Nafs az-Zakiyya (the Pure Soul)

Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On September 23, 762 AD, Mohammad Ibn Abdullah al-Mahadh Ibn Hassan al-Muthanna, entered Medina and proclaimed his uprising against Abbasid misrule. Known as Nafs az-Zakiyya (the Pure Soul), he was a great-grandson of Imam Hasan al-Mujtaba (AS), the elder grandson and 2nd Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). Of impressive build, amiable demeanor, and gifted with commanding oratory skills, he soon took Mecca and Yemen.
He freed prisoners, changed administrative and judiciary posts, appointed governors in all parts of Arabia, and sent his brother Ibrahim to Basra to take charge of the affairs in Iraq. He sent a letter to the usurper caliph, Mansour Dawaniqi, in Hirah near Kufa, demanding surrender by reminding him of the pledge of allegiance he had made as a persecuted fugitive in the days of the Omayyad regime, to the rule of the Prophet’s descendents.
Mansour instead sent an army against him, composed mainly of units from Khorasan that were deceived by Abbasid propaganda. On December 6, the same year, Nafs az-Zakiyya was martyred in battle near Medina when his followers deserted him. His uprising did not have uniform support from all. Although several important figures of Hijaz and Iraq, like Malek Ibn Anas, Sufyan Thawri, and Abu Hanifa, supported him, the Prophet’s 6th Infallible Heir, Imam Ja’far as-Sadeq (AS) refrained from publicly supporting the uprising, but at the same time refused to sign a pledge of loyalty as demanded by the Abbasids. Mansour tried in vain to implicate Imam Sadeq (AS) in the uprising, confiscated his properties, and three years later martyred him through poisoning.
On 25th of the Islamic month of Zil-Qa’dah in 145 AH Ibrahim Ibn Abdullah Ibn al-Hassan al-Muthanna, was martyred near Kufa in a battle with the forces of Mansour Dawaniqi, the 2nd self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime, shortly after the martyrdom of his brother Mohammad Nafs Zakiyya in an uprising in Hijaz.
He was a great grandson of Prophet Mohammad’s (SAWA) elder grandson and 2nd Infallible Heir, Imam Hasan Mujtaba (AS), while his grandmother, Fatema (SA) was the daughter of the Prophet\'s 3rd Infallible Heir, Imam Husain (AS) the Martyr of Karbala. He launched his uprising in Ramadhan in Basra in coordination with his brother’s uprising in Hijaz, and within two months had liberated the whole of southern Iraq and Iran from the Abbasids, while Nafs Zakiyya liberated Arabia and Yemen, thus cornering Mansour in his capital Hirah in central Iraq (Baghdad was not yet built).
It is worth noting that years earlier during the repressive rule of the Godless Omayyads, the Prophet\'s clan, the Hasehmites, had held an assembly at Abwa where Abu’l-Abbas as-Saffah and Mansour Dawaniqi (the future usurpers of the caliphate) had sworn allegiance to Nafs Zakiyya. But with the toppling of the Omayyads, the Abbasid brothers indulged in propaganda to hijack the rule of the realm by breaking their promise to handover the caliphate to the Prophet\'s progeny.
Imam Ja\'far Sadeq (AS), as the Prophet’s 6th Infallible Heir, sensed the plot and stayed away from the political tussle. He spurned the offer of caliphate by burning the sealed envelope sent by a victorious commander of the anti-Omayyad uprising, since his right was God-given and beyond the power of politicians.
Among the offspring of Imam Hasan (AS), however, Nafs Zakiyya aspired for political power and challenged the Abbasids for breaching their promise. Thus, as a result of the uprising of the two brothers, when Mansour was on the verge of defeat, news arrived of the martyrdom in Medina of Nafs Zakiyya. This emboldened the Abbasids and in the battle near Kufa, an arrow pierced Ibrahim’s neck and he was unhorsed and decapitated by Hamid Ibn Qahtaba. Mansour, who three years later martyred Imam Sadeq (AS) through poisoning, is notorious for shedding the blood of the Prophet\'s progeny, especially Imam Hasan\'s (AS) offspring.