busr b.
ab{ areqt
Bibliography
Burayda’s entries in the Companion dictionar-
ies e.g. Ibn Abd al-Barr’s al-Istī āb fī ma rifat
al-a āb, ed. Alī Mu ammad al-Bijāwī,
Cairo 1960, and Ibn ajar, al-I āba fi
tamyīz al- a āba, ed. al-Bijāwī, 8 vols. Cairo
1392/1972, and those of his sons in the bio-
graphical dictionaries.
Michael Lecker
Busr b. Abī Ar āt
Abū Abd al-Ra mān Busr b. Abī
Ar āt b. Uwaymir b. Imrān (c. 3–70/
625–89)—from the clan of Āmir b. Lu ayy
of the Quraysh al- awāhir, who lived in
the mountainous part of Mecca (al-Mu ab
al-Zubayrī, 439; Khalīfa b. Khayyā , 27;
Ibn Man ūr, 4:524, s.v. -h-r)—was a mili-
tary commander in the service of Mu āwiya
b. Abī Sufyān. (In some sources Busr is
called “b. Ar āt” or “b. Ar a a,” but Ibn
azm (170) calls him “b. Ar āt b. Abī
Ar āt, whose name is Umayr.”)
There is no consensus on whether Busr
was a Companion of the Prophet ( a ābī):
Syrian sources (ahl al-shām) and certain
experts on the transmitters of Tradi-
tions ( ulamā al-jar wa-l-ta dīl), such as
al-Dāraqu nī (d. 385/995), claimed that
he was a a ābī who transmitted utterances
and religious rules attributed to the Prophet
(sunan), but Shī ī sources and even some
Sunnī scholars, such as Ya yā b. Ma īn
(d. 233/847), declared that Busr should
not be granted the honorific of a ābī.
Busr took part in the invasion of Syria
(13/634) (al- abarī, 3:407) and probably
in the Egyptian campaign (20/639–40),
under the command of Amr b. al- Ā
(d. 42 or 43/662 or 664). During the strug-
gle between the caliph Alī b. Abī ālib
(r. 35–40/656–61) and the governor of
81
Greater Syria (al-Shām) Mu āwiya b. Abī
Sufyān, he participated in the battle of
iffīn (37/657) in the Syrian army; he was
later part of the pro-Umayyad force that
tried to gain control of Egypt (38/658).
The Alid governor of Egypt described
Busr as one of the most courageous of Arab
warriors (al- abarī, 4:552–3, 5:97–101).
After the failure of the arbitration
(ta kīm), in 37/658, concerning the legiti-
macy of the caliphate of Alī, Mu āwiya
sent Busr to Medina, Mecca, and Yemen
in order to subject these provinces to his
rule. Busr was brutal, especially in Med-
ina and Yemen. It was reported that he
captured women from the Yemeni tribe
of Hamdān and that this was the first time
that Muslim women were taken captive by
a Muslim army. The sources all state that
he murdered two young sons of the fugi-
tive Alid governor of Yemen, Ubaydallāh
b. al- Abbās, a cousin of Alī.
Mu āwiya sent Busr to Basra to kill
his opponents there. Busr arrested the
young sons of Ziyād b. Abīhi (d. 53/673),
Alī’s governor in Fars, and threatened
to kill them if their father would not join
Mu āwiya. He released them following the
intervention of the caliph (al-Balādhurī,
1:492). Mu āwiya declared himself caliph
in 40/660 in Jerusalem, and was recog-
nized by the major Muslim leaders in
41/661. Busr took part in some cam-
paigns against Byzantine forces, including
naval battles. In his last years, he became
insane.
Sunnī sources prefer not to delve into
the details of Busr’s activities, as they con-
sider these part of the Muslim civil wars
( fitan) (Ibn ajar, 1:289). Classical and
modern Shī ī authors, on the other hand,
describe at length what they call his atroc-
ities, which were, they believe, ordered by
Mu āwiya.
82
Bibliography
Sources
al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, ed. Mu ammad
amīdallāh, Cairo 1959; Abū l-Faraj
al-I fahanī, al-Aghānī, ed. Abd A. Alī
Muhannā, 26 vols (Beirut 19922), 5:15–6,
16:284–93; al-Kha īb al-Baghdādī, Ta rīkh
Baghdād, ed. Mu afā Abd al-Qādir A ā (Bei-
rut 1417/1997), 1:225; Ibn Asākir, Ta rīkh
madīnat Dimashq, ed. Umar al- Amrawī (Beirut
1415/1995–), 10:144–56; Ibn Abī l- adīd,
Shar Nahj al-balāgha, ed. Mu ammad Abū
l-Fa l Ibrāhīm (Cairo 1956–85, repr. Bei-
rut 1407/1987), 1:340, 2:3–18; Ibn ajar,
al-I āba, ed. Alī Mu ammad al-Bijāwī (Bei-
rut 1412/1992), 1:289; Ibn azm, Jamharat
ansāb al- arab, ed. Abd al-Salām Mu ammad
Hārūn, Cairo 1962; Ibn Man ūr, Lisān al-
arab, Beirut n.d.; Khalīfa b. Khayyā , K. al-
abaqāt, ed. Akram iyā al- Umarī, Riyā
busr b. ab{ areqt
1402/19822; al-Mu ab al-Zubayrī, K. Nasab
Quraysh, ed. E. Lévi-Provençal, Cairo 19823;
al- afadī, K. al-Wāfī bi-l-wafayāt, ed. Alī Amāra
and Jacqueline Sublet (Wiesbaden 1962–,
19812), 10:129–33; al- abarī, Ta rīkh al-
rusul wa-l-mulūk, ed. Mu ammad Abū l-Fa l
Ibrāhīm (Cairo 1387/19672), 10:index.
Studies
Julius Wellhausen, The Arab kingdom and its fall
(Calcutta 1927), index; Henri Lammens,
Études sur le règne du calife omaiyade Mo âwia
Ier (Paris, London and Leipzig 1908), 42–8;
Martin Hinds, The murder of the caliph
Uthmān, IJMES 3 (1972), 455; Gerald
R. Hawting, The first dynasty of Islam. The
Umayyad caliphate AD 661–750 (London and
New York 20002), 24–34.
Isaac Hasson