Kufa
Kufa (Arabic: الكوفة al-Kūfah) is a city in Iraq, about 170
kilometres (110 mi) south of Baghdad, and 10 kilometres
(6.2 mi) northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the
Euphrates
Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000.
Presently,
Kufa
Kufa and
Najaf
.jpg/500px-Meshed_ali_usnavy_(PD).jpg)
Najaf are joined into a single urban area that is
mostly commonly known to the outside world as 'Najaf'.
Along with Samarra, Karbala,
Kadhimiya
Kadhimiya and Najaf,
Kufa
Kufa is one of five
Iraqi cities that are of great importance to Shi'ite Muslims. The city
was the final capital of the fourth Rashidun Caliph, that is
Ali
Ali ibn
Abu Talib, and was founded during 639 CE (17 Hijrah) by the second
Rashidun Caliph, that is
Umar
Umar ibn Al-Khattab.[1] It is also related
that, Muslims after conquest of Al-Madain were searching to have a
suitable place for habitation. Likewise others, Salman and Hudhayfa
bin al-Yamman were also looking for. Just choosing the land they
offered prayers there. Since that day the foundation of
Kufa
Kufa had taken
place.[2]
Contents
1 History
1.1 Establishment during Umar's era
1.2 Uthman's era
1.2.1 Governorship of Al-Walid
1.2.2 Setbacks and governorship of Abu Musa
1.3 Ali's era
1.4
Umayyad
Umayyad era
1.4.1 Governorship of Ziyad
1.5 Revolts
1.6
Abbasid
Abbasid era
1.6.1
Kufa
Kufa in Islamic theology and scholarship
1.7 Post-
Abbasid
Abbasid history
2 Religious significance
3 People related to Kufa
4 See also
5 References
6 Bibliography
7 External links
History[edit]
See also: Ancient Mesopotamia
The Great Mosque of Kufa, 1915 CE
Even in the days of the Rashidun Caliphate,
Kufa
Kufa was prominent in
literacy and politics, being founded before
Uthman
Uthman (whom Ibn Shihab
al-Zuhri among others credited with the canonisation of the Quran's
text). From the perspective of 8th-century CE (2nd-century AH) Medina
and Damascus,
Kufa
Kufa was associated with "variant" readings and
interpretations of the Qur'an, typically in the name of
Ibn Mas'ud
.jpg/440px-Abdullah_ibn_Masud_verliest_vor_den_Quraisch_in_Mekka_den_Heiligen_Qur'an_(Miniatur_aus_Siyer-i-Nebi_1595_n.Chr.).jpg)
Ibn Mas'ud and
often (it was claimed) read from the pulpit as if they were part of
the Qur'an itself. It became said that
Uthman
Uthman had sent an exemplar of
the text to Kufa, but that it was burnt during the wars of
Mukhtar and
Ibn Zubayr. Al-Hajjaj restored or at any rate promulgated the standard
text under Abd al-Malik, castigating even the memory of Abd Allah ibn
Mas'ud as "Ibn Umm Abd (son of a slave's mother)". But a faction in
Kufa
Kufa preserved the readings "of ‘Abd Allah/Ibn Mas‘ud", whence
Mujahid
Mujahid and his fellow mujtahids compiled them along with other
readings and interpretations. From there these readings entered the
vast repository of Near Eastern hadith, ultimately to be written down
into collections of hadith and tafsir.[citation needed]
Establishment during Umar's era[edit]
The Arabs, led by
Caliph
Caliph Umar, conquered
Iraq
Iraq and began ruling
Suristan around 637. Umar, who assigned the land of the Jews in Arabia
to his warriors, ordered the relocation of the Jews of
Khaybar
Khaybar to a
strip of land in Kufa, in 640.[3]
After the Arab victory against the East Roman Empire at Battle of
Yarmouk in 636,
Kufa
Kufa was founded and given its name in 637–638 CE,
about the same time as Basrah. The Companion of the Prophet Saʻd ibn
Abī Waqqas founded it as an encampment adjacent to the
Lakhmid
Lakhmid Arab
city of Al-Hīrah, and incorporated it as a city of seven divisions.
