Then, the following year, he returned—by which time Muʿāwiyah had already laid public claim to him.

Al-Shaʿbī said, “I have never seen anyone who could address a crowd more eloquently than Ziyād.”

Qabīṣah ibn Jābir remarked, “I have never seen a man whose gathering was more bountiful, whose company more gracious, or whose inner character so closely matched his public face as Ziyād’s.”

Abū Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī said, “I have never seen anyone at all who was better than Ziyād.”

Ibn Ḥazm wrote in al-Fiṣal: “Ziyād held out—though he was no more than a puffball on the desert floor (1), without lineage and without prior merit—and Muʿāwiyah could deal with him only through flattery; after placating him, he appointed him to office.”

Abū al-Shaʿthāʾ observed, “Ziyād was more lethal than al-Ḥajjāj toward anyone who opposed his wishes.”

Ibn Shawdhab related that word reached Ibn ʿUmar that Ziyād had written to Muʿāwiyah: “I have secured Iraq with my right hand, while my left is free; so appoint me over the Ḥijāz.” Ibn ʿUmar prayed, “O Allah, if You have placed expiation in killing, then grant the son of Sumayya a natural death, not a violent one.” A plague sore appeared on Ziyād’s finger, and he died.

Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī said: “When al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī learned that Ziyād was hunting down and killing the supporters of ʿAlī in Basra, he prayed against him.”

Another report states that Ziyād assembled the people of Kūfa, intending to compel them to disavow Abū al-Ḥasan, whereupon he was struck by the plague in the year 53 AH.

Many other accounts are told about him. He governed both provinces, wintering in Basra and spending the summer in Kūfa.