DERHAM B. NAŻ

 

DERHAM B. NAŻR (or Naṣr or Ḥosayn), commander of ʿayyārs or moṭawweʿa, orthodox Sunni vigilantes against the Kharijites in Sīstān during the period immediately preceding the rise of the Saffarid brothers to supreme power there. Derham was chosen by the Sunni forces in the field to succeed the ʿayyār leader Ṣāleḥ b. Nażr Kenānī (nowhere mentioned as a brother of Derham) in Jomādā II 244/October 858; he seems to have remained in command until ousted three years later by his own subordinate the Saffarid Yaʿqūb b. Layṯ (Moḥarram 247/April 861). His later years are obscure, but he may have been reconciled with Yaʿqūb and employed as an envoy to the ʿAbbāsid caliph, probably al-Moʿtamed (256-79/870-92; Eṣṭaḵrī, pp. 246-47; Ebn Ḥawqal, pp. 419-20; tr. Kramers, pp. 407-08) or imprisoned at Sāmarrā (Ṭabarī, III, p. 1892).

 

Bibliography:

(For cited works not found in this bibliography and for abbreviations found here, see “Short References.”) W. Barthold, “Zur Geschichte der Saffariden,” in Orientalistische Studien Theodor Nöldeke . . ., ed. C. Bezold, I, Giessen, 1906, pp. 171-91.

C. E. Bosworth, Sistan under the Arabs, from the Islamic Conquest to the Rise of the Saffarids (30-250/651-864), Rome, 1968, pp. 109, 114, 117-19.

Ebn al-Aṯīr, VII, pp. 64, 185, 390.

Ebn Ḵallekān, ed. ʿAbbās, VI, pp. 402-03; tr. de Slane, IV, pp. 301-02.

Tārīḵ-e Sīstān, pp. 194, 199-200, 202; tr. Gold, pp. 154, 158-59, 160.

(C. Edmund Bosworth)

Originally Published: December 15, 1994

Last Updated: November 22, 2011

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