Yaḥyā ibn ʿUmar ibn Yaḥyā ibn al-Ḥusayn Dhu al-Dam'a ibn Zayd ibn ʿAlī Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib was an Alid Imam. His grandfather Yaḥyā is the grandson of Imām Zāyd, the sixth Imām of Zaydīyyā. His mother was Umm al-Ḥusayn Fāṭima bint al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib. In the days of the Abbasid caliph Al-Musta'in, he marched out from Kufa and lead an abortive uprising from Kufa in 250 A.H. (864-65 C.E.), but was killed by the Abbasid forces led by Husayn ibn Isma'il, who had been sent to deal with him.

Sequence of events of Yahya’s life

The following is a sequence of events of Yahya's life: Some of Yahya's companions did not accept the news that he was defeated and killed. Instead, they believed that he was not killed and he only hid himself and went into occultation and that he was the Mahdi and the Qa’im, who will reappear another time. His revolt had an interesting sequel in 255 A.H. (868-69 C.E.), when ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad, the leader of the Zanj Rebellion, claimed to be the incarnated form of Yahya.

Elegies written for Yahya

Al-Masudi mentions that many elegies were written for Yahya, and that he had recorded some of them in his Kitab al-Awsat (The Middle Book). But in his book The Meadows of Gold, it is the elegy by Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur (which Al-Masudi alone had preserved) that he gives pride of place. Ibn Abi Tahir's elegy on the crucified Zaydi rebel is composed of 14 lines and the poem was possibly recited in Samarra, where Yahya's head was displayed, or else before the large crowds that are known to have gathered in Baghdad. In the elegy, Ibn Abi Tahir attacks the Sunni Abbasid Caliphal family for its usurpation of the rights of the house of Ali. Ibn al-Rumi (d.283 A.H. / 896 C.E.) also published elegies on Yahya.

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