Non-Arabs knew the city under alternate names: Hīrah and Aqulah,
before the consolidations of ʻAbdu l-Mālik in 691.[4] However, in
the 640s, the Kufan commons were agitated that Umar's governor was
distributing the spoils of war unfairly. In 642 ʻ
Umar
Umar summoned Saʻd
to
Medina
Medina with his accusers. Despite finding Sa'd to be innocent, Umar
deposed him to avert ill feelings. At first,
Umar
Umar appointed Ammar ibn
Yasir and secondly Basra's first Governor Abū Mūsā al-Ashʻarī;
but the Kufan instigators accepted neither. ʻ
Umar
Umar and the Kufans
finally agreed on Al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʻbah.
Uthman's era[edit]
Governorship of Al-Walid[edit]
Following Umar's death (644), his successor
Uthman
Uthman replaced Mughirah
with
Al-Walid ibn Uqba in 645. This happened while the Arabs were
continuing their conquest of western Persia under
Uthman
Uthman ibn Hakam
from Tawwaj, but late in the 640s, these forces suffered setbacks.
Setbacks and governorship of Abu Musa[edit]
Uthman
Uthman in 650 reorganised the Iranian frontier; both
Basra
Basra and Kufa
received new governors (
Sa'id ibn al-'As in Kufa's case), and the east
came under Basra's command while north of that remained under Kufa's.
The few but noticeable trouble makers in
Kufa
Kufa sought in 654 and had
Sa'id deposed and instead showed satisfaction with the return of Abu
Musa, which
Uthman
Uthman approved seeking to please all.
Kufa
Kufa remained a
source of instigations albeit from a minority. In 656 when the
Egyptian instigators, in co-operation with those in Kufa, marched onto
the
Caliph
Caliph
Uthman
Uthman in Medina,
Abu Musa
Abu Musa counselled the instigators to no
avail.
Ali's era[edit]
Upon Uthman's assassination by rebels, governor
Abu Musa
Abu Musa attempted to
restore a non-violent atmosphere in Kufa. The Muslims in
Medina
Medina and
elsewhere supported the right of
Ali ibn Abu Talib
.jpg/440px-Meshed_ali_usnavy_(PD).jpg)
Ali ibn Abu Talib to the caliphate.
In order to manage the Military frontiers more efficiently, Ali
shifted the capital from
Medina
Medina to Kufa.
The people of
Syria
Syria and their governor, Muawiyah, who seized the
Caliphate
Caliphate for himself and his family by using the confusion caused by
the assassination of
Caliph
Caliph
Uthman
Uthman and being disturbed by the brutal
assassination of the
Caliph
Caliph Uthman, demanded retribution. As Muawiyah
mounted his campaign to hold
Ali
Ali responsible for the murder of Uthman,
factions developed. In an already emotionally charged atmosphere,
Muawiyah's refusal to give allegiance to
Ali
Ali as the
Caliph
Caliph without Ali
avenging
Uthman
Uthman first eventually, led to war.
While praying in the Great Mosque of Kufa,
Ali
Ali was attacked by the
Khawarij
Khawarij Abd-al-Rahman ibn Muljam. He was wounded by ibn Muljam's
poison-coated sword while prostrating in the Fajr prayer.
Umayyad
Umayyad era[edit]
Governorship of Ziyad[edit]
Muawiyah I appointed
Ziyad ibn Abihi
Ziyad ibn Abihi as the Governor of Kufa, after
Hasan's migration to Medina, which was a peace treaty which dictated
he abdicate his right to caliphate to avoid an open war among Muslims.
Some of Hasan's followers, like Hujr ibn Adi, were unhappy with the
peace treaty, and did not change their ways according to the edicts of
the new Governor. This became increasingly noticeable, since it
created a rebellion against the ruler. However,
Ziyad ibn Abihi
Ziyad ibn Abihi was an
equally keen strategist and politician, and was able to put down all
challenges posed by the rebels against his rule.[citation needed]
Revolts[edit]
Throughout the
Umayyad
Umayyad era, as was the case since the inception of the
city by
Umar
Umar ibn Khattab, there were those among Kufa's inhabitants
who were rebellious to their rulers.
