.H. 102 (720-721) in Ifriqiyah, the harsh governor Yazīd b. abī Muslim al-Thaqafī was overthrown and Muhammad ibn Yazid, the former governor, restored to power. The caliph accepted this and confirmed Muhammad ibn Yazid as governor of Ifriqiyah.
Al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah, Yazid's governor in Armenia and Adharbayjan, pushed into the Caucasus, taking Balanjar in A.H. 104 (722-723). That same year Yazid's governor in Medina, Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Dahhak, incurred the caliph's displeasure because the governor was exerting undue pressure trying to force a woman to marry him. She appealed to Yazid who replaced Abd al-Rahman with Abd al-Walid ibn Abdallah.[7]
Anti-Umayyad groups began to gain power among the disaffected. Al-Tabari records that Abbasids were promoting their cause in A.H. 102 (720-721). They were already building a power base that they would later use to topple the Umayyads in CE 750.
An anecdote told of Yazid is that his wife Sudah learning he was pining for an expensive slave girl, purchased this slave girl and presented her to Yazid as a gift. This woman's name was Hababah and she predeceased Yazid (at Tabari v. 24, p. 196). It is said that, while feasting with Hababah, Yazid threw a grape into her mouth, on which she choked and died in his arms. Yazid died the next week.[8]
Iconoclastic edict
The Byzantine chronicler Theophanes the Confessor[9] states that a wizard advised Yazid that he would reign for forty years, if he opposed Christian icons. Yazid did so, but died the same year he issued his iconoclastic edict (721 CE). Scholars have discussed the mutual influence of Muslim and Byzantine iconoclasm, noting that Emperor Leo III has issued a series of edicts against the worship of images at about the same time, the first in 726.[10]
Death
Yazid II died in 724. He was succeeded by his brother Hisham.
References
- ^ Al-Tabari, ed. Hinds 1990, p. 118.
- ^ Wellhausen 1927, p. 222.
- ^ Powers 1989, pp. 89–90.
- ^ a b Ahmed 2011, p. 123.
- ^ Bacharach 1996, p. 30.
- ^ Powers 1989, p. 91.
- ^ Powers 1989, pp. 180ff..
- ^ Durant, Will (1950). The Age of Faith. Vol. 4. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 195.
{{cite book}}:|work=ignored (help) - ^ p. 93
- ^ A. A. Vasiliev (1956), The Iconoclastic Edict of the Caliph Yazid II, A. D. 721, pp. 25-26
Sources
- Ahmed, Asad Q. (2010). The Religious Elite of the Early Islamic Ḥijāz: Five Prosopographical Case Studies. University of Oxford Linacre College Unit for Prosopographical Research.
- Bacharach, Jere L. (1996). "Marwanid Umayyad Building Activities: Speculations on Patronage". In Necpoğlu, Gülru (ed.). Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World, Volume 13. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 90-04-10633-2.
- Al-Tabari (1990). Hinds, Martin (ed.). History of al-Tabari, Vol. 23: The The Zenith of the Marwanid House. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-88706-721-2.
- Powers, David Stephan, ed. (1989). The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XXIV: The Empire in Transition: The Caliphates of Sulayman, ʿUmar, and Yazid, A.D. 715–724/A.H. 96–105. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-0072-7.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Theophanes the Confessor, The Chronicle of Theophanes, transl. Harry Turtledove, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1982
- Wellhausen, Julius (1927). The Arab Kingdom and its Fall. Translated by Margaret Graham Weir. Calcutta: University of Calcutta. OCLC 752790641.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help)
| Caliphs of Damascus (661–750) |  | |
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| Emirs of Córdoba (756–929) | ||
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