ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib (Arabic: علي بن عبد الله بن العباس بن عبد المطلب) (ca. 661–ca. 736) was an ancestor of the Abbasids. He was a grandson of al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib and the grandfather of the first two Abbasid caliphs al-Saffah and al-Mansur.
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Early life
Ali was the youngest son of Abd Allah ibn Abbas, the cousin of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and Zur'ah bint Mishrah, a daughter of one of the "four kings" of the tribe of Kinda. According to tradition he was born on the exact night that the assassination of Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661) took place. Alternative sources dispute the year of his birth. Years later, during the rebellion of Medina against the Umayyad caliph Yazid I, the city's residents rose up in revolt before facing defeat at the Battle of al-Harra in 683. Following their defeat, the Medinans were forced to pledge allegiance under a humiliating formula, but Ali, who was then in his early twenties, was spared this treatment due to the intervention of his maternal uncles of Kinda and troops of Rabi'a, who constituted the major segment of the Umayyad army.
Later life and relocation
Prompted by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, who objected to him holding both the name and the kunya of Ali, he eventually changed his kunya from Abu al-Hasan to Abu Muhammad. During the reign of al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 705–715), Ali ran afoul of the Umayyad government, which ordered him to be flogged and banished from the capital. He subsequently relocated to the province of al-Sharat, on the border between Palestine and Arabia, and took up residence at the village of Humayma, establishing that place as the new headquarters of the Abbasid family. He died at Humayma in 735-6 or the following year, by which time his son Muhammad had already assumed leadership of the family and the Abbasid propaganda effort.
Characterization and offspring
Ali is described as being a handsome man of large stature and fair complexion, with a long beard and a bald head which was concealed by a cap. He frequently used black hair dye, and was considered reliable by traditionalists with few hadiths. He was considered extremely pious and was said to pray constantly, and in orthodox circles he eventually came to be known by the surname of "al-Sajjid" (meaning one who prostrates himself habitually).
Ali reportedly fathered upwards of twenty children during his stay at Humayma, with his wives and free consorts including Al-Aliyya bint Ubaydullah ibn al-Abbas, Umm Abiha bint Abdullah ibn Ja'far, and a woman of the Banu al-Harish, alongside several umm walads. is most prominent son was Muhammad, who became one of the leading figures of the Abbasid cause and the father of the future caliphs al-Saffah and al-Mansur. Other of his offspring, including ʿIsā, Dawud, Sulayman, Abd al-Samad, Salih, Isma'il, and Abd Allah, were active participants in the Abbasid Revolution, and several of them continued to play a prominent role in the first decades of the Abbasid Caliphate.
