Origins Rawh was the son of Zinba ibn Rawh ibn Salama, a noble of the
Judham, an
Arab tribe that had been concentrated in
Palestine before the
Muslim conquest in the 630s. During this period, Zinba supervised a trading post for merchants crossing Palestine for the
Byzantine Empire or its
Ghassanid clients. Before the advent of Islam in the 620s–630s, a caravan of
Qurayshi merchants from
Mecca, including
Umar ibn al-Khattab, attempted to cross through Zinba's post hiding gold in the stomach of one of their camels. Zinba suspected this, slaughtered the camel, confiscated part of the gold and insulted Umar, to which the latter threatened retaliation. According to this anecdote, traced back to
Muhammad ibn al-Sa'ib al-Kalbi (d. 763), Zinba was operating under the authority of the Ghassanid
phylarch al-Harith ibn Abi Shamir. Rawh's brother Salama participated in a war council at the
Beersheba estate of
Amr ibn al-As. However, Rawh emerged as the most influential member of his family and became a rival of the Judham's preeminent chieftain, the elder
Natil ibn Qays. The latter belonged to the Banu Sa'd clan of the tribe, while Rawh belonged to the Banu Wa'il clan, both of whose
progenitors were sons of the Judhamite chief Malik ibn Zaydmanat ibn Afsa.
Service under the Umayyads Rawh first appears in the historical record in 657 during the
Battle of Siffin, where he was the commander of a contingent of Judham tribesmen from
Jund Filastin (military district of Palestine) in the army of the governor of
Syria,
Mu'awiya I, against the forces of Caliph
Ali (). He was also the flag bearer for the Judham as a whole, an honor typically reserved for the most distinguished nobleman of an Arab tribe. At an unknown point after Mu’awiya became caliph in 661, he may have appointed Rawh governor of
Baalbek. They were unsuccessful and Rawh was again dispatched in 682–683 as a commander in
Muslim ibn Uqba's army, which was sent to suppress the Hejaz rebellion. This effort was opposed by Natil. In the summit of pro-Umayyad tribes at
Jabiyah hosted by Ibn Bahdal in 684, Rawh is credited with delivering a speech favoring
Marwan ibn al-Hakam to assume the caliphate rather than other Umayyad candidates such as
Khalid ibn Yazid, who was favored by Ibn Bahdal, and
Amr ibn Sa'id al-Ashdaq. He was to be rewarded for his stance when Marwan was chosen by the delegates as caliph. At the
Battle of Marj Rahit in 684, Rawh and his loyalists in the Judham fought alongside the pro-Umayyad tribal forces and decisively defeated the pro-Zubayrid
Qays tribes. Umayyad control was subsequently reasserted throughout Syria, forcing Natil to flee Palestine, to which Rawh was assigned deputy governor. Following Marwan's death in April 685, Rawh became a close adviser and aide to his son and successor, Caliph
Abd al-Malik (). In the medieval sources, he is described as akin to the caliph's
wazīr (vizier), a non-existent post at the time. Rawh died in 703. His descendants are mentioned in the historical record during the chaos marking the end of the Umayyad Caliphate in 750. ==Assessment==