An-Nasir Ahmad (died 5 June 934) was the third

imam Imam (; , '; : , ') is an Islamic leadership position. For Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a prayer leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Salah, Islamic prayers, serve as community leaders, ...

of the Zaidi state in

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

. Through his active leadership he confirmed and expanded the polity founded by his two predecessors.

Early years and succession

Ahmad bin Yahya was born in

Medina Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...

(present-day

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

) as the son of the later imam

al-Hadi ila'l-Haqq Yahya Abūʾl-Ḥusayn Yaḥyā ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm Ṭabāṭabā al-Ḥasanī (al-Rass/Medina, 859 – Sa'dah, 18 August 911), better known by his honorific title of al-Hādī ilāʾl-Ḥaqq (), was a religious and politi ...

and Fatimah bint Al-Hasan. In 897 he followed his father and his brother Muhammad to Yemen, where al-Hadi was acknowledged as the first imam of the

Zaydiyya Zaydism () is a branch of Shia Islam that emerged in the eighth century following Zayd ibn Ali's unsuccessful rebellion against the Umayyad Caliphate. Zaydism is one of the three main branches of Shi'ism, with the other two being Twelverism a ...

branch of

Shi'a Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political successor ( caliph) and as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community ( imam). However, his right is understoo ...

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

. By 907 he was assisting his father as military commander. After a sojourn in Medina he returned to the Zaidi capital in Yemen,

Sa'dah Saada (), located in the northwest of Yemen, is the capital and largest city of the governorate bearing the same name, as well as the administrative seat of the eponymous district. The city lies in the Serat (Sarawat) mountains at an altitude o ...

, where he was chosen to succeed his brother al-Murtada Muhammad in September 913. Al-Murtada had abdicated in 912 under somewhat unclear circumstances, and seemingly supported the appointment of Ahmad. The new imam took the honorific title an-Nasir Ahmad. He was considered an efficacious ruler; one of his adherents composed a panegyric text which described the imam as the one who strengthened Islam after it had become weak.

Fighting the Fatimids

The long reign of an-Nasir Ahmad was filled with struggles against the adherents of the

Fatimids The Fatimid Caliphate (; ), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimid dynasty, Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa ...

, who also had a strong following in parts of Yemen. The imam gathered troops among the tribesmen of Hamdan,

Najran Najran ( '), is a city in southwestern Saudi Arabia. It is the capital of Najran Province. Today, the city of Najran is one of the fastest-growing cities in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As of the 2022 census, the city population was 381,431, wi ...

and

Khawlan Khawlan (, ) is an ancient Tribes of Yemen#Himyar, Himyarite Arab tribe that archeologists view as one of the old tribes of Yemen that were contemporary to the kingdoms of Sabaeans, Saba and Minaeans, Ma'in. There are two tribes in Yemen with the ...

to fight the Fatimid

da'i A da'i (, ) is generally someone who engages in Dawah, the act of inviting people to Islam. See also * Dawah * Da'i al-Mutlaq, 'the absolute (unrestricted) missionary' * Hujja * List of converts to Islam The following is a list of notabl ...

. In January 920 he met the Ismailite leader Abd al-Hamid of Jabal Maswar in a three-days battle at Nughash outside

San'a Sanaa, officially the Sanaa Municipality, is the ''de jure'' capital and largest city of Yemen. The city is the capital of the Sanaa Governorate, but is not part of the governorate, as it forms a separate administrative unit. At an elevation o ...

. Abd al-Hamid suffered a disastrous defeat which shattered the Ismailite influence in Yemen irrevocably. After a fairly successful rule, an-Nasir Ahmad died in 934 (or, according to other sources, in 927 or 937). He left six sons, called

al-Mukhtar al-Qasim Al-Mukhtar al-Qasim (died 956) was an imam of the Zaidiyyah, Zaidi state in Yemen who held or claimed power from 936 to 956. Al-Qasim bin Ahmad was the eldest son of the imam An-Nasir Ahmad (Zaidi imam), an-Nasir Ahmad, who died in 934. An-Nasir's ...

, Isma'il,

al-Muntakhab al-Hasan Al-Muntakhab al-Hasan (died 936) was an imam of the Zaidi state in Yemen in the period 934–936. He was the fourth ruler of the Rassid Dynasty Al-Hasan bin Ahmad was the third of the six sons of imam an-Nasir Ahmad. An-Nasir Ahmad had been a pow ...

, Ja'far,

al-Mansur Yahya Al-Mansur Yahya (died 976) was an imam of the Zaidi state in Yemen, whose tenure as imam is counted from 934 to 976. Yahya bin Ahmad was the fifth son of the imam an-Nasir Ahmad, and the grandson of the founder-imam al-Hadi ila'l-Haqq Yahya. Ev ...

, and Ali. Three of these claimed the

imamate The term imamate or ''imamah'' (, ''imāmah'') means "leadership" and refers to the office of an ''imam'' or a Muslim theocratic state ruled by an ''imam''. Theology *Imamate in Shia doctrine, the doctrine of the leadership of the Muslim commu ...

after him, and the Zaidi state entered a fairly obscure period.H.C. Kay, ''Yaman; Its Early Medieval History''. London 1892, p. 186.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nasir Ahmad Zaydi imams of Yemen Rassid dynasty 9th-century births 934 deaths Year of birth unknown 10th century in Yemen 10th-century Arab people 10th-century Zaydis