Yahya ibn Zayd

Yahya ibn Zayd ibn Ali was a great-great-grandson of the Prophet Muhammad through al-Husayn, and the eldest son of Zayd ibn Ali — the figure to whom the Zaydi branch of Shia Islam traces its name. After his father's brief rising against the Umayyad caliphate was crushed at Kufa (in present-day Iraq) and Zayd was killed, Yahya escaped eastward into Khurasan, the vast frontier province spanning today's northeastern Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.

Tradition reports that he sheltered with sympathizers, moving among towns until Umayyad authorities tracked him down. He was captured and imprisoned at Marw (Merv), the provincial capital, on the orders of the governor Nasr ibn Sayyar. The sources report that he was released — several say on instructions from the caliph al-Walid II — but soon gathered a small band of supporters and took up arms. After clashes in the region around Nishapur, he was overtaken and killed in battle at Juzjan (Jowzjan, in northern Afghanistan), around 125 AH / 743 CE; reports state his head was sent to the Umayyad court and his body displayed.

His birth date is not directly recorded; it is usually estimated at about 107 AH / 725-6 CE from reports that he was roughly eighteen when he died. In Shia, especially Zaydi, memory he became a revered martyr, and his death is widely seen by historians as having helped clear the way for the later Abbasid movement in Khurasan.