Mujālid—reporting from al-Shaʿbī, and from Yūnus ibn Abī Isḥāq, from his father, and from others—said:

The people of Iraq pledged allegiance to al-Hasan and said to him, “Advance against those men.” So he marched toward the Syrians, with Qays ibn Saʿd at the head of his vanguard, numbering twelve thousand.

Another narrator said: He encamped at al-Madāʾin while Muʿāwiyah advanced. Then a herald in al-Hasan’s camp cried out, “Qays has been killed!” The troops rushed upon al-Hasan’s pavilion and plundered it, even seizing his maidservants, stripping him of his cloak, and Ibn Uqayṣir stabbed him in the hip with a poisoned dagger. Al-Hasan withdrew to Khosrow’s palace and said, “May the curse be upon you; there is no good in you.”

Ibn Abī Shaybah related: Zayd (1) ibn al-Ḥabbāb narrated to us, from Ḥusayn ibn Wāqid, who said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Buraydah told me that al-Hasan entered upon Muʿāwiyah, who said, “I shall reward you with a gift I have given no one.” He then granted him four hundred thousand—or four hundred thousand thousand—and al-Hasan accepted it (2).

In Ibn Durayd’s Mujtanā it is reported that, after his father’s death, al-Hasan rose and said:

“By Allah, neither doubt nor remorse held us back from the people of Syria. We fought them with prudence and patience; but prudence has now been mixed with hostility, and patience with distress. When you rallied for Ṣiffīn, your religion stood before your worldly interests; now your worldly interests stand before your religion. Know that we remain toward you as we were, but you are not toward us as you were. You have awakened between two slain men: one killed at Ṣiffīn, for whom you weep, and one killed at Nahrawān, whose blood you seek to avenge. As for the rest, they are deserters; and as for the mourners, they are insurgents.

“Muʿāwiyah has summoned us to a matter that contains neither honor nor justice. If you choose death, we shall return the matter to him; but if you choose life, we shall accept it.”

He said: The people called out to him from every side, “Caution, caution!” When they had left him to face the matter alone, he finalized the treaty.

Yazīd reported to us: al-ʿAwwām ibn Ḥawshab informed us, from Hilāl ibn Yasāf, who said: “I heard al-Hasan…"