from Muʿāwiya, who declared from the pulpit:

“Al-Dahḥāk ibn Qays related to me—and he is reliable in his own right—that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said, ‘A governor from Quraysh will never cease to preside over the people.’ (1)”

ʿAlī ibn Judʿān reported from al-Ḥasan that al-Dahḥāk ibn Qays wrote to Qays ibn al-Haytham—after the death of Yazīd—saying:

“To proceed: I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say, ‘Immediately before the Hour there will be ordeals like patches of smoke; in them a man’s heart will die just as his body dies.’ Yazīd has now died, and you are our brothers, so do not get ahead of us in anything until we choose for ourselves. (2)”

Al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār said: Al-Dahḥāk ibn Qays was allied with Muʿāwiya, who appointed him governor of Kufa. He is the one who led Muʿāwiya’s funeral prayer and acted as interim caliph until Yazīd arrived. Afterward he called people to pledge allegiance to Ibn al-Zubayr and did so himself, and then he summoned allegiance to his own person.

The members of the consultative council gathered in the house of his sister Fāṭimah, who was a woman of high standing. (3)

Muslim mentioned him among the participants at Badr, but this was an error.

Shabāb (4) said: Ziyād ibn Abīh died in 53 AH in Kufa, whereupon Muʿāwiya appointed al-Dahḥāk over the city, then removed him, installing him in Damascus and assigning Kufa to Ibn Umm al-Ḥakam.

Al-Dahḥāk remained in charge of Damascus until the death of Yazīd.

It is also said that al-Dahḥāk once delivered a sermon in Kufa while seated.

He was famously generous: he wore a cloak worth three hundred dinars, and when a man began bargaining with him for it, he presented it to him as a gift, saying, “It would be miserly of a man to sell the garment that covers his shoulders.” (5)