The Sufyani: Abu Muhammad Ziyad b. Abdullah b. Yazid b. Mu'awiyah

 

بِسۡمِ اللّٰہِ الرَّحۡمٰنِ الرَّحِیۡمِ

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds

Peace and benedictions upon you, my Master, Apostle of Allah

Among the Umayyads and their supporters there was the concept of the Sufyani, a figure from the offspring of Abu Sufyan or the Sufyanid branch of the Umayyads who would restore the glorious rule of the Sufyanids, reminiscent of Mu’awiyah bin Abi Sufyan. There are some narrations concerning the Sufyani in our Hadith corpus, but most of them are apparently inauthentic. Nevertheless, after the success of the Abbasid revolt which overthrew the Umayyad dynasty, a grandson of Yazid bin Mu’awiyah named Abu Muhammad Ziyad bin Abdullah claimed to be the Sufyani and led a failed uprising against the Abbasids:

والثبت أَنَّهُ زِيَاد- فطمع وَقَالَ أَنَا السفياني الَّذِي يروى أَنَّهُ يردّ دولة بَنِي أمية

It is proven that he is Ziyad. He was greedy and said, “I am the Sufyani the one who will restore the Umayyad state.”

وصلب أَبُو مُحَمَّد وابنه

Abu Muhammad and his son were crucified (Ansab al-Ashraf; v.4, pp.223-224)

While Abu Muhammad’s revolt against al-Saffah and then al-Mansur was crushed and he was killed, after which the Abbasids exterminated many others from the remnant of Bani Umayyah, the legend of a Sufyani continues to spark the imagination of some, especially those with Nasibi tendencies. It has been suggested, especially by the extremist Shi’ites, that Abu Muhammad al-Golani, whose name is Ahmad al-Sharaa and is the current leader of Syria, is the Sufyani, despite him not being a descendant of Abu Sufyan. Previously, I myself suspected that Bashar al-Assad might be the villainous Sufyani, but obviously that isn’t the case either.