Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Dahhak ibn Qays al-Fihri

Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Dahhak ibn Qays al-Fihri (Arabic: عبد الرحمن بن الضحاك بن قيس الفهري) was an eighth-century governor of Medina (720–723) and Mecca (721/2–723) for the Umayyad Caliphate.

Career

Abd al-Rahman was the son of al-Dahhak ibn Qays al-Fihri, a Qurayshite leader of the Qays tribes who was killed at the Battle of Marj Rahit in 684. He himself was appointed governor of Medina at the beginning of the caliphate of Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 720–724), and was additionally given jurisdiction over Mecca in 721 or 722. He was also selected by Yazid to lead the pilgrimages of 720, 721 and 722.

As governor, Abd al-Rahman was unpopular with Medina's notables due to his refusal to consult with the city's prominent citizens, and he was accused of treating its old elites, the Ansar, in a contemptuous manner. He had a particularly tense relationship with his immediate predecessor, the Ansari Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Amr ibn Hazm, and eventually had Abu Bakr flogged after receiving instructions from the caliph to open an investigation into the ex-governor's treatment of Uthman ibn Hayyan al-Murri. He also dismissed Abu Bakr's qadi Abu Tuwalah Abdallah ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Ansari from office, replacing him with Salamah ibn Abdallah al-Makhzumi instead.

Abd al-Rahman's governorship came to a sudden end in 723 as a result of his pursuit of Fatimah bint al-Husayn, the granddaughter of Ali ibn Abi Talib, when he attempted to force her into marriage by threatening to whip her eldest son if she refused. Fatimah countered by filing a complaint with Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik, who angrily responded by dismissing him from his posts, levying a fine of forty thousand dinars against him, and ordering for him to be tortured such that the caliph could "hear him screaming" from his residence in Syria. Upon learning of the pronouncement against him, Abd al-Rahman attempted to place himself under the protection of the caliph's brother Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik, but Yazid refused to give him a reprieve and he was eventually sent back to Medina for the punishment to be carried out. As a result of his sentence he became destitute and was later reported to be seen begging on the streets of Medina.

References

• Dietrich, A. (1965). "Al-Dahhak b. Kays al-Fihri". In Lewis, B.; Pellat, Ch. & Schacht, J. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume II: C–G. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 89–90. OCLC 495469475.
• Ibn 'Asakir, Abu al-Qasim 'Ali ibn al-Hasan ibn Hibat Allah (1996). al-'Amrawi, 'Umar ibn Gharama (ed.). Tarikh Madinat Dimashq, Vol. 34 (in Arabic). Beirut: Dar al-Fikr.
• Khalifah ibn Khayyat (1985). al-'Umari, Akram Diya' (ed.). Tarikh Khalifah ibn Khayyat, 3rd ed (in Arabic). Al-Riyadh: Dar Taybah.
• Al-Mas'udi, Ali ibn al-Husain (1877). Les Prairies D'Or, Tome Neuvième (in French). Ed. and Trans. Charles Barbier de Meynard and Abel Pavet de Courteille. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.
• McMillan, M.E. (2011). The Meaning of Mecca: The Politics of Pilgrimage in Early Islam. London: Saqi. ISBN 978-0-86356-437-6.
• Powers, David S., ed. (1989). The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XXIV: The Empire in Transition: The Caliphates of Sulaymān, ʿUmar, and Yazīd, A.D. 715–724/A.H. 96–105. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-0072-2.
• Waki', Muhammad ibn Khalaf ibn Hayyan (n.d.). Akhbar al-Qudat (in Arabic). Beirut: 'Alam al-Kutub. OCLC 957287781.
• Al-Ya'qubi, Ahmad ibn Abu Ya'qub (1883). Houtsma, M. Th. (ed.). Historiae, Vol. 2 (in Arabic). Leiden: E. J. Brill.