to your uncle, the Commander of the Believers. Tell him what the people of Iraq have done and leave me, for I am a doomed man.”

He (ʿĪsā) replied, “I shall never report anything about you to Quraysh. Rather, make for Basra—they are still obedient—or join the Commander of the Believers.”

Musʿab retorted, “Quraysh will not be given a chance to say that I ran away because Rabīʿah failed me. The sword is no disgrace, and flight is neither my habit nor my character. But if you wish to turn back, then turn back and fight.”

So he turned back and fought until he was killed.

ʿAbd al-Malik then sent word to Musʿab through his brother Muḥammad: “O cousin, I have granted you safe-conduct.”

Musʿab answered, “A man like me does not leave this position except as a victor or as one defeated.”

It is said that they overwhelmed him with arrows; then Zāʾidah al-Thaqafī—who had been one of his own troops—pierced him with a spear, shouting, “Vengeance for al-Mukhtār!” Zāʾidah then fought the slayers of Ibn al-Ashṭar until he himself was killed, and ʿAbd al-Malik seized control of the eastern provinces.

49 – Bishr ibn Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam, the Umayyad

He was counted among the generous. After Musʿab’s death, his brother appointed him over the two Iraqs, and his residence in Damascus was near ʿAqabah al-Kattān ⦗1⦘.

Narrated Ibn Judʿān, from al-Ḥasan, who said:

“Bishr arrived in Basra—extremely fair-skinned, the brother of a caliph and the son of a caliph. I went to see him, and the chamberlain asked, ‘Who are you?’

‘I am al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī,’ I said.

He replied, ‘Enter, but do not stay long or weary him.’

I entered and found Bishr reclining on a couch piled high with cushions, so deep that he seemed almost to sink into them, while a man stood over his head with a sword. He asked, ‘Who are you?’

‘I am al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, the jurist,’ I answered.

He seated me and then said, ‘What is your view on the zakah of our wealth? Should we give it to the authorities or to the poor?’

I said, ‘Either of the two—’