but he would not give any answer… and he went on to relate an anecdote (1).
ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib reported—on the authority of Abū Yaḥyā—who said:
“I was standing between al-Ḥasan, al-Ḥusayn and Marwān while al-Ḥusayn was trading insults with Marwān; al-Ḥasan told him to stop.
Marwān retorted, ‘You are a household that has been cursed.’
Al-Ḥasan replied, ‘Shame on you—did you really say that? By Allah, Allah cursed your father through His Prophet while you were still in his loins,’—meaning before he had accepted Islam (2).”
This Abū Yaḥyā is al-Nakhaʿī; I do not know who he is.
Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad narrated from his father that al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn used to perform the prayer behind Marwān and would not repeat it (3).
Al-ʿAlāʾ ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān reported from his father, from Abū Hurayrah who said:
“When the sons of al-ʿĀṣ reach thirty men, they will treat Allah’s wealth as their private fortune, turn Allah’s religion into a mere stratagem, and make the servants of Allah their chattel” (4).
This report is also found as a hadith traced back to the Prophet, but its chain contains ʿAṭiyya al-ʿAwfī (5).
I say: Marwān seized control of Syria and Egypt for nine months, and he died of suffocation,