Ayyub ibn Salama

Ayyub ibn Salama ibn Abd Allah ibn al-Walid ibn al-Walid ibn al-Mughira al-Makhzumi (fl. 715 – c. 762) was a Qurayshite notable of Medina in the late Umayyad and early Abbasid period. He belonged to a wealthy family of the locally prominent Banu Makhzum clan of the Quraysh. He is recorded as a witness or participant of political events in Medina during the reigns of caliphs Sulayman, Hisham and al-Mansur, including as a one-time supporter of the Alid revolt of Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya against the Abbasids.

Family

Ayyub was a member of the household of al-Walid ibn al-Mughira, a rich and prominent family of the Banu Makhzum, a major clan of the Quraysh mainly present in Mecca and Medina. He inherited the wealth of Khalid ibn al-Walid (d. 642), a major commander of the early Muslim conquests of the 630s, when all of the latter's male descendants perished in a plague in Syria in the final years of the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) or shortly after the establishment of the Abbasid Caliphate in 750. Included in this inheritance were several houses in Medina, where Ayyub was based. Ayyub had marital ties to the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 724–743) through Hisham's mother, A'isha, who was the daughter of Ayyub's paternal relative Hisham ibn Isma'il ibn Hisham ibn al-Walid ibn al-Mughira. Through Ayyub's brother Ya'qub's daughter Umm Salama, he had familial ties with Caliph Hisham's son Maslama and the first Abbasid caliph, al-Saffah, both of whom were married at one point to Umm Salama and had children from her. Their daughter Rayta married the third Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi and gave birth to his sons Ubaydallah and Ali.

Ayyub's marriage to a descendant of Caliph Ali (r. 656–661), Fatima bint Abdallah al-Hasan, caused a quarrel between him and her father, as Ayyub asked for hand from her son Salih ibn Abd Allah ibn Mu'awiya ibn Ja'far instead of her father, who claimed to be the only legal intercessor of his daughter. The dispute led to Ayyub's imprisonment by Caliph Hisham. Through the intervention of Ayyub's son, the caliph released Ayyub. Ayyub's great-grandson Muhammad ibn Khalid ibn Isma'il is recorded by the 10th-century historian al-Tabari as a source of information for the historian Umar ibn Shabba (d. 878). The descendants of Ayyub continued to possess the properties of Khalid ibn al-Walid in Medina at the time of Umar ibn Shabba.

Chart of the household of al-Walid ibn al-Mughira of the Makhzum, showing marital ties with the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties

Life

Ayyub is mentioned as a witness to the dismissal and flogging of his friend, Medina's governor Uthman ibn Hayyan al-Murri, by the Umayyad caliph Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik in 715. He was a defendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad's great-great-grandson, the Alid Zayd ibn Ali, against claims of financial impropriety by the Umayyad governor of Iraq Khalid al-Qasri (r. 724–738). During the revolt of the Alid Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya against the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur (r. 754–775) in 762–763, Ayyub gave al-Nafs al-Zakiyya the caliphal oath of allegiance in Medina. When the revolt was suppressed, Ayyub was pardoned when he publicly repented and renounced his oath. Ayyub bore witness to al-Mansur's punishment by lashing of a locally prominent ally of al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, Muhammad ibn Abdallah al-Uthmani, a descendant of caliphs Uthman (r. 644–656) and Ali.

Bibliography

• Elad 2016, p. 289.
• Hinds 1991, p. 139.
• McAuliffe 1995, p. 97.
• McAuliffe 1995, p. 127, note 610.
• Powers 1989, p. 4.
• Elad 2016, p. 162.