Yahya ibn Yahya al-Ghassani
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Yahya ibn Yahya ibn Qays al-Ghassani (Arabic: يحيى بن يحيى الغساني, romanized: Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā ibn Qays al-Ghassānī; 684–750s) was the Umayyad governor of Mosul during the reign of Caliph Umar II (r. 717–720), a transmitter of hadiths (traditions and sayings attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad) in Damascus, where he spent the majority of his life. He was a member of an elite family of the Ghassanids in Damascus and his descendants were also hadith transmitters in Damascus as late as the 9th century.
Yahya was born in 684.[1] He was the son of Yahya ibn Qays ibn Haritha ibn Amr (d. 684), the head of the shurta (security forces) of the Umayyad caliph Marwan I (r. 684–685).[1] They were members of the Ghassanid tribe, which, during the 6th century, served as federates of the Byzantine Empire in Syria and adopted Christianity.[2] During the Muslim conquest of Syria many Ghassanids under the chieftain Jabala ibn al-Ayham fled the region with the retreating Byzantine armies, but a significant number remained and became part of Syria's military, political and scholarly elite and embraced Islam during the governorship and caliphate of Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan (640s–680).[2] Yahya's family was noted as an "honorable household" by the Damascene historian Ibn Asakir (d. 1176).[1]
Caliph Umar II appointed Yahya governor of Mosul and its dependent districts and he remained in the post until the caliph's death in 720.[3] Afterward, Yahya returned to Damascus where he devoted his life to scholarship, particularly as a transmitter of hadith, and as an expert of Islamic law and Arabic language and rhetoric.[4] He was called sayyid ahl Dimashq (master of the Damascenes) by the historians Ibn Asakir, Abu Zur'a (d. 878) and Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (d. 1449).[1] Caliph Hisham (r. 724–743) considered Yahya for the post of qadi (head Islamic judge) of Damascus, but chose Yazid ibn Abi Malik instead.[1]
Yahya died in 749/50, 750/51 or 752/53, depending on the source.[3]
Descendants
Although Yahya was the most well-known member of his family, several others were also recorded as transmitters of hadiths.[5] His paternal uncle Sulayman ibn Qays transmitted hadiths of Muhammad via the latter's companions, including Abu Darda (d. 652).[5] Yahya's son Hisham, grandsons al-Walid and Ibrahim, great-grandsons Ma'n (d. 835) and Ahmad and great-great-grandson Haritha, the last of whom was also the builder of a bathhouse in Jerusalem, all transmitted hadiths and formed part of the Damascene scholarly elite.[5]