Prophecy of Imam Ali (a.s.) regarding

the fate of Umayyad dynasty

In the book ‘Peshgoyi haaye Amirul Momineen’, it is mentioned that:

In the 166^th sermon of Nehjul Balagha, Imam Ali (a.s.) speaks about his friends and companions and their plight after his death, and then indicates towards the fate of the Umayyad dynasty. As the historic discussions regarding the Umayyad dynasty have been mentioned to a certain extent in the past few pages, only a few excerpts of his sermon and a few other incidences regarding the fate of the Umayyad dynasty will be mentioned here. Imam (a.s.) said:

اِفترقوا بعد اُلفتِہِم، وتشتّتوا عن أصلِہِم، فمِنہم آخِذ بِغُصن أَینما مال، مال معہ۔ علی أنّ اللّٰہ تعالی سیجمعہم لِشرِّ یوم لِبنِی أُمیَّة، کما تجتمِع قَزَع الخرِیفِ  یُؤلِّف اللّٰہ بینہم، ثم یجعلہم رُکاماً کرکامِ السّحابِ، ثم یفتح لہم ابواباً، یسِیلون مِن مستثارِہِم کسیلِ الجنّتینِ، حیث لم تسلم علیہِ قارة ولم تثبت علیہِ أَکمة، ولم یردّ سننہ رَصّ طَود، ولا حِداب أرض۔

       یُذعذِعہم اللّٰہ فِی بطونِ أودِیتِہِ ثمّ یسلکہم ینابِیع فِي الأرضِ، یَأخذ بِہِم مِن قوم حقوق قوم، ویمکّن لِقوم فِی دِیارِ قوم ۔ وایم اللّٰہ؛ لیذوبنّ ما فِی أیدِیہم بعد العلوِّ والتمکِینِ، کَما تذوب الألیة علی النّٰارِ....۔

‘They will divide after their unity and scatter away from their centre. Some of them will stick to the branches, and bending down as the branches bend, until Allah, the Sublime, will collect them together for the day that will be worst for the Umayyads just as the scattered bits of clouds collect together in the autumn. Allah will create affection among them. Then He will make them into a strong mass like the mass of clouds. Then He will open doors for them to flow out from their starting place like the flood of the two gardens (of Saba’) [1] from which neither high rocks remained safe nor small hillocks, and its flow could be repulsed neither by strong mountains nor by high lands. Allah will scatter them in the low lands of valleys and then He will make them flow like streams throughout the earth, and through them He will arrange the taking of rights of one people by another people and make one people to stay in the houses of another people. By Allah, all their position and esteem will dissolve as fat dissolves on the fire.’

Imam Ali (a.s.) prophesied about the fate of the Umayyad dynasty even before its formation and it happened exactly as the Imam (a.s.) mentioned.

In Hijaz, a person by the name Ibrahim Imam, son of Muhammad bin Ali bin Abdullah bin Abbas, is sitting on his prayer mat indulged in his prayers, and in Khurasaan, a group of people are active by his name and are placing their lives into threat.

Ibrahim bin Muhammad, who was famous as Ibrahim Imam, becomes the centre of public attraction and his name becomes popular all of a sudden. Marwan e ‘Himaar’ gets him arrested and sends him to ‘Harran’ where he is forced to suffocate inside the prison. His brothers Mansoor and Saffah travel from Madinah towards ‘Haira’.

Abu Salma e Khilal hides them in his house; Abu Muslim moves towards Iraq with a large group of people from Khurasaan and reaches Kufa. When he meets the two brothers, Saffah and Mansoor, he asks them: Who amongst the two of you is the son of Harithiya? Saffah is shown and Abu Muslim salutes him as the Caliph; thereafter, Saffah and Mansoor, along with other supporters from Kufa and a few members of the Hashemite dynasty, move towards Kufa and enter the mosque while Abu Muslim e Khurasaani takes the lead. On one hand, Marwan is ruling in Harran with the title of Umayyad Caliph while on the other hand, people have solemnly pledged in favour of Saffah as the Abbasside Caliph. 

          In the year 132 Hijri, all the groups unite against the Umayyad dynasty and Marwan e ‘Himaar’ fleds from town to town after facing defeat in the battle of ‘Azb’ and finally dies in Egypt while his family is enslaved.

          The historians say: In the days when the Umayyads were arrested, one day Marwan came down his donkey for excretion, when he returned and tried to ride his donkey, it became restless and kept running away from him. His soldiers saw this incident and because of this, Marwan bin Muhammad received the title of Marwan e ‘Himaar’ (donkey) and people used to say: ‘The Umayyad rule drained along with urine’; as it was the very day when the kingdom of Marwan dissolved and he understood that both time and space are not in favour of them anymore.

In the battle of Zaab – a place near Mosul in Iraq – whenever Marwan commanded his soldiers to fight, they used to say: Command another division for this action, and in this manner, they refrained from obeying his orders. Eventually, he said to the commander of his army: Get down and fight them. He said in reply: I will not give away my life in vain.

Marwan said: You will face severe retribution for this behaviour.

The commander said: I would be happy to know if you had the power to implement such an action.

When Marwan felt the laziness of his soldiers in the battle, he placed enormous coins in the centre of the battlefield and said: O people! Fight and take away these coins. His soldiers went towards the coins and picked from it without moving ahead for the battle. A person informed Marwan that his soldiers are taking away the coins and fleeing from the battlefield. Marwan commanded his son to stand at the end of the troop and kill all the soldiers who took from the coins.

When Marwan’s son moved towards the end of the troop with his flag, there was a roar amongst the people: Defeat! Defeat! And they fled away crossing the river Tigris. It is said that the ones who drowned in the river Tigris were more than the ones killed in the battle.

After facing a crushing defeat in Zaab, Marwan moved towards Mosul. The people of Mosul demolished the bridge that was built over the river and hindered his arrival in the city. The companions of Marwan cried out: O people! This is the Ameer ul Momineen who wishes to move across the bridge.

They said: You are liars. Ameer ul Momineen never flees away. Then the people cursed Marwan and said: We are grateful of the Lord who deprived you of power and dissolved your riches and delivered the Prophet’s Holy Progeny to us.

When Marwan heard these words, he travelled towards Balad[2], then towards ‘Harran’ and from Harran towards Damascus, from Damascus he entered Egypt, and Abdullah bin Ali was in pursuit of him.[3]

          At last, Marwan was killed in Egypt and his head was brought near Abul Abbas Saffah in Kufa. But his women, children and relatives fled from city to city, town to town, away from the Abbasside soldiers and moved towards Southern Africa.

          These helpless and abandoned people were burning in the fire of their own Karma; wherever they went to seek shelter, people used to distance themselves from them due to the fear of the Abbasside forces. In the land of ‘Nauba’ or Sudan, they became prey to a group of black aboriginal Africans who stole from them all their belongings. A group of people from the family of Marwan were killed and the rest of them died of thirst and hunger.

According to Yaqoobi, their fate was such that they used to drink their own urine in order to stay alive. At last, a group of survivors from Bani Marwan reached ‘Bab ul Mundab’ while they were naked, thirsty and hungry, and from there, they entered Hijaz in the form of unknown ship workers and secretly continued their livelihood.   

And this was the meaning of the words of Ali (a.s.) when he said:

‘By Allah, all their position and esteem will dissolve as fat dissolves on the fire’.[4]