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Case file

Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “son of ziyad ibn abi sufyan after whose death in 673 he became the governor of kufa and basra and later khurasa”. Today it says “umayyad governor of basra”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
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The opening as it read in 2010

Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad ( ) was a son of Ziyad ibn Abi Sufyan after whose death in 673 he became the Governor of Kufa and Basra and later Khurasan .He also minted coinage, which survives to this day. In 674 he would cross the Amu Darya and defeat the forces of Bukhar Khuda of Bukhara what would become the first known invasion of the city by Muslim Arabs . In 680, Yazid I ordered Ubayd Allah to keep order in Kufa as a reaction to grandson of Prophet, Husayn ibn Ali 's popularity there. Ubayd Allah appointed his brother Uthman as deputy and marched to Kufa. Ubayd Allah executed Hussain ibn Ali’s cousin Muslim ibn Aqeel and put out the right eye of Hussain ibn Ali’s supporter Al-Mukhtar . He was also one of the leaders of the army of Yazid I during the battle of Karbala . Yazid left a vacuum in Iraq upon his death in 683. Ubayd Allah abdicated the governor's mansion in Basra and took up shelter with Mas'ud ibn Amr al-Azdi. The Azd were a Yemenite tribe who then supported the Umayyads against the rebellion of Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr. But Basra's new governor Abd Allah ibn al-Harith sided with Ibn al-Zubayr, and had Mas'ud killed the following spring; some traditions add, probably accurately, that Ubayd Allah and Mas'ud had complained about Ibn al-Harith's corruption (again, probably accurately - but the Basrans did not then care) with a view to regaining for Ubayd Allah his command. Ubayd Allah fled the city for Syria - leaving his wife and family behind. Meanwhile the messianic rebel Al-Mukhtar wrested Kufa from Ibn al-Zubayr in 685. Seeing his chance, or so he thought, Ubayd Allah sent an army against Mukhtar. According to contemporary historian John bar Penkaye , Mukhtar met [Ubayd Allah] Ibn Ziyad's legions with a militia composed of 13000 lightly-armed freedmen on foot at the river Khazir near Nineveh. Ubayd Allah died in that battle.1

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 366264911.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “son of ziyad ibn abi sufyan after whose death in 673 he became the governor of kufa and basra and later khurasa”. Today it says “umayyad governor of basra”. Read the current article and compare.
201020152020Oct '232025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2010, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

son of ziyad ibn abi sufyan after whose death in 673 he became the governor of kufa and basra and later khurasa

Now

umayyad governor of basra

Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

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