Yazid I
Yazid I was declared as the
Second
Umayyad
Umayyad
Caliph
Caliph which led to a rebellion among Kufans and they
turned to Muhammad's grandson Husayn for help and leadership. Yazid
appointed
Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad
Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad as the new Governor to put down the
rebellion, and kill Husayn if he did not acknowledge his Caliphate,
culminating in the Battle of Karbala. There was a period of relative
calm during the short reign of Al-Mukhtar's rulership, and the
Umayyad-era Governorship of Al-Hajjaj.[citation needed]
Abbasid
Abbasid era[edit]
In 749, the
Abbasids
Abbasids under al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba took
Kufa
Kufa and made it
their capital. In 762, they moved their seat to Baghdad. Under the
Umayyad
Umayyad and early
Abbasid
Abbasid decades, Kufa's importance gradually shifted
from caliphal politics to Islamic theory and practice.[citation
needed]
Kufa
Kufa in Islamic theology and scholarship[edit]
Wael Hallaq notes that by contrast with
Medina
Medina and to a lesser extent
Syria, in
Iraq
Iraq there was no unbroken
Muslim
Muslim or Ishmaelite population
dating back to the prophet Muhammad's time. Therefore,
Maliki
Maliki (and
Azwa'i) appeals to the practice amal () of the community could not
apply. Instead the people of
Iraq
Iraq relied upon those Companions of the
Muhammad
Muhammad who settled there, and upon such factions from the
Hijaz
Hijaz whom
they respected most. A primary founder of a
Sunni
Sunni school of thought,
Abu Hanifa, was a Kufan who had supported the
Zaydi Revolt
Zaydi Revolt in the
730s; and his jurisprudence was systematised and defended against
non-Iraqi rivals (starting with Malikism) by other Kufans, such as
al-Shaybani.
Shirazi's "Tabaqat", which Hallaq labels "an important early
biographical work dedicated to jurists", covered 84 "towering figures"
of Islamic jurisprudence; to which
Kufa
Kufa provided 20. It was therefore
a center surpassed only by
Medina
Medina (22), although
Basra
Basra came close
(17). Kufans could claim that the more prominent of Muhammad's
Companions had called that city home: not only Ibn Abu Waqqas, Abu
Musa, and Ali; but also Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud, Salman the Persian,
Ammar ibn Yasir, and Huzayfa ibn Yaman. Among its jurists prior to Abu
Hanifa, Hallaq singles out Sa'id ibn Jubayr, Ibrahim al-Nakha‘i, and
Hammad ibn Abi Sulayman; and considers Amir al-Sha‘bi a pioneer in
the science of judicial precedent.
Additionally, Imam
Muhammad
Muhammad al-Baqir and his son
Jafar al-Sadiq
Jafar al-Sadiq made
decisions from
Medina
Medina that contributed to the law of Kufa; and to this
day Shi‘ite law follows their example. Imam
Abu Hanifa
Abu Hanifa too learnt
from al-Baqir and especially al-Sadiq. As a result, while Hanafi
school is doctrinally Sunni, in practical terms
Hanafi
Hanafi law is closer
to Imami law than either is to the other schools of jurisprudence i.e.
of Malik, Shafi‘i, and Ibn Hanbal.
Kufa
Kufa was also among the first centers of Qur'anic interpretation,
which Kufans credited to the exegete
Mujahid
Mujahid (until he escaped to
Mecca
Mecca in 702). It further recorded general traditions as Hadith; in
the 9th century, Yahya ibn ‘Abd al-Hamid al-Himmani compiled many of
these into a Musnad.
Given Kufa's opposition to Damascus, Kufan traditionists had their own
take on
Umayyad
Umayyad history. The historian
Abu Mikhnaf al-Azdi (d. 774)
compiled their accounts into a rival history, which became popular
under
Abbasid
Abbasid rule. This history does not survive but later historians
like Tabari quoted from it extensively.
Kufa
Kufa is also where the kufic script was developed, the earliest script
of the Arabic language. As the scholar al-Qalqashandi maintained, "The
Arabic script [khatt] is the one which is now known as Kufic. From it
evolved all the present hands." The angular script which later came to
be known as
Kufic
.jpg/600px-Folio_from_a_Koran_(8th-9th_century).jpg)
Kufic had its origin about a century earlier than the
founding of the town of Kufa, according to Moritz in the Encyclopaedia
of Islam. The kufic script was derived from one of the four
pre-Islamic Arabic scripts, the one called al-Hiri (used in Hira).
(The other three were al-Anbari (from Anbar), al-Makki (from Mecca)
and al-Madani (from Medina)). The famous author of the Kitab
al-Fihrist, an index of Arabic books,
Ibn al-Nadim (died ca. 999), was
the first to use the word 'kufic' to characterize this script, which
reached a state of decorative perfection in the 8th century, when
surahs were used to decorate ceramics, for representations of nature
were strictly forbidden under the Islamic regime.[citation needed]
Post-
Abbasid
Abbasid history[edit]
Kufa
Kufa began to come under constant attack in the 11th century and
eventually shrunk and lost its importance. Over the last century, the
population of
Kufa
Kufa began to grow again. It continues to be an
important pilgrimage site for Shi'ite Muslims.[citation needed]
Religious significance[edit]
See also:
Iraq
Iraq in the Quran
The town has produced several Shi'ite
Muslim
Muslim scholars.[5] It also
contains buildings of importance to Shi'ites:
The
Great Mosque of Kufa
.jpg/440px-Kufa_Mosque_(4).jpg)
Great Mosque of Kufa was constructed in the middle of the 7th
century, after the
Caliph
Caliph Omar established the city. The mosque
contains the remains of
Muslim
Muslim ibn Aqeel — first cousin of Husayn
ibn Ali, his companion Hani ibn Urwa, and the revolutionary
Al-Mukhtar. The Mosque also contains many important sites relating to
Prophets and ‘Alī, including the place where he was fatally struck
on the head, while in Sujūd (Arabic: سُـجـود, Prostration).
Ali's house
The tomb of Zayd ibn Ali
Al-Hannanah Mosque, which contains some of the skin that was ripped
off Husayn posthumously by his adversaries
The tomb of Maytham al-Tammar
The tomb of Kumayl ibn Ziyad
Al-Sahlah Mosque, which is associated with the
Twelfth Imam
Twelfth Imam of the
Twelver
Twelver Shia
People related to Kufa[edit]
Ali
Ali – Caliph
Husayn bin
Ali
Ali – Battle of Karbala
Muslim
Muslim ibn Aqeel
Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi
Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi – theologian
Abu Hanifah
Sufyan al-Thawri
Alqama ibn Qays
Dawud al-Zahiri
Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud
Abd-Allah ibn Aamir Hadhrami
Al-Aswad ibn Yazid
Masruq ibn al-Ajda'
See also[edit]
Al-Hirah
Ghurabiyya Shia
Great Mosque (Kufa)
Shiism
References[edit]
^ Al-Tabari,
Muhammad
Muhammad ibn Jarir (2004). Tareekh Tabari (Urdu
translation). Syed
Muhammad
Muhammad Ibrahim Nadavi & Habib-ul-Rehman
Siddiqui (Devband Scholar). Nafees Academy, Karachi, Pakistan.
pp. 52–53 (Vol.III Part–1 Events of 17 AH).
^ Web Admin. "Salman Farsi, the Son of Islam". Sibtayn International
Foundation. Retrieved September 20, 2015.
^ History of the Jews, Heinrich Graetz, Vol 3. Page 84, Trans. Bella
Lowy, London 1892.
^ Tareekh e Tabri, vol 3 page 52.
^ The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, p 330, Donald P.
Wright, Timothy R. Reese
Bibliography[edit]
Crone, Patricia. Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law: The Origins of the
Islamic Patronate. Cambridge University Press, paperback ed. 2002
Hallaq, Wael. The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law. Cambridge
University Press, 2005
Hawting, Gerald R. The First Dynasty of Islam. Routledge. 2nd ed, 2000
Hinds, Martin. Studies in Early Islamic History. Darwin Press, 1997
Hoyland, Robert G. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. Darwin Press, 1997
External links[edit]
Kufa
Coordinates: 32°02′N 44°24′E / 32.033°N 44.400°E /
32.033; 44.400
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