Shurahbil was the son of the
Kindite chieftain Simt ibn al-Aswad. Following the death of the
Islamic prophet
Muhammad, Shurahbil and his father loyally served the nascent
Medina-based Muslim state and fought with distinction during the
Ridda wars against the Arabian tribes that had defected from Medina. As a result, their star rose in Medina at the expense of
al-Ash'ath ibn Qays, a rival Kindite chief who fought against the Muslims in the Ridda and repented following his defeat and capture in Yemen. While in the mid to late 630s, Simt played a role in the
Muslim conquest of Syria, Shurahbil fought in the
Muslim conquest of Iraq. The overall Muslim commander of the Iraqi front,
Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, appointed the young Shurahbil as commander of the Muslim army's left wing at the decisive
Battle of al-Qadisiyya in 636. Following the victory over the
Sasanians in Iraq, Shurahbil was appointed by Sa'd the governor of the Sasanian capital at
Ctesiphon (
al-Mada'in in Arabic). He settled in the newly-established Arab garrison town of
Kufa, but emerging as the weaker Kindite against al-Ash'ath in the rivalry for the leadership of the tribe in the city, he moved to join his father in
Homs. After moving to
Syria, he became a committed partisan of its governor
Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan during the latter's conflict with the Kufa-based Caliph
Ali () in the
First Fitna. He served as one of Mu'awiya's envoys to Ali in June 657, a month before the
Battle of Siffin between the two sides, which ended in a stalemate. During Mu'awiya's caliphate (661–680) he was a member of the caliph's inner circle. At some point during Mu'awiya's or
Yazid I's reign, he was surpassed in influence with the
Umayyads by his Syrian Kindite rival,
Husayn ibn Numayr al-Sakuni. There is no further record of Shurahbil or his family until the revolt of
Yazid ibn al-Muhallab in Iraq in 720 when an unnamed son of Shurahbil was taken prisoner and executed by the rebels. The family was mentioned again during the
Third Fitna in 744, when a great-grandson of Shurahbil, Simt ibn Thabit ibn Yazid, joined his erstwhile rival Mu'awiya ibn Yazid, a grandson of Husayn ibn Numayr, in opposition to Caliph
Yazid III. Simt ibn Thabit was later crucified for leading a revolt in Homs against Caliph
Marwan II (). The descendants of Shurahbil or rather, his father, temporarily took over Homs in the
Fourth Fitna, during
Abbasid rule, in the early 9th century. ==References==