had rallied to Muʿāwiya. Abū Mūsā lifted the curtain of his pavilion and called, “Masrūq!”
I answered, “At your service.”
He said, “Governorship (imāra) is what is established through consultation, whereas sovereignty (mulk) is whatever is wrested by the sword.”

Mujālid narrated, through al-Shaʿbī, from Masrūq:
ʿĀʾisha said, “O Masrūq, you are like one of my own children, and you are among the dearest of them to me. Do you have any knowledge about al-mukhdaj (1)?”

Abū al-Safar said, “No woman of Hamdān has ever given birth to anyone like Masrūq.”

Al-Shaʿbī said: When ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Ziyād arrived in Kūfa he asked, “Who is the most virtuous person here?” They replied, “Masrūq.”

Ibn al-Madīnī said, “I would put no one ahead of Masrūq; he prayed behind Abū Bakr.”

Mujālid narrated, from al-Shaʿbī, that Masrūq said, “For me to issue legal verdicts for a single day with justice and truth is dearer than taking part in jihad for a whole year.”

Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Muntashir recounted: “Khālid ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Usayd, governor of Basra, sent my uncle Masrūq thirty thousand while he was in need that very day, yet he would not accept it.”

Abū Isḥāq al-Sabiʿī said: “Masrūq married his daughter to al-Sāʾib ibn al-Aqraʿ for a dower of ten thousand, stipulating that he himself would distribute it among those striving in Allah’s cause and the poor.”

Al-Aʿmash narrated, from Abū al-Ḍuḥā:
“Masrūq was absent, serving as governor over al-Silsila, for two years. When he returned, his family searched his saddlebag and found only an axe. They said, ‘You were gone all that time and came back with an axe that has no handle!’ He replied, ‘We belong to Allah; we had borrowed it and forgot to return it.’”

Saʿīd ibn Jubayr said: Masrūq told me, “Nothing remains that is truly desirable except to press our faces into the dust, and I regret nothing save my prostration to Allah, Exalted be He